Fixed Wireless Equipment

BelAir Networks Shows Mesh Lessons Were Learned

A new and improved product is being deployed in municipal networks across the U.S.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 14, 2008]

Kanata, Ontario-based BelAir Networks is touting its products for municipal wireless, especially its new and improved mesh technology.

"Conventional mesh networks did not handle large capacity very well," explains Stephen Rayment, CTO and co-founder of BelAir Networks. "We regularly build meshes of up to 100 nodes with no performance degradation from the center versus the edge."

The key for BelAir, as with other mesh equipment vendors, is additional radios. An early mesh radio might have had only one radio, an omnidirectional radio tasked with communicating with local clients as well as with other nodes in the mesh. Today, mesh architecture separates local access, which may still be an omni, and backhaul, which is usually at least two focused point to point radios. For example, the BelAir 200 has four radios and the BelAir 100 has two radios. Other configurations are also available.

Does the mesh still find other nodes automatically, or do ISPs aim directional backhaul antennas manually? Rayment says it can work either way. BelAir provides software for automated node discovery, but many ISPs leave nothing to chance and aim the backhaul antennas themselves.

Another improvement in today's systems over those of the past is in the available spectrum. The oldest mesh products had to use 2.4 GHz for everything. Today's can use 5.x GHz for backhaul, and public safety networks can use 4.9 GHz.

The goals of the network are also better defined than those of projects in the past. "The municipal Wi-Fi thing failed for a couple of reasons," says Rayment. "The first reason was that it was tough to make the business case make sense. There were high expections and low funding."

In BelAir Networks' deployment in Gaffney, S.C., on the other hand, goals are limited and clear. Although the network capacity was used to provide free public access and access to public works employees, the primary goal of the network was meter reading for the local utility. An ISP that has developed a niche specialization in working with utilities, AFL Network Services, a BelAir reseller, worked with the utility as anchor tenant to build a network that would last.

In two separate deployments in Georgia, the company deployed a network that allowed the local police department to set up cameras (in Temple, to monitor the local interstate for serious crime and accidents; in Washington, to monitor tourists who are prone to far less harmful behavior, mostly drunk and disorderly).

A VAR, Mastech Enterprises, improved the deployment, Rayment says, by delivering a wireless video flashlight to police. He says that cameras mounted in a police car can be blocked by an officer or by a rubbernecking crowd, but the handheld camera is not.

Mesh networks, Rayment says, are doing well. He says BelAir Networks is successful in several verticals: hospitality, MDUs, local government, and also industrial applications such as oil and gas. BelAir Networks recently linked up with distributor TESSCO to deliver its product. If you're working an appropriate niche, take a look at BelAir Networks.

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