Azulstar to Upgrade its Existing Municipal Wi-Fi Networks with WiMAX

Economics, performance and reliability driving Azulstar upgrades to WiMAX. Enterprise connections up to 20Mbps symmetric to be offered, residential connections to 10Mbps.

Grand Haven, MI (Issues Wire / PRWEB) March 17, 2008 -- Azulstar today announced that it is enhancing all of its existing municipal Wi-Fi networks with WiMAX technology, using equipment from Airspan Networks and Redline Communications. The networks being upgraded include Grand Haven, MI - America's first municipal Wi-Fi network, which recently entered its 5th year of operation, and are part of larger regional WiMAX rollouts by Azulstar across 15 cities in the mid- and southwest USA including Grand Rapids, MI and Albuquerque, NM.
   
The highly advanced, licensed spectrum WiMAX network is in final stages of testing in Grand Haven and first customers are being connected. The expanded service delivers faster speeds, broader coverage and higher service levels targeted at the enterprise, municipal and high-end residential markets. The network will overlay the existing unlicensed Wi-Fi mesh networks, which will continue to operate supporting visitors and residential customers as long as there is demand. Legacy Wi-Fi customers wanting to move to WiMAX will receive a discount towards their adaptor.

Grand Haven Mayor, Roger Bergman said, "We are very excited to bring Grand Haven back to the forefront of municipal wireless by adding WiMAX to our existing citywide Wi-Fi network. We believe this is a technology platform that directly benefits our community's future and immediately reduces our internal IT costs."

WiMAX dramatically improves the economics, performance and reliability of municipal wireless and is one of the most significant technologies of our time. We applaud the FCC for making more WiMAX spectrum available in the USA. Our customers will be delighted with the service.

Tyler van Houwelingen, Azulstar founder and CEO added, "WiMAX dramatically improves the economics, performance and reliability of municipal wireless and is one of the most significant technologies of our time. We applaud the FCC for making more WiMAX spectrum available in the USA. Our customers will be delighted with the service."

According to Kevin Suitor, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Redline, "We are confident that Azulstar can achieve its objective of bringing better broadband services to more customers in Grand Haven and across their networks with our proven WiMAX solutions. With more than 150 deployments of our RedMAX™ products around the world, and the world's first complete WiMAX Forum Certified® system, Redline delivers the most advanced and highest capacity WiMAX network available today."
   
Highlights of the planned WiMAX network now being tested include:

- Up to 20Mbps symmetric speeds for business and 10Mbps for residential and mobile connections.

- IEEE 802.16e-2005 mobile WiMAX technology which incorporates several advances such as MIMO/beam-forming antennas and Scalable-OFDMA.

- Licensed-spectrum operation providing service with up to 99.999% reliability.

- Direct support for VoIP telephony, IP-Television and municipal applications such as automated meter reading, intelligent transportation and public safety/homeland security access.

Azulstar will continue its strategy of owning and operating municipal wireless networks in regions where it can also deploy licensed-spectrum WiMAX. In existing Azulstar projects where Wi-Fi technology is the only viable option due to spectrum limitations, Azulstar has migrated to a subcontractor role, assisting the municipalities and partners achieve their goals, but no longer acting as the network owner.

About Azulstar:
Azulstar Inc., based in Grand Haven, Mich., was formed to enable the rapid rollout of mobile Wi-Fi/WiMAX networks and services and is recognized as a leader in municipal wireless and intelligent transportation. Azulstar leverages a combination of licensed and unlicensed wireless technologies to serve the needs of an entire community. Azulstar teams with governmental agencies, leading companies and private investors to offer mobile broadband voice, data & video services.

WiMAX is a registered trademark of the WiMAX Forum. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:
Ken Gaebler
Walker Sands Communications
(312) 267-0060
ken @ walkersands.com

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