While AirNet Communications Corp. is busy this week demonstrating its PCS 1900 base station system at PCS ’96, the company’s new Korean joint venture, AirCom, is busy demonstrating AirNet’s software driven and protocol independent base station technology in Korea.
Communications Technology Inc. of Seoul is AirNet’s new partner. CTI can be thought of as a company “bringing next generation technology to Korea through joint ventures,” said Bernard Smedley, president and chief executive officer of Melbourne, Fla.-based AirNet and chairman of the board for AirCom.
CTI, which holds a 51 percent majority in AirCom, will distribute and market the venture’s products. Eventually, production will be relocated to Korea as well, noted Smedley.
“What we are doing as a startup is working with local companies (in foreign countries) that can provide local distribution and manufacturing,” said Smedley. This saves costs and often is a more effective means of market entry than approaching international business directly from the United States, he explained.
AirNet’s software-based architecture allows carriers to transition their networks to a new protocol or to support multiple protocols simultaneously. As changes to a network are primarily software-oriented, operators avoid the costly gamble of selecting an infrastructure platform or protocol that may become obsolete.
Digital signal processing is used in the AirNet base station systems, which provides for high capacity, said the company.
At the heart of AirNet’s products is the Carney Engine, a proprietary “channelizer” that manages output of the radio receiver, separating signals into channels and adjusting bandwidth within those channels. With the engine doing several jobs, there are few components in the AirNet system, said the company. AirNet said the Carney Engine allows for frequency reuse that can more than double capacity of a typical analog-based system.
In Korea, AirCom currently is performing demonstrations of its systems for the analog Advanced Mobile Phone Standard and Total Access Communications Standard technologies for broadband mobile and wireless local loop services. Multiple base stations have been installed, said Smedley.
In Asia, notably Korea and China, the reception for AirCom’s system and technology has been very good, commented Smedley, “particularly the advantages for carriers of small size, high capacity and low cost.”
Korean cellular operators Korea Mobile Telecom and Shinsegi Telecom could prove a challenging sell, as they currently receive most of their equipment from LG Group and Samsung, respectively. But AirCom is able to provide operators a complete turnkey system or equipment and technology to complement an existing system, said Smedley. The difference is in “how you draw the interfaces into the network,” he said.
AirNet soon will be able to support Code Division Multiple Access and Time Division Multiple Access interfaces. The company is inaugurating its system’s support for PCS-1900, or Global System for Mobile communications, this week at the PCS ’96 show in San Francisco.
Smedley and CTI head Kim Hoon, also president of AirCom, have a long-standing relationship that began when Smedley headed Motorola Inc.’s wireless LANs division several years ago. Hoon was a distributor in Korea for Motorola’s wireless LAN product. Hoon later founded CTI.
About a year ago, Smedley approached Hoon about AirNet’s technology. By January, AirNet and CTI, which is privately funded, began the legal and contractual negotiations to form the partnership.
CTI is involved in producing a number of wired and wireless communications systems, in particular for airports, said Smedley.
Aside from the AirCom venture, AirNet has begun shipping its base station systems into Asia and Europe, directly or through third party vendors. Smedley declined to comment on which other countries and operators AirNet has foreign partnerships with, but implied some of those agreements will be announced in the near future. Smedley did say the majority of its international ventures currently are focusing on wireless local loop services.
