Broadband service provider Speakeasy launched what it called “WiMAX-class” fixed wireless broadband covering parts of downtown Seattle. The service, which Speakeasy said will expand later this year to cover all of Seattle, uses Alvarion’s BreezeAccess infrastructure deployed at selected city sites, including its landmark Space Needle.
Speakeasy said the network provides transmission speeds between 2 megabits and 6 megabits per second with coverage of up to 2 miles from each base station. The service initially will be targeted at business customers beginning next month for $500 per month for a 3-MB connection or $800 per month for a 6-MB connection.
The first commercial WiMAX products are not expected until the end of the year at the earliest; therefore, the Speakeasy service is not a pure WiMAX offering.
In an unrelated announcement, Azulstar Networks said it has launched a metro-wide Voice over Wi-Fi telephone service covering Rio Rancho, N.M. The fixed and mobile service offering operates over Rio Rancho’s converged Wi-Fi network that currently uses 200 Wi-Fi access points to cover more than 60 percent of the city.
The service uses a pre-WiMAX backbone provided by Proxim Corp. that connects the access points to Azulstar’s network operations center and eventually the public Internet. Azulstar added that Ecuity Networks provides call transport and termination from the Internet onto the traditional phone network, and the network is based entirely around Session Initiation Protocol technology.
The network also includes end-to-end quality of service to standard Wi-Fi clients, 802.11 a/b/g client access and seamless mobility at speeds up to 55 miles per hour with handoffs under 3 milliseconds. Azulstar said it plans to add seamless roaming between CDMA and GSM networks to the service later this year.
Azulstar said the service will allow a user to select from either a fixed or mobile handset, choose a local phone number or keep their existing number, and includes caller identification, call forwarding, voice mail over e-mail, multi-party calling, call waiting and a Web-based call control manager. The business offering will include four-digit intercompany calling, a fax line and a soft-PBX that eliminates PBX hardware providing centralized call control. The service is available to businesses and consumers within the 505 area code.
