Press Releases

RSS Feed

Twitter

STAR 21 Launches High-Capacity Fixed Wireless Network With BridgeWave's FlexPort™ Product

Santa Clara, Calif. – Feb. 12, 2010 – BridgeWave Communications, the leading supplier of gigabit wireless solutions, today announced that STAR 21 Networks, a provider of network services, has deployed BridgeWave's high capacity 80 GHz FlexPort products as the cornerstone of its new fixed wireless network.

Located in the Czech Republic, STAR 21 offers wholesale network services to operators and service providers of telephone, data and Internet services. As end user mobile demand expands, STAR 21 is committed to supplying high capacity backhaul critical to mobile operators. Seeing significant business potential, STAR 21 needed a network infrastructure providing high-capacity backhaul that simultaneously supported both legacy TDM voice traffic and increasing amounts of IP traffic. The challenge was to find a solution to quickly address customers' accelerating bandwidth needs.

STAR 21 chose BridgeWave's FlexPort because of the 80 GHz product's ability to provide gigabit-plus speeds and other carrier-class features such as frequency agility, Adaptive Rate and Modulation, and advanced network management. Other lower frequency wireless solutions did not offer true gigabit capacities and posed long licensing and deployment delays. Fiber, the preferred choice, was ruled out because of high costs and lengthy commissioning intervals.

According to Akamai's 2009 Q3 State of the Internet report, the Czech Republic ranks among the 10 fastest countries in the world for broadband internet speeds, experiencing 23 percent year-over-year growth in 2009. This means expectations for provisioning new broadband services are elevated, making high-capacity backhaul crucial in meeting the Czech market's demanding expectations for broadband-related phone, data and internet services.

“It was necessary to deploy a wireless solution in a matter of days and one that would conform to international regulatory specifications,” said Richard Pinc, CEO at STAR 21. “We have a competitive advantage with BridgeWave's FlexPort because of its price and performance, plus it was designed to grow with our network as our company continues to expand.”

Using BridgeWave's links also proved to be a cost effective approach for STAR 21 because, as demand expands, a simple software upgrade is all that is needed to unlock more capacity. This allows STAR 21 to efficiently utilize capital resources by purchasing only what is required today but instantly upgrading network capacity as needed for future growth.

“FlexPort's versatility means it can be used in any part of the network - the core, backhaul, access and point-to-point connectivity - and it's very easy to install and manage,” said Pavel Hala, CTO at STAR 21. “This versatility means we can expand any part of our network as bandwidth needs evolve and provision service to customers faster without dealing with licensing fees.”

Pleased with FlexPort's performance and functionality, STAR 21 plans to increase the number of FlexPort links in their network to continue offering their customers reliable network services at competitive prices.

“Carriers are looking for an edge in today's market by building networks that enable them to easily meet customer demand for triple play services like video, voice or data,” said Amir Makleff, president and CEO of BridgeWave. “BridgeWave seeks to partner with service providers and operators like STAR 21 looking to ensure customer satisfaction and continually growing revenues.”

About STAR 21 Networks
Established in 2000, STAR 21 Networks operates one of the largest Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) networks in the licensed 26 and 28 GHz frequency bands in the Czech Republic. This network provides key domestic and foreign telecommunication companies present in the Czech telco market with a full range of carrier-class, wholesale data and broadband services. STAR 21 Networks is systematically investing in further developing its FWA network with the most advanced point-to-multipoint and point-to-point wireless technologies. For more information, visit: http://www.star-21.cz/en.

About BridgeWave Communications
Founded in 1999, BridgeWave Communications is the leading supplier of multi-gigabit wireless connectivity links for next-generation 4G mobile and WiMAX backhaul. The company's advanced millimeter wave technologies combined with innovative features such as native TDM+IP transport, flexible channel tuning, AdaptRate™ and AdaptPath™, built-in 256-bit AES Encryption, and advanced Forward Error Correction, provide carrier-class performance at the highest availability and longest distances for multi-gigabit links. The FlexPort™ product delivers scalable capacity for the migration to 4G mobile network backhaul. BridgeWave's point-to-point wireless links are deployed worldwide in mainstream enterprise, government and service provider networks and play a key role in today's WiMAX networks. With the largest global installed base of GigE radios, BridgeWave delivers the highest levels of product quality and reliability. For more information, visit www.bridgewave.com.