Oil and gas industry demand paves way for Arctic wireless broadband

Alvarion (NASDAQ: ALVR), a provider of wireless broadband platforms, announced that Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative (ASTAC), a member-owned telephone utility cooperative providing telecommunications services, has selected Alvarion’s wireless broadband Wi-Fi equipment to provide connectivity to workers and residents across the North Slope region of Alaska.

ASTAC provides local and long distance service, Internet, wireless and data services across a road-less, remote arctic area of more than 90,000 square miles. Additionally, ASTAC is a provider of pay-per-use Wi-Fi to allow video, voice and data applications at the region’s petroleum industry exploration and production camps located in the Deadhorse-Prudhoe Bay region. These modular and mobile camps make implementing traditional fixed-line solutions particularly costly, labor intensive and impractical given modular design and regular facility relocation, notes Alvarion.

“Serving the oil and gas industry in Alaska is just one example of how Alvarion’s technology can be applied to help improve connectivity reliability and save overall wireless deployment and operation costs,” says Chris Daniels, Vice President of Sales, North America, Alvarion. “In a region of Alaska that truckers can only access in the winter via ice roads, providing reliable solutions plays a critical role in helping the workers and business to communicate and thrive.”

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To support roving exploration and production camps, ASTAC selected Alvarion’s Wi-Fi solution to deliver the wireless broadband connectivity necessary, while remaining flexible, cost-effective, and rugged enough to meet the unique needs of the arctic environment. Alvarion’s general market Wi-Fi offering includes advanced carrier-grade, wireless broadband base stations operating in the 2.4 and 5 GHz unlicensed bands using spatially adaptive Beamforming technology and interference mitigation algorithms to provide optimal connectivity, extended range, increased capacity, indoor penetration and uniform coverage. With this technology, ASTAC is able to deploy fewer access points in each camp, significantly reducing the labor costs and cabling associated with installations in such intense environmental conditions.

“Wireless broadband is critical to the well-being and morale of remote workers and residents in the rural communities we serve. Alvarion’s solution has changed the way we deliver Internet services,” comments Jens Laipenieks, Manager of Sales and Business Development, ASTAC. “Even when the arctic winds blow and temperatures drop well below zero, we know that Alvarion’s equipment will hold up to ensure our users stay online and connected 24-7.”

Using Alvarion’s equipment, ASTAC is also exploring new service capabilities for its consumer and business customers such as managed services and Wi-Fi offloading. Visit www.astac.net for more information.

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