LOS GATOS, Calif. -- Firetide has announced general availability of its new 802.11n MIMO indoor and outdoor access points and wireless LAN controller solution. The company claims that early customers are reporting up to 300 Mbps performance for its new dual-radio 802.11n MIMO indoor access point (HotPoint 5100) and outdoor access point (HotPoint 5200), depending on environment. Additionally, the Firetide WLAN Controller (FWC 2050) enables customers to better monitor performance as well as to easily set up and manage networks.
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Seongnam City in South Korea has deployed the new Firetide outdoor 802.11n APs and wireless LAN controller to provide free municipal Wi-Fi services to visitors of Tancheon Park and plans to expand coverage throughout the city with 50 more units next year. Seongnam City has been using Firetide’s mesh and broadband access products for public internet access and city services since 2009, and was eager to get its hands on the new generation of Firetide’s APs. Other organizations in Korea and the U.S., including service providers, enterprises and municipalities are also in the process of evaluating the broadband products.
“The performance is fantastic. With the new Firetide APs, we’ve achieved 150 Mbps per radio for wireless Internet service which we have never seen before,” said Kim Inseong, project manager for Seongnam City. “Firetide is unique in providing high performance outdoor 802.11n MIMO access points at an affordable price.”
"Firetide is increasing its wireless mesh infrastructure presence; the company's renewed focus on the enterprise and the service provider market expands its reach beyond its traditional strong hold with public safety applications. Harnessing the power of MIMO technology, Firetide now offers its own access point, wireless LAN, and point-to-point products, creating front end solutions to go with its core infrastructure mesh business,” said Daryl Schoolar, principal analyst, Wireless Infrastructure, Current Analysis.
The dual-radio 802.11n HotPoint 5100 indoor and HotPoint 5200 outdoor access points are billed as providing attractive price performance, high capacity, and enterprise scalability. The dual-radio 802.11n APs deliver 600 Mbps data rates, which translate to up to 300 Mbps of real-world user throughput, claims the company.
The Firetide FWC 2050 WLAN controller 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.
“Our customers have been asking us for WLAN infrastructure that is high performing, robust and affordable. The new WLAN products now bring the same reliability for which Firetide is known in the mesh world to broadband access applications for real-time voice, video and data,” said Bo Larsson, CEO of Firetide. “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 expect these new solutions to further solidify our security dealer, wireless network integrator, and service provider channels.”
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.