PHOENIX-Fixed-wireless service provider Kite Networks officially launched its broadband services in Phoenix last week following a four-month beta trial with businesses in Tempe and Phoenix.
“We are confident we can meet the needs of our customers for fast and reliable high-speed Internet access,” said Jerry Sullivan, president and chief executive officer of Kite.
Kite operates in the 5 GHz unlicensed frequency band, offering always-on, high-speed Internet access services to small and medium-sized businesses. Future plans call for Kite to also offer Web hosting, virtual private networks, video conferencing and content streaming, among others.
The coverage area for Kite’s service currently includes the Central Camelback Corridor and the Tempe area, with the Scottsdale airpark to be included shortly, Kite said.
The company is offering three different access plans and speeds. The Mach 1 plan has a 512 kilobit per second connection, the Mach 2 plan has a 1 Megabit per second connection and the Mach 3 plan has a 2 Mbps connection. Prices of the service plans were not disclosed.
Kite has previously said it plans to roll out five or six additional markets by the middle of this year.
Kite, headquartered in Ridgeland, Miss., was formerly known as Loop Technologies and was formed when Loop became part of Cisco Systems Inc.’s Powered Network program. Cisco is helping Kite develop and deploy its networks using Cisco’s vector Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing technology.