| June 14, 2005 | Press Release |
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| Strix Systems Selected for Country’s Largest Wi-Fi Mesh Deployment |
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| Portfolio Company: Strix Systems |
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Deployment’s First Stage Provides High-Performance Wireless Data and Voice Services to Over 35,000 Homes
CALABASAS, Calif., June 14, 2005– Strix Systems, the leader in high-performance wireless mesh networking, today announced that Invisi-Wire Broadband Networks has selected Strix to provide the wireless mesh infrastructure for its deployment in the cities of Ruston, Grambling, Vienna, and Choudrant, Louisiana. In the first stage of the deployment, Invisi-Wire will cover over 70 square miles using Strix’s multi-radio, multi-channel, and multi-RF Access/One Network Outdoor Wireless System (OWS) to provide high-performance broadband data and voice services to over 35,000 homes as well as the campuses of Louisiana Tech University and Grambling State University, which house an additional 17,000 students. Invisi-Wire selected Strix for the deployment after testing competitive solutions and realizing that a single-radio architecture could not provide the level of performance or scalability needed to continue to grow the multi-use network.
“We certainly did our due diligence when evaluating products for this deployment,” said Matthew Jones, CEO of Invisi-Wire. “We spent two years reviewing competitive products, but once Strix announced their OWS, we immediately decided to test it. The results were very eye-opening. It was clear that, for the size of the deployment we envisioned and with the need to scale to offer more coverage and services in the future, Strix’s multi-radio architecture was the only solution that could offer the level of performance needed.”
While other cities have announced their intent to deploy city-wide WiFi networks or have announced partial deployments, the four-city Strix deployment will be the first fully operational rural multi-city deployment in the country when Invisi-Wire begins offering service later this month. Invisi-Wire, co-founded by Matthew Jones and Shelby Spurlock, currently has plans to extend the network, as phase two of the deployment will cover the remainder of Louisiana’s Lincoln Parish and will provide separate, secure public safety networks for all cities covered. Phase three of the deployment will expand throughout Northern Louisiana, extending the size of the nation’s largest multi-use, multi-city network. Strix’s multi-radio approach ensures the highest throughput and lowest latency over multiple hops, ensuring the highest performance for data and voice applications over the mesh while enabling easy and cost-effective future network expansion.
“Invisi-Wire’s selection of the Strix OWS system for this large, multi-city network makes complete sense given their strategy to expand and scale the network across multiple cities in the future,” said Cyrus Irani, vice president of marketing and strategy at Strix Systems. “As soon as Invisi-Wire agreed to put the Strix equipment into a competitive test bed, we knew we’d win the deployment. No single or dual-radio architecture could scale in order to meet the future network demands that this deployment will face, and they could not provide the level of performance needed to ensure customer satisfaction. Strix’s multi-radio approach is the only solution that can provide the high-performance needed to deploy data, voice, and public safety networks on one system.”
The State of Louisiana has announced its intentions to connect all rural areas as well as all of Louisiana’s universities via wireless broadband. Invisi-Wire’s three-phased deployment of Strix’s OWS will serve as the initial model of how the State’s vision of wireless broadband for all can be accomplished. Invisi-Wire’s strategy to encourage cooperation amongst rural areas for the deployment of wireless mesh networks demonstrates the benefits of having the public and the private sectors work together to provide more affordable, high speed access for Louisiana residents.
Invisi-Wire has currently deployed Strix 3600 series OWS nodes, each with up to six radios, as well as sectorized antennas. These nodes serve over 70 square miles of coverage area in Ruston, Grambling, Vienna, and Choudrant, and Invisi-Wire is planning to begin deployment of phase two, which will require additional Strix nodes to saturate the remainder of Lincoln Parish with wireless coverage. Invisi-Wire customers receive an 802.11b/g CPE in order to connect securely to the Invisi-Wire network, and can receive unlimited WiFi service for only $34.99 per month, as well as wireless VoIP for only $24.99 per month.
About Invisi-Wire
Invisi-Wire sets itself apart from other broadband service providers because we look at the entire market and design our network specific to the market culture. The Invisi-Wire Network starts by creating a point to multi-point backbone. This backbone connects residential and business customers for onsite services. Invisi-Wire also uses this core network to service an additional section of mobile customers. Mobile customers need access: at home, at work, on campus, and strategic locations that are unique to each market like retail clusters, cafe’s, and parks. The broadband network can be accessed by Invisi-Wire customers with the same reliability and security from home or office connections with existing wireless modems available in most laptops.
About Strix Systems
The Strix Systems Access/One Network family of products represent the next generation of wireless LAN products, leaping past the traditional access point and switch architecture to mesh; a self-discovering, self-configuring, self-tuning, and self-healing wireless network incorporating robust security and comprehensive management. The Access/One Network family of products support all 802.11 RF technologies and offer multi-radio and multi-channel high performance managed mesh networking systems for indoor enterprise deployments and outdoor public safely, municipal and metropolitan networks.
The Access/One Network can be configured and managed via Manager/One, a comprehensive browser based management platform that allows IT administrators to control all key elements of their wireless network, or using Access/One Networks carrier grade support for SNMP based management. Additional features of the Access/One Network products include Virtual/Strix and Priority/One. Virtual/Strix supports deployments of multi-use or virtual networks where various user segments are sharing one Access/One network. Priority/One allows administrators of these multi-use networks to ensure quality of service by assigning varying class of service filters to any type of network traffic or user group. Access/One Networks are ideal for data, voice, and other real time communication network applications.
Access/One Networks have been deployed in numerous environments throughout the world including; enterprise, hospitality, education, public safety, housing, and metropolitan area networks. For more information about Strix Systems, please visitwww.strixsystems.com .
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