Firetide Unveils New 802.11n MIMO-Based Broadband Access And Wireless LAN Solutions

LOS GATOS, Calif.(BUSINESS WIRE) Firetide Inc., continuing to advance its position as the leading provider of wireless infrastructure networks, today announced new 802.11n MIMO indoor and outdoor access points and wireless LAN controller solution. The new Firetide products - Firetide WLAN Controller (FWC 2050), indoor dual-radio 802.11n MIMO access point (HotPoint 5100), and outdoor dual-radio access point (HotPoint 5200) - bring the high performance and reliability for real-time voice, video and data applications for which the company is known to broadband access along with unprecedented ease-of-use and affordable cost. As of today, Firetide is accepting orders and will ship out products to the channel this quarter.

"Wireless mesh networks enable organizations to own and operate their own flexible private wireless networks, and video is becoming the next 'must have' application," said Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst with In-Stat, a market research company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. "Firetide is already well known for their mission critical public safety applications. Their new competitively-priced access points, wireless LAN controller, and point-to-point products create an attractive front end that will help extend Firetide's core infrastructure mesh business into new high-growth markets."

Firetide currently offers industry leading price performance non-MIMO access points, the HotPoint 4100 indoor and HotPoint 4200 outdoor access points, supporting 802.11a/b/g. The new dual-radio 802.11n HotPoint 5100 indoor and HotPoint 5200 outdoor access points provide attractive price performance, high capacity, and enterprise scalability. The Firetide FWC 2050 WLAN controller is easy to deploy and manage. The FWC 2050 auto discovers and auto connects the HotPoint access points. Once deployed, it will automatically load balance the entire wireless LAN network, and will continuously monitor the radio channels and dynamically make adjustments to optimize network performance at all times.

Leverage Information Systems in Southern California recently won an RFP for a MIMO-based wireless mesh video surveillance system for the City of Gardena that requires placing 802.11n MIMO APs in city parks and along three major transportation corridors of the city. Leverage had sealed the deal when they confirmed that Firetide would soon ship their new 802.11n APs. "Firetide's reputation is golden," said Mark Sarria, account manager for Leverage Information Systems. "We knew the 802.11n APs would have the same performance and reliability as the wireless infrastructure mesh for the video surveillance network. It's great to have one Firetide infrastructure platform - for both mesh backbone and client access - that is easy to set up, manage and support."

Explaining Firetide's forefront in wireless infrastructure networking equipment, Bo Larsson, CEO of Firetide, noted that "Firetide continues to grow revenues and invest over 30% of revenue in R&D. We are therefore able to maintain our performance leadership in infrastructure mesh, mobility mesh and wireless bridges at the same time as we expand our entire family of wireless infrastructure solutions. We are now launching a WLAN enterprise controller and indoor/outdoor dual-radio MIMO access point solution, providing market leading price performance, flexibility, and seamless scalability. Firetide's strategy is to allow our channel partners to leverage an extensive end-to-end wireless infrastructure family of products at a very attractive profit margin structure. We are committed to an indirect sales model and we expect these new solutions to further solidify our security dealer, wireless network integrator, and service provider channels."The WLAN solution can be deployed as a distributed architecture to support scalable client mobility or as a centralized model for billing purposes depending upon customers' needs. Firetide's WLAN solution provides advanced connectivity optimization with automatic RF management and channel selections, and convenient centralized configuration of security and wireless settings. Advanced fairness algorithms, derived from Firetide mesh technology, ensure that malicious users will not be able to hog the bandwidth. Network deployment is facilitated through heat maps, floor plans and RF coverage hole detection technology. Optimum throughput is assured through an advanced channel allocation and load balancing technology. WLAN Controller provides iron-clad security through constant RF monitoring to detect rogue devices in the network. The new family of 802.11n access points support up to 128 clients and 16 virtual access points per physical access point.

Redefining price performance of traditional enterprise WLAN market, Firetide's full-featured controller-based 50-AP solution is aggressively priced at roughly 1/2 to 2/3 the investment of comparative enterprise 50-AP solutions. Firetide FWC 2050 WLAN Controller, capable of managing 50 APs, has a US list price of $4,995; indoor 5100 HotPoint AP retails for $695; outdoor HotPoint 5200 AP retails for $1,295. FWC 2050 controller can also manage Firetide's non-802.11n APs for an even more cost-effective solution, combining both 802.11n and 802.11a/b/g APs.