August 12, 2009 | UMTS-Based End-to-End Solution Provides Seamless Upgrade Path to LTE for Government and Commercial Service Providers

IPWireless today announced the first deployments of  its mobile broadband solution designed for both the public safety and commercial service provider frequency bands in 700MHz.   Southern Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority (SGRITA) and USA Choice Internet Services Company, a provider of Internet services to the underserved economic areas in Northwest and Central Pennsylvania, are moving forward with the first deployment of the IPWireless 700MHz solution to offer mobile broadband services to both consumers and local public safety agencies. The Company has also started trials of its 700MHz solution with public safety entities leveraging the same technology that is being used in NYCWiN, the most comprehensive multi-agency wireless broadband network of its kind.

“We have been trialing IPWireless’ solution over the past few months and have been extremely impressed with the results to date,” said Dustin Springman, Director Network Operations, at SGRITA, “The pre-LTE system is based on proven hardware and software, provides the best-in-class mobility performance we require and allows us to easily roam between 2.5 GHz in more urban areas to 700MHz in the deep southern Georgia forest areas. Based on these benefits we have decided to trial the 700MHz solution for our public safety agencies as well.”

SGRITA’s network will cover 2,000 square miles and will serve the Southwest Georgia farming community including schools, residents, and government agencies in the rural 5 county area, including police, fire, and EMS public safety agencies. SGRITA is deploying their mobile broadband network in conjunction with Civitium, a consulting firm that provides business, technology and public policy services to local governments, state agencies and high-technology industry leaders.

“It’s clear that the market is leaning towards LTE as their technology of choice. IPWireless provides the performance and technology advantages our public safety and commercial constituents require, and allows us to deploy a proven pre-LTE solution today,” said Brian Fielding, President, at USA Choice.

USA Choice is deploying a multi-service communications network, offering fixed and mobile applications for public safety, mobile data and voice capabilities as well as video surveillance services. The network will consist of 49 sites within the counties of Crawford, Forest, Venango, and Warren Pennsylvania. USA Choice, a recent winner of the 700MHz FCC auction, is deploying the network in conjunction with Versar, a global project management company delivering construction management, environmental sciences and engineering infrastructure solutions to public and private customers.

“IPWireless has spent the past decade pioneering mobile broadband solutions that follow 3GPP standards,” said Dr. Bill Jones, CEO of IPWireless. “This standards-based approach has earned us the trust of tier-1 customers including New York City, T-Mobile and Orange. Building on this knowledge and the proven performance of these networks we are now delivering a best-in-class solution for deployments in the 700MHz band as well.”

The IPWireless end-to-end mobile broadband solution, which includes network infrastructure, chipsets, and end user devices, is based on 3GPP standards and enables public safety agencies and service providers to deploy a high performance solution now and then seamlessly upgrade to LTE when they are ready. IPWireless offers a set of end user devices that include a USB modem and a PCI Express Mini Card (PEM). The IPWireless PEM can integrate into a range of devices including; residential home gateways, outdoor CPE, rugged mobile routers for vehicle installation, rugged PDAs and ultra-mobile PCs such as the Panasonic Toughbook CF-U1, traffic light controllers and video surveillance cameras for enhanced public safety mobile computing.  These devices enable service providers to offer a range of compelling services targeting both the government and commercial sectors such as remote telemetry; remote video downloads and uploads, automatic vehicle location, automated meter reading and more.
 
IPWireless’ 700MHz solution provides several technology advantages that are critical for a public safety network deployment. Similar to the IPWireless technology used by the city of New York for its multi-agency wireless network (NYCWiN), IPWireless UMTS-based solution allows radio traffic to be prioritized by type of user as well as type of application; thereby ensuring the system always allows service to the highest priority users such as government officials or emergency response personnel. In addition, the technology supports a set of advanced and unique features including support for single frequency networks, Macro Diversity Combining, 64 QAM, intercell interference cancellation and code reuse MIMO for optimal network performance.

The solution delivers superior throughput, with a peak of 21 Mbps per sector and in each 5+5 MHz license in the 700MHz band.  The same equipment can also operate in 10+10 MHz, for example in the combined public safety allocation and D block, delivering over 42 Mbps peak.  For demanding video surveillance applications, the solution can support over 9 Mbps on the uplink. The IPWireless technology also provides excellent indoor coverage in relatively large cells compared to other technologies targeted at public safety broadband applications.  As previously announced T-Mobile Germany is also piloting the IPWireless 700MHz solution in the rural area in north Brandenburg near Wittstock/Dosse. For more information on this pilot, please see:
The Broadband Pilot Project, "Wittstock/Dosse" is Going Online: For the First Time a Former TV Broadcast Frequency is Being Used for Broadband Internet Access

Another significant benefit of the IPWireless 700MHz band public safety solution is its ability to maximize performance in the various spectrum scenarios being considered by the FCC for the band. IPWireless multi-chip rate technology allows the technology to operate in a range of channel sizes, from as small as 1.5MHz to as wide as 10MHz, without relying on the expense of multi-carrier solutions. The technology can also work in either TDD mode in unpaired spectrum or FDD mode in paired spectrum, with devices being able to operate in either mode. This dual-band, dual-mode technology is already deployed commercially in the company's nationwide network with T-Mobile in the Czech Republic. All devices for the 700MHz band will also support seamless roaming with public safety networks in the 2.5GHz band like the New York City network, For more information on NYCWiN, see “New York City’s Wireless Network (NYCWiN) Deployment Completed Utilizing IPWireless’ UMTS Mobile Broadband Technology.”

IPWireless will be exhibiting in booth 541 at the APCO Annual conference and exhibition, August 16-20, 2009 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.