ITEXPO East: BridgeWave, FiberTower Bundle Offerings

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, IP Communications Magazines

BridgeWave (News - Alert) has struck up an interesting arrangement with FiberTower, according to Amir Makleff, BridgeWave’s president and CEO, who spoke to TMCnet this week at the ITEXPO East 2011 show in Miami.

Makleff’s company got its start with LMDS and today sells 60gHz and 80gHz solutions to service providers, and enterprise and municipal network customers. FiberTower (News - Alert) is a U.S. wholesale carrier that offers backhaul services to wireless service providers.

The companies are putting together their solutions and jointly offering them to other service providers and enterprises, says Makleff.

FiberTower has its own 24gHz spectrum in most of the U.S., but it is looking for ways to generate additional revenues from its spectrum. So BridgeWave has developed a variant of its FlexPort microwave product for the FiberTower spectrum and is pairing that with the FiberTower spectrum to allow other service providers or enterprise users to enjoy the spectrum.

The companies expect to start marketing the joint offer starting in the second quarter.

As discussed in a TMCnet article written out of ITEXPO (News - Alert) last year, BridgeWave in 2010 introduced FlexPort, a 4G wireless backhaul solution that delivers full-speed gigabit without compression in one box. Makleff last year told TMCnet that everybody is using gigE interfaces, but wireless backhaul solutions from competing vendors deliver more on the order of 300-, 400- or 800-megabit capacity, so networks using those products need to use quality of service mechanisms, making those networks more complex. A full gigabit radio like the one BridgeWave offers, he continued, behaves just like fiber, so there’s no need to plan for congestion.

During the same interview last year, BridgeWave told TMCnet that it planned to expand upon its success in the 4G backhaul space with the delivery of a 4G picocell solution, which it expected to announce formally in the first quarter of 2011. Indeed, BridgeWave this week at ITEXPO detailed that new product for TMCnet.

To find out more about BridgeWave, visit the company at ITEXPO East 2011. To be held Feb. 2-4 in Miami, ITEXPO is the world’s premier IP communications event. Visit BridgeWave in booth #211. Don’t wait. Register now.

(source: http://dark-fiber.tmcnet.com/topics/dark-fiber/articles/140712-itexpo-east-bridgewave-fibertower-bundle-offerings.htm)