Secure wireless bridges reduce costs
3Com Corp.’s 802.11g building-to-building wireless bridges allow customers to connect two or more buildings through secure, high-speed wireless connections. The bridges enable users to save on the costs of wiring or re-wiring between buildings within 10 miles of each other, the company said.
Two flavors are available — a fixed, self-enclosed outdoor bridge and an indoor bridge with a variety of antenna options. Businesses, schools, government offices or health care facilities can use the wireless bridges to transfer information and images, provide reliable Internet access and support mobile users as a cost-effective extension of a central network, the company said.
Traditionally, building-to-building connections were achieved by digging trenches and running fiber or by provisioning T-1 lines (at a fraction of the bandwidth, yet with significant monthly service charges) between buildings, or using slower 802.11b wireless bridging equipment, 3Com said.
www.3com.com
Eight-foot diameter high-performance antennas
Radio Waves has introduced an 8-foot diameter high-performance antenna in 6, 7, 8 and 10 GHz versions. The HP8 antennas are designed for point-to-point and back-haul applications as they offer minimal side lobe interference in links operating in areas of heavy usage. All antennas in the series meet FCC Category A requirements, the company said.
A hybrid-Cassegrain feed delivers excellent pattern performance where the beam is tightly focused with minimal spillover and no skewing between polarizations. It also provides inherent dual-polarization capability through its circular waveguide. The addition of an Orthogonal Mode Transfer device added to the feed then provides for dual polarization that does not skew the patterns, as occurs with traditional rectangular waveguide feed systems, the company said.
radiowavesinc.com
Public-safety logging solution
Motorola and NICE Systems jointly announced the introduction of a voice and data logging solution designed for use with Astro 25 trunked radio systems. The solution enables agencies to record and store the complete history of an incident as it is happening, the companies said. Integral to the solution is a voice recording developed by NICE that will enable agencies to search for and replay telephone calls and radio transmission, including radio and talkgroup identification and aliases, the companies said.
www.motorola.com
TETRA portable radio
Nokia introduced the THR880i TETRA portable radio, which features a GPS receiver that enables command and control to locate and track radio users, the company said. Users simply send their coordinates to a predefined address with the touch of a button. The radio will be available in three frequency bands. Deliveries for models in the 380 MHz and 410 MHz bands will begin in fourth-quarter 2004, while 800 MHz units will begin shipping in first-quarter 2005.
www.nokia.com
Short-distance L-Band satellite transmitters
Force introduced the Model 3029 and Model 3034 L-Band satellite IFL (intra-facility links) transmitters for short distance applications up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). Both transmitters transport in the 850 MHz to 2500 MHz frequency range over a single-mode optical fiber. The Model 3029 is a 1310 nm, 50-Ohm product designed to operate with the company’s Model 3030 receiver, while the Model 3034 is a 1310 nm, 75-Ohm product designed for the Model 3035 receiver. Both receivers incorporate manual gain control, which allows the user to optimize RF gain, the company said.
www.forceinc.com
WLAN solution gains security certification
Broadcom Corp. announced that its AirForce wireless LAN access point has been selected by the Wi-FI Alliance for Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) certification. The certification ensures that wireless LAN products based on Broadcom chipsets will be interoperable with other products that implement WPA2 security features, the company said. In addition, the Wi-Fi Alliance has chosen Broadcom’s 802.11a/g access point reference design and 802.11g CardBus reference design for use in the certification pro-cess for other Wi-Fi products in the WPA2 test environment, the company said.
www.broadcom.com
Advanced hacker protection for wireless LANs
Senforce Technologies has released the Senforce Portable Firewall Plus (SPF+), which provides hacker protection and protection against other security threats by assuring that users only connect to known and accepted wireless LANs, enforcing security policies tailored to wireless hotspots and preventing employees from inadvertently allowing outsiders to enter networks undetected. SPF+ as well as the company’s enterprise solution, Enterprise Mobile Security Manager 2.5, offers an NDIS-layer firewall and virus protection that ensures anti-virus software is updated before reconnecting to the network.
www.senforce.com
Hand-held base station analyzer
Anritsu Co. introduced the Cell Master MT8212B, which integrates a CDMA/GSM transmitter analyzer, interference analyzer, channel scanner and DS0/VF channel access.
The integration of these additional test capabilities provides RF engineers and field technicians with a single hand-held instrument weighing less than 5 pounds that can be used to ensure proper deployment, installation and maintenance of GSM and CDMA networks, the company said.
Users can conduct all major RF measurements — such as channel power, frequency error, occupied bandwidth and noise floor — on CDMA signals. For GSM applications, the Cell Master MT8212B has an option that allows the analyzer to conduct traditional RF measurements for power and frequency error, the company said. The MT8212B can also display time slot information on GSM signals.
www.anritsu.com