MIDDLETOWN, R.I.—Wireless broadband provider TowerStream Corp. announced the launch of its pre-WiMAX wireless T1 service that includes dual base station redundancy and a guaranteed service level agreement rivaling that of wireline operators.
TowerStream calls its new offering High-Availability T1+ and charges $600 per month for the service, which the company said provides customers with two separate T1 connections, each pointing at different base stations around the city, ensuring last mile redundancy to its customers. The company said its service offers businesses T1 and 100 megabit per second connections, Voice over Internet Protocol, bandwidth-on-demand, wireless redundancy, Virtual Private Networks, disaster recovery, bundled data and video services with 99.999 percent availability.
“Customers need highly reliable connections to the Internet that can be quickly and easily installed and scalable for future growth,” said Jeff Thompson, president and chief executive officer of TowerStream. “As businesses look to utilize the latest technologies such as VoIP and video, they need complete insurance that their Internet connections will not go down and can support many applications running simultaneously 24/7. By completely bypassing the telephone companies’ legacy infrastructure and controlling our own network, TowerStream can guarantee its wireless service with 99.999% reliability.”
Service level agreements are a touchy subject for in the wireless industry, especially for wireless broadband providers since their networks can be adversely affected by weather conditions and interference due to crowding in the unlicensed frequencies. The SLA standard of 99.999 percent, or “five nines,” is a telecommunications industry benchmark that signifies no more than 5 minutes of downtime per year and is usually associated with landlines.
TowerStream said its new service is available in New York City and is expected to expand to other metro markets within a few months.
