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Azulstar picks Alvarion's 3.65 GHz WiMAX radios
Azulstar chooses Alvarion to provide a WiMAX 3.65 GHz solution for its networks in New Mexico and Western Michigan.
Azulstar
opened its first WiMAX service this past week using the new Alvarion WiMAX
3.65 GHz radios in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and it is also opening service across
most of Western Michigan and to markets it serves in New Mexico.
Azulstar began service testing in February of this year. The first
communities to receive actual service will be Grand Rapids, Grand Haven,
Ferrysburg, Sprint Lake and parts of Ottawa and Kent Counties. In New
Mexico service went up this week in Rio Rancho and Albuquerque with more towns
to be added in the fall.
The service called MetraMAX is positioned to serve residential, business, and
governmental customers. Price points for business customers with T1s comes
in under $275 per month and residential service prices start for less than $40
per month. Bundles include phone and Internet service. Azulstar is
offering up to 6 Mbps for residential customers and up to 100 Mbps of symmetric
service for business customers.
What the press release does not say is whether or not the 100 Mbps service is
actually its 3.65 GHz product. In fact, I doubt that it is. While I
am an avowed fan of using 3.65 GHz I do not believe it supports data rates that
high. Most likely Azulstar is using some type of Point-to-Point backhaul
radio technology for links of that capacity.
In any event, it is always welcome to see more 3.65 GHz deployments hit the
field. I think it is a very valuable tool for carriers who cannot afford
or find licensed broadband spectrum.
Tim Sanders
www.TheFinalMile.net
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