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« Atlanta At Last (Really) | Main | Who's Hot Today? Anaheim (Calif.), San Jose (Calif.) »

October 26, 2005

BelAir Unwires Cable Companies

BelAir has scored a coup with two new products and a partnership that tie it in with the cable television industry: Comcast Interactive Capital is investing an undisclosed sum in BelAir as it rolls out two new devices designed for cable operators to add wireless to their mix of offerings, and more effectively compete with DSL providers who are crossing into WiMax and broadband wireless and with the growing threat of cellular operators and 3G networks. (Red Herring reports a total of $20 million in investment from several sources.)

The idea behind the BelAir50s and BelAir100s is that they are mesh wireless nodes that can be plugged directly into the cable network. They support DOCSIS2.0, the widely deployed current generation of information encoding technology, and they handle the cable plant voltage avoiding electrical supply issues that were an early problem with Wi-Fi deployment.

The 50s has a single 802.11g radio, works with other mesh nodes, and supports multiple SSIDs and VLANs to allow several virtual networks to operate at the wireless and wired level at the same time.

The 100s has two radios, using 5 GHz for backhaul via mesh or point-to-point. It can have one module for front-side access and one for backhaul, or both radios can be set for 5 GHz backhaul. Directional and omni-directional antennas are available.

This is a remarkable entry for BelAir which has been shadowed by Tropos Networks gains in metropolitan-scale all-wireless or wireless/fiber hybrid networks that have been built, bid or awarded. EarthLink network, for instance, will use Tropos in its first two deployments in Philadelphia and Anaheim (announced today). Tropos is working with Scientific-Atlanta to develop products for this market which they said as early as Oct. 1 they expected to announced this fall. (There are also non-mesh, non-Wi-Fi products available, such as a suite from Arcwave.)

Cable networks have lagged in their adoption of wireless, but they have a distinct advantage over phone companies and WiMax-like installations. Cable networks run sometimes several dozen miles or longer. The DOCSIS 2.0 standard allows performance at great distances from the central plant.

This means that cable-based mesh networks could be built with little or no backhaul cost--no T-3s, no long-haul WiMax--at the periphery of their networks. These are typically the most underserved and most expensive places to deploy.