Proxim Wireless Profile
Proxim Wireless Corporation provides high-speed wireless communications equipment and services in the United States and internationally. The company’s systems enable service providers, enterprises, and governmental organizations to deliver high-speed data, voice, and video connectivity enabling a range of applications.
The company provides wireless solutions for the mobile enterprise, security and surveillance, last mile access, voice and data backhaul, and municipal networks. Its wireless systems address the need of its customers and end-users to deploy high-speed communication networks.
The company offers broadband wireless equipment in several technology segments, including Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi mesh, WiMAX, and point to point (PTP) which includes millimeter wave. The company offers products in three primary categories: broadband wireless access (BWA), including proprietary point-to-multipoint (PMP), standards-based WiMAX, outdoor Wi-Fi mesh, and MeshMAX products; enterprise Wi-Fi products primarily for use indoors, including its access points and Wi-Fi client devices; and PTP products. The company serves its equipment customers primarily indirectly through a global network of distributors, value-added resellers, product integrators, and original equipment manufacturers, and to a lesser extent, directly through its internal sales force.
Products
The company classifies its broadband wireless products primarily into three product lines: Broadband Wireless Access (BWA), Enterprise Wi-Fi, and Point-to-Point (PTP).
The BWA product line includes proprietary point-to-multipoint (PMP) Tsunami MP.11 products, PMP WiMAX Forum Certified Tsunami MP.16 products, outdoor Wi-Fi mesh, and MeshMAX products. The Enterprise Wi-Fi product line includes ORiNOCO 802.11 a/b/g/n access point and client card products. The PTP product line includes its Tsunami, Lynx, and GigaLink products. The company designs its products and systems generally to use common features, components, and software.
Broadband Wireless Access Products
The company’s BWA point-to-multipoint systems enable service providers, businesses, and other enterprises to connect end-users to a central hub or connect multiple facilities with in their private networks. The company’s PMP systems are deployed in a hub and spoke configuration consisting of a single central hub (or base station) and equipment located at remote end users’ locations. The base station wirelessly connects to the remote customer premises equipment, prioritizing transmissions and allocating slots of time to each end-user. Base stations are capable of supporting multiple pieces of equipment at remote locations. The base station in a service provider deployment is generally connected to the central office of a carrier or other service provider by a wired or wireless backhaul connection (such as its point-to-point products).
The company has both proprietary PMP products and WiMAX standards-based PMP products. Thus, its WiMAX products are designed to interoperate with other IEEE WiMAX products. The company’s proprietary PMP products include its Tsunami MP.11 products, and its WiMAX PMP products include its MP.16 3500.
Tsunami MP.11: This product line supports PMP applications in unlicensed frequency bands. Some of these WiMAX like features include: scheduled media access controller (MAC), also known as polling, to enable a base station to hear all subscriber stations, preventing nodes from interfering with each other and thus increasing system throughput; and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), which enables near-line-of-sight connections. Additional features include: WiMAX Quality of Service (QoS); roaming with handoffs at speeds up to 200 km/hour; and dynamic frequency selection (DFS) which has received EN 301-893 v1.3.1 certification.
In 2008, the company extended the MP.11 product line to include a high security FIPS certified product targeted at government, financial and healthcare institutions. The MP.11HS products support 256 bit AES encryption, secure management and FIPS 1402 level 2 certification. Frequencies supported include 2.4GHz, 5.15-5.85GHz and 1.8GHz for federal deployments.
The MP.11 product family is capable of supporting converged voice, video, and data transmission in fixed and mobile applications, bringing capabilities of the WiMAX IEEE 802.16-2005 standard to market, for the 900MHz, 1.8GHz, 2.4 GHz, 4.9GHz and 5.15-6.08GHz frequency bands available.
WiMAX: This product line supports PMP applications in licensed frequency bands. WiMAX is a version of point-to-multipoint technology that is based on publicly available standards rather than the non-public standards that the company and other vendors have developed on a proprietary basis.
The company’s WiMAX solutions are designed for scalable system deployments, beginning with entry-level single-sector base stations into multi-sector configurations. WiMAX solution is the only time division duplexing (TDD) system in the using Intel chips for both the base station and subscriber unit, providing optimal data rate connectivity and interoperability with Intel-based subscriber units.
Wi-Fi Mesh: Mesh is a protocol that allows the creation of self-configuring, self-healing wireless networks. In a mesh network, data traffic has multiple potential paths from the end user to one or more nodes that are connected to a wired or wireless backhaul connection.
MeshMAX: In January 2007, the company introduced a multi-radio product line that incorporates WiMAX, Wi-Fi mesh, and Wi-Fi access, called MeshMAX. Until the MeshMAX products, the only solution was to install two separate units, one WiMAX and one Wi-Fi mesh. With MeshMAX, these technologies are integrated in a single compact outdoor enclosure. The MeshMAX product line supports licensed WiMAX frequencies in 3.3-3.6 GHz bands and unlicensed frequencies in 5.1-5.8 GHz bands for backhaul. For mesh interconnect and Wi-Fi access, MeshMAX supports unlicensed mesh frequencies of 5.1-5.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz.
Enterprise Wi-Fi Products
ORiNOCO Access Points: The company’s family of ORiNOCO access points extends the range of wired Ethernet networks for enterprises and municipal area networks by creating indoor and outdoor wireless networks in small, medium, and large venues. Corporate and other users can then access their wired Ethernet network wirelessly through the wireless network enabled by its products. The company’s ORiNOCO access points also provide security, including WPA and WPA2. Web enabled and SNMP network management allow for simple configuration and remote management of each ORiNOCO network. In November 2008, the company introduced its 802.11n single (AP800) and dual radio (AP8000) Access Points.
ORiNOCO Client Cards: The company’s ORiNOCO client cards deliver mobile convenience, and a configuration utility that allows wireless users to connect quickly. ORiNOCO client cards for notebook and desktop computers work together with all ORiNOCO access points and other infrastructure products, as well as with third party wireless products supporting the relevant 802.11 IEEE standards.
Point-to-Point Products
The company’s point-to-point systems enable a communication link between two locations. Each link consists of radio equipment connected to the end user’s network at each of the two locations. Each radio is then connected to an external or integrated antenna, which is usually mounted on a rooftop or tower.
Lynx products: The company’s PTP Lynx products are primarily used by wireless cellular operators to connect their base stations to other base stations and to existing wire-line networks. This is commonly known as providing backhaul for the wireless cellular networks. In addition, these products are also used to establish campus and private networks and to provide fiber extension and last mile access. The company’s Lynx products are offered in different frequency bands with various data transmission speeds. Lynx products can be linked together with in a network and managed with simple network management protocol, or SNMP, software. The company’s Lynx products also include a separate control and diagnostic channel, which enables remote monitoring of the system’s status and performance without reducing its carrying capacity.
Tsunami products: The company’s PTP Tsunami products primarily enable service providers, businesses, and other enterprises to expand or establish private networks by bridging Internet traffic among multiple facilities. In addition, these products are also used to provide last mile access. Tsunami products also are offered in various license-exempt frequencies with various data transmission speeds. Like its Lynx products, its point-to-point Tsunami products offer a fully integrated design and a separate control and diagnostic channel.
Quickbridge 60250 product: In November 2007, the company announced its QuickBridge 60250 product, a PTP wireless hop-in-a-box that provides 200 Mbps of capacity in the 60 GHz unlicensed spectrum. The QuickBridge 60250’s small form factor, alignment bracket, and alignment scope make it easy to deploy and install. The QuickBridge 60250 is a complete hop-in-a-box containing all of the components, including radio units, mounting hardware, power injectors and cables, required to deploy a wireless connection operating over distances of up to 500 meters.
GigaLink products: The company’s GigaLink products primarily enable service providers, businesses, and other enterprises to wirelessly satisfy very high bandwidth data transmission needs over relatively short distances. The GigaLink product is a compact product operating in the 60 GHz millimeter-wave band between 57 GHz and 64 GHz. It enables fiberless transmission of data, voice and video communication at speeds up to 1.48 Gbps full duplex. The E-Band spectrum is 71-78 GHz, 81-86 GHz, and 92-95 GHz.
In December 2008, the company introduced a new long range Gigalink product which extends range to up to eight kilometers, while maintaining throughput at 1.48GBps with less than 1ms of latency.
Sales and Marketing
The company sells its products worldwide to service providers, businesses, and enterprise customers, primarily indirectly through distributors, value-added resellers, product integrators, and to lesser extent, directly to end-users through its sales force. The company also sells through original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers. The company sells its OEM customers branded products as private label models.
Competition
The company’s primary competition in its BWA markets include Airspan, Alvarion, Aperto, Cisco, Motorola (Canopy), Redline, and Tropos. In the Wi-Fi Mesh market, competition comes primarily from nascent companies such as Belair, Strix, Firetide, Skypilot and Tropos. Additionally, Cisco, Motorola, and Motorola also competes with the company.
The company has competition in its Enterprise Wi-Fi business, including Cisco (including LinkSys), D-Link, Netgear, SMC, Buffalo, Motorola (Symbol Technologies), Aruba, Trapeze Networks, Meru and 3Com Corporation. With its PTP products, the company faces competition from Alcatel, Bridgewave, Ceragon Networks, Stratex Networks, Erricson, NEC, Redline, Motorola (Orthogon) and Nokia.
History
Proxim Wireless Corporation was founded in 1982. The company was formerly known as Terabeam, Inc. and changed its name to Proxim Wireless Corporation in September 2007.
