New Briefs – Thursday, June 1, 2006
Canadian first responders deploy P25-compliant digital radios
The City of Kingston, Ontario, has deployed Tait Electronics’ 9000 Series of Project 25-compliant digital mobile and portable radios. Portables and mobiles in the series offer digital, analog and dual-mode operation, 512 channels/talk groups, intelligent scanning and voting, emergency-operation options, and automatic-mode selection.
Mesh network powers Wi-Fi in open-air marketplace
Proxim Wireless will provide the broadband wireless equipment to power a public Wi-Fi, VoIP and merchant-transaction-processing network in Joliet, Ill. Wi-Fi access will be available throughout the city’s Bronk’s Corners, a 275,000-square-foot, open-air retail and office center, using the company’s ORiNOCO AP-4000MR outdoor wireless-mesh access points that will support the campus-wide network.
Sprint dedicates $100 million to disaster communications
Sprint Nextel said yesterday it is dedicating $100 million to support storm-prone coastal regions in preparation for the 2006 hurricane season, which officially began today. The investment will go toward the installation of permanent generators for wireless cell sites and network facilities that support the carrier’s wireline data and long-distance voice services, and to purchase additional SATCOWs (satellite cellular on wheels) and SATCOLTs (satellite cell on light trucks). The latter are 27-foot-long trucks that provide backhaul connectivity to the carrier’s CDMA, iDEN and packet data networks, as well as interoperable communications among first responders at an incident.
MIMO solution promises reliable testing for interoperability
Wi-Fi vendors can now test their draft 802.11n-based products for interoperability and backward compatibility using Azimuth Systems’ MIMO Functional Test solution, which runs on the company’s W-series platform that lets users test wireless devices. The new solution tests interoperability between and among multiple-input, multiple-output products; performance; maximum throughput; and backward compatibility to PCs, phones, access points and other legacy devices, the company said.
Cross-vendor interoperability test meets 802.11n specifications
Atheros’ XSPAN and Broadcom’s Intesi-fi chipsets have been tested and approved for interoperability, according to the companies. During the last month, the WLAN solutions were tested to verify they work together at throughput speeds greater than 100 Mb/s, in compliance with the IEEE 802.11n specification.
