Firetide introduces tri-band mesh infrastructure

Apr 3, 2008 2:34 PM, By Mary Rose Roberts

Los Gatos, Calif.-based Firetide this week unveiled the tri-band capability of its HotPoint access points and HotClient client premises equipment to expand the functionality of its mesh nodes.

The company’s access points and client premises equipment now operate over the 2.4, 4.9 and 5 GHz bands to address the wireless needs of several different users, said Manish Chandra, the company’s product manager. He said more municipalities are investing in wireless surveillance over the licensed 4.9 GHz public safety band, as seen in deployments in Dallas, Boston, Phoenix, and West Palm Beach, Fla. So the system was developed to meet the needs of city workers who transmit data, or for first responders who use Wi-Fi and hotspot deployments to support high-bandwidth communications, such as 20 Mb/s wireless offloads of recorded in-car video.

As well, industrial and commercial security customers can use the mesh infrastructure to select either 2.4 or 5 GHz access. The system’s management and control application lets network managers provide several levels of service by type of traffic—either video, VoIP or data—based on the client device.

More importantly, the tri-band capability lets law enforcement redirect all available bandwidth to public safety communications and enables municipalities to expand the capabilities of public safety video surveillance networks by adding access for the mobile workforce, he said

“In an emergency scenario… users can eliminate all the applications in the network and dedicate it to public safety use if there is a need,” he said. “It restricts the network for one video surveillance and Wi-Fi connections from public safety.”

The access points cost $695 (indoor)/$995 (outdoor), while the HotClient costs $295 (indoor)/$595 (outdoor), Chandra said.