BelAir Wins Wireless Broadband Innovation Award at Wireless LAN Event
BelAir200 Awarded Best WiMAX/Wireless Broadband Product of the Year
KANATA, ONTARIO -/4 May, 2005 - Wi-Fi Technology Forum/- BelAir Networks announced that its BelAir200 Wireless Multi-service Switch Router was named Best WiMAX/Wireless Broadband Product for 2005 at the Wireless LAN Event in London.
BelAir received the award at the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards on April 20. The WBI Awards recognize excellence and innovation in the field of Wi-Fi, mobile, data and wireless broadband. Each year companies from around the world compete for the award, and this year BelAir Networks was one of only four companies who were short-listed for “WiMAX/Wireless Broadband Product of the Year” before winning the award. Judging was performed by an independent panel of industry experts, including Stephen Wellman of FierceWireless and Wireless Broadband Alliance Chairman Kyong Yu.
“With strong competition for the award, our judges narrowed the list of eligible companies to those who had demonstrated significant innovation,” said FierceWireless Executive Editor Stephen Wellman. “BelAir Networks’ ability to use a mix of Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 3G cellular technologies is a very creative solution that illustrates how these technologies can coexist and complement each other."
The multi-radio BelAir200 is a versatile wireless networking platform that uses Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 3G technologies to create a wireless mesh for metro-scale broadband wireless deployments. With the availability of the Intel® Pro/Wireless 5116 broadband interface, the BelAir200 is primed to take advantage of WiMAX’s robust service offerings such as operating the wireless mesh in the licensed bands. Each BelAir200 can incorporate multiple Intel PRO/Wireless 5116 chipsets that can be used to create long-range point-to-point links for wireless backhaul.
“BelAir has developed a truly unique WiMAX implementation using the Intel PRO/Wireless 5116 broadband interface combined with their wireless mesh approach,” said Scott Richardson, general manager of Intel’s Broadband Wireless Division. “The multiple point-to-point links in BelAir’s wireless mesh backhaul system are an innovative example of how WiMAX can be used for wide-area wireless applications.”
“Winning the Wireless Broadband Innovation award for the BelAir200 is an honor for BelAir,” said Bernard Herscovich, CEO of BelAir Networks. “This award acknowledges the strength of the BelAir team who created the flexible platform that allowed us to quickly incorporate Intel’s chip into our backhaul radio modules and create the first WiMAX mesh.”
About the BelAir200
The BelAir200 is a four-radio, wireless multi-service switch router that is built specifically for outdoor deployments. Each BelAir200 includes an access radio module that uses the 2.4 GHz band to support Wi-Fi client access. The access radio is connected to integrated antennas that project Wi-Fi signals over wide open areas and directly into multi-story buildings from the outside. This design eliminates the need for, and associated cost of, indoor access points.
Every BelAir200 can also be configured with up to three separate 5 GHz backhaul radio modules. These radios and their associated antennas are used to connect multiple BelAir200 systems in a wireless backhaul mesh that takes client traffic to and from the Internet. The resulting system delivers unmatched capacity, security and scalability for large-scale wireless applications.
Shipping since March 2004, the BelAir200 has been deployed in high-density downtown regions, hotels and resorts, and educational institutions throughout North America and the U.K.
BelAir’s products are focused on wide-area Wi-Fi today, but the unique multi-radio wireless backhaul mesh architecture can also be applied to other wireless technologies such as WiMAX and cellular.
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