New Hopper Plus(TM) 120-24 Wireless Ethernet Bridge Offers Highest Effective Data Rates and Lowest Cost Per Megabit Available
New Orleans, Louisiana
July 10, 2000
Wi-LAN Inc. (TSE:WIN), an innovator of high-speed wireless data/Internet communications, today at WCA 2000 announced the new 12-megabit-per-second (Mbps) Hopper Plus 120-24 Ethernet bridge, which delivers the highest effective data rates and the lowest cost per megabit available among competing products.
An ideal solution for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint architectures, Wi-LAN's Hopper Plus 120-24 can be used to offer high-speed Internet access and extend communications infrastructures.
With a list price of US$2,695 and effective data rates of over 8.5 Mbps, the Hopper Plus 120-24 Ethernet bridge offers performance of approximately US$317 per megabit, a price lower on a dollar-per-megabit basis than provided by Wi-LAN's major competitors.
"With superior data rates and unrivalled cost-effectiveness, the new Hopper Plus product is clearly the best value in its class," said Bill Hews, president and chief operating officer. "Having a leading product positions Wi-LAN well in the lucrative wireless connectivity marketplace."
The Hopper Plus 120-24 is built with Wi-LAN's patented Multi-code Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (MC-DSSS) technology, for enhanced spectral efficiency, security, reliability and scalability. Multi-code technology increases data transfer rates and is key to effective data throughput of 8.5 Mbps, between one-and-a-half and two times faster than competing products.
The Hopper Plus 120-24 also uses dynamic time allocation and dynamic polling allocation previously introduced on earlier Hopper Plus products to reduce polling time on inactive remotes, enabling the most efficient use of bandwidth.
"The Hopper Plus 120-24 offers an unrivalled combination of upper-end speed and cost effectiveness making it ideal for medium-to-large network deployments for bandwidth intensive applications," said Mr. Hews. "It compliments existing Hopper Plus products, such as the Hopper Plus 45-24, which address market requirements for favourably priced conventional data transfer speeds."
The Hopper Plus 120-24 wireless Ethernet bridge operates in the license-exempt 2.4 ISM GHz radio frequency band for wireless connections with no radio licensing requirements.
Cost per megabit information is based on competing product price and performance detail included in the May 1, 2000 edition of Network Computing magazine (http://www.networkcomputing.com/1108/1108f2.html) and Wi-LAN internal testing of the Hopper Plus 120-24 Ethernet bridge.
Product demonstrations of the Hopper Plus 120-24 Ethernet bridge and information about the company's other broadband wireless access products are available at Wi-LAN's booth (#546/644) at WCA 2000, a leading forum on fixed wireless broadband communication systems, services and content, which runs July 10 and July 11 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.
The MC-DSSS Advantage:
Wi-LAN's patented MC-DSSS technology is the most spectrally efficient spread spectrum modulation scheme in the world. MC-DSSS enhances traditional direct sequence schemes by employing simultaneous multiple pseudo random noise spreading codes. The codes are perfectly orthogonal and are assigned to all users in a sector operating at the same frequency. The result is a vast increase in throughput without an increase RF spectrum usage as MC-DSSS modulation schemes provide ultimate spectral efficiency. Wi-LAN's first MC-DSSS technology product, the Hopper Plus 120-24, provides maximum raw radio transfer rates of up to 12 Mbps. The next generation of MC-DSSS products may reach rates approaching 20 Mbps.