|
Airspan Deploys Broadband Rural Access in Colombia
TMCnet VoIP Minute Watch Columnist
Wireless access and VoIP systems provider Airspan Networks Inc. announced on Monday it was chosen by the Consortium Union Temporal (COLDECON) for the deployment of a large-scale broadband rural access project in Colombia. The news follows a similar deployment in the Dominican Republic recently completed by Airspan and BEC Telecom S.A.
According to the five-year agreement between the COLDECON Consortium and COMPARTEL, an executive branch of the Ministry of Communications of Colombia, the companies will deploy broadband connectivity to 2,224 schools and public institutions in the northern part of the South American country. The network will use Airspan's WipLL platform in different frequency bands bundled with VSAT technologies for the access and backhaul portions of the project.
"This project fits into our core strategy of leading the market in broadband access services bundled with other ISP services," commented Carlos Alberto Bernal Forero, COLDECON president. "Airspan was a natural technology choice for us due to our long standing relationship with Airspan, our extensive experience with its products and Airspan's leadership and experience in the Colombian wireless market."
Airspan plans to install the first WipLL base stations and customer premises equipment by this March, and the next half of the sites in the project served over the next 20 months. The equipment will operate in the 900MHz and 5.8GHz frequencies. The VSAT equipment will be used to backhaul the traffic from most of the WipLL sites and as a last-mile access system.
"We are excited about another COMPARTEL project win for the second consecutive year," said Amit Ancikovsky, Airspan's vice president and general manager, Latin America. "Our WipLL platform is now the de-facto standard for broadband fixed wireless access in Colombia, and its wide range of frequencies and excellent performance metrics will provide Airspan with a significant advantage in facilitating the transition by Colombian operators into WiMAX-based products later next year. Our WipLL base stations currently operate in all of Colombia's largest cities and a significant number of this country's smaller towns, which provides us with the necessary local scale to support not only large deployments in the country like COMPARTEL but also the deployment of WiMAX networks in 2006."
Airspan joined BEC Telecom S.A., a local carrier in the Dominican Republic, last month to deploy a large scale rural connectivity network under the Dominican Republic's Rural Public Telephony Phase II Project and the initiation of commercial operations. Users of the new network will be able to make and receive local, national and international calls using a network based on fixed and mobile wireless technologies that also provide Internet access and VoIP-based services. Townships in the provinces of La Altagracia, Hato Mayor, María Trinidad Sánchez, Monseñor Nouel, Monte Cristi, Peravia, Valverde, La Vega, San Cristóbal, San José de Ocoa, Santiago and Santo Domingo are currently being served through the project.
Airspan Networks Inc.
Coldecon S.A.
-----
Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit Johanne Torres' columnist page
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
|
TMCnet LOGIN
Webinars
