CALABASAS, Calif.-Strix Systems announced that the Republic of Macedonia will use the company’s Access/One Outdoor Wireless System to create a countrywide, border-to-border Wi-Fi mesh network, bringing wireless broadband services to about 1 million Macedonians who live in rural villages with limited or no Internet access.
Strix said it has already deployed a Wi-Fi mesh network through Macedonian service provider On.Net in Skopje, the country’s capital city, which is home to about 1 million people. The company said it plans to continue deployments with On.Net throughout the country-which covers around 1,000 square miles-throughout the next six months.
“Macedonia is know for its mountainous terrain, deep basins and large valleys-none of which is conducive to deploying a wireless network,” said Predrag Cemerikic, chief executive of On.Net. “When On.Net was entrusted with building a network that would overcome these challenges, we did our due diligence and tested virtually every wireless mesh networking system on the market. The differences we saw in our testing were unbelievable. Strix is by far the highest performance mesh system and is the easiest to deploy, hands down. The ability of its multi-radio mesh nodes to auto-configure and provide high throughput-even in tricky areas-is incredible.
“This contract and the initial deployment of Strix’s multi-radio mesh in Skopje is the first step in a process that will help make the Internet affordable, sustainable and competitive throughout the Republic of Macedonia. This will enable consumers, businesses and the government to use the Internet for many activities which are crucial for the development of the country,” Cemerikic continued.
Strix explained that its Access/One solutions employ a modular multi-radio, multi-channel and multi-radio-frequency wireless mesh architecture that provides high throughput and low latency, supporting wireless voice, video and data applications. The modular mesh architecture is flexible and scalable, which the company said allows simple and affordable network growth. Because Strix’s networks operate at both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz unlicensed bands on multiple channels simultaneously, Strix said it can separate client access from the mesh backbone. This, the company said, enables the system to dynamically optimize data paths, avoid network congestion and interference and adjust in real-time to avoid network failure.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
