R-SP-9000

Municipal wireless networking is a new market formed around an unusual partnership between the public sector and private enterprise. Municipalities are beginning to realize that wireless applications can bring an abundance of benefits to the community, but they need someone to design, build, and operate the network – the exact forte of service providers. The partnership between the municipalities and service providers usually entails the municipality signing up as the anchor tenant of the wireless network, which is built on city-owned mounting assets. The municipal wireless network can then serve the needs for both municipal applications as well as commercial broadband Internet access services.

To justify the municipal-wide wireless network, municipalities require the ability to support multiple applications across a common infrastructure, including:

* Public Wi-Fi access to bridge the digital divide and drive economic development across the community
* U.S. licensed 4.9 GHz public safety access to serve the field connectivity needs of first responders, including police, fire and emergency services
* High-speed wireless connectivity for network cameras to enable real-time video surveillance applications
* Fixed wireless connectivity and deterministic Voice over IP (VoIP) for municipal buildings to reduce telecommunications costs
* Remote municipal worker connectivity, such as on-site access to survey records and report filing by building inspectors, to enhance municipal productivity
* Automated reading of water, gas, electric and parking meters to improve municipal efficiency

For service providers, meeting the municipalities’ requirements is only one part of the equation. In addition to providing the long list of municipal applications, service providers also need a way to provide:

* Commercial broadband Internet access for residential and business users
* Commercial VoIP services

Commercial Wi-Fi services, including public HotSpots In order to meet the combined requirements of the municipalities and service providers, SkyPilot has developed a purpose-built product called the SkyExtender™ TriBand. The SkyExtender TriBand provides a unique solution for the full range of municipal wireless services list above through a highly versatile product that seamlessly integrates SkyPilot’s industry-leading 5 GHz synchronous mesh backhaul with two high-power access points, one dedicated to licensed 4.9 GHz public safety applications and one dedicated to 2.4 GHz public Wi-Fi access. The resulting technology provides integration of several elements, including:

* Integrated long-range, high-capacity, and encrypted mesh backhaul connectivity over the 5 GHz band through a patent-pending switched directional antenna array
* Integrated mesh networking capabilities, including automatic discovery, load balancing, self-healing failover, and optimal best-path routing with adaptive modulation
* Integrated and secure public safety access over the U.S. licensed 4.9 GHz band with a dedicated radio for interoperability with standard 802.11a clients
* Integrated public Wi-Fi access over the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band with a dedicated radio for interoperability with standard 802.11b/g clients
* Integrated support for fixed wireless CPE with symmetric and asymmetric broadband service tiers and rate-limiting capabilities
* Integrated support for end-to-end synchronous and deterministic quality-of-service for VoIP applications

The SkyExtender TriBand provides all of these features while maintaining the ability to scale coverage, capacity, and performance through a mesh of SkyPilot equipment. Through the separation of access from backhaul and the use of multiple non-overlapping channels, the municipal network can provide scalable throughput, subscriber density, and network capacity.