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True WiMAX Reaches Sydney and Melbourne |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 31 July 2007 |
Fixed wireless network operator, the ASX listed BigAir Limited is the first carrier in Australia to offer a commercial WiMax service in metropolitan Sydney and Melbourne according to a statement released to the Stock Exchange today.
BigAir says Australia's first major Metropolitan WiMAX network is based on Airspan Networks' 5.8GHz MicroMAX base stations which are about to be deployed in Sydney and Melbourne. The company says it has already started upgrading its existing Sydney network to WiMAX and intends to switch on its Melbourne WiMAX metropolitan network next month.
The good news for business looking for a solution in Queensland is that BigAir has also targeted its Brisbane WiMAX network to be operational before the end of the year. Wireless broadband is an effective connectivity option in areas where wired broadband solutions are not available or aren't viable. They are also extremely popular as backup redundancy solutions for use when and if the wired network fails.
BigAir, one of the country's most successful wireless broadband operators have extensive networks built in Sydney and Melbourne which offer very high speeds far in excess of what many business locations could hope to access using wired networks.
BigAir says it has completed a six month extensive technical trial of proprietary wireless, and WiMAX technologies in the 5.8 GHz band, BigAir selected Airspan as its supplier for its roll out of fixed WiMAX services for business customers in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
BigAir CEO, Jason Ashton, said "BigAir is pleased to be the only Australian carrier currently offering fixed WiMAX services in the metropolitan markets of Sydney and Melbourne. We plan to continue to expand our WiMAX network to other areas across Australia in order to offer leading services to businesses frustrated with the current limitations of fixed line options".
Ashton added that "BigAir chose to deploy field proven industry leading WiMAX products from Airspan Networks as the extensive testing showed Airspan equipment consistently gave BigAir up to double the performance of competing proprietary systems.
"WiMAX will allow us to offer, symmetric, business grade broadband at speeds of up to 30 Mbps today with far greater range and reliability than is currently available with proprietary wireless systems. In the very near future we will offer even higher speeds as WiMAX technology evolves," he said.
The Airspan WiMAX equipment selected by BigAir contains high performance Intel WiMAX chipsets in the CPE products that BigAir is deploying.
"We are very pleased that BigAir has chosen Airspan for its 5.8GHz WiMAX deployment in Australia", said Henrik Smith-Petersen, Airspan's President of Asia Pacific. "Airspan successfully passed the intense and in-depth technical due diligence carried out by BigAir. We are gaining traction with our MicroMAX 5.8GHz product and we believe this deployment with BigAir validates our position as the leading supplier of WiMAX products in Asia Pacific".
BigAir also offers mobile broadband services through partnerships with mobile broadband network operators iBurst and Unwired. Unwired uses a proprietary pre-WiMax specification.
www.bigair.com.au
www.airspan.com
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