Secure WiFi installed for city, county of San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission

Sept. 13, 2005
GigaBeam Corp. successfully completes installation of its wireless fiber solution for the first phase of a wireless backbone network for the city and county of San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC). The wireless network will serve as complementary and redundant links to SFPUC's more traditional leased lines network...

HERNDON, VA, Sept. 13, 2005 (PRNewswire-FirstCall) -- GigaBeam Corp. announces that it has successfully completed installation of its WiFiber™ wireless fiber solution for the first phase of a wireless backbone network for the City and County of San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC). The wireless network will serve as complementary and redundant links to SFPUC's more traditional leased lines network. The SFPUC selected GigaBeam's wireless fiber solution to be the core of its wireless communications network because of its capacity of fiber speed. High- speed transmission is needed to support data, voice and video communications between geographically diverse field locations and commission offices.

The first phase of the deployment involved the installation of two WiFiber back-to-back links between major facilities. Live video, data and voice over IP (VoIP) were successfully enabled over the links demonstrating how multiple locations of video, data and voice can be aggregated and carried over sequential links without affecting quality of service. Large file transfers were tested over the link and files which previously took 2-1/2 hours to transfer took less than 5 minutes. The speed of WiFiber operating at a gigabit-per-second had impressive results. It's a very cost effective alternative for the SFPUC compared to expensive installation of terrestrial fiber.

Lou Slaughter, GigaBeam's Chairman and CEO said, "This successful deployment with the SFPUC is exciting because it validates the use of our WiFiber for use by city and state governments. It's a technology that communicates at the speed of terrestrial fiber but at a price significantly less than fiber. This is very important to government agencies which all have tight budgets and yet are expected to provide sophisticated high speed access to constituents and city agencies.

GigaBeam WiFiber operates in the 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz radio spectrum bands. This portion of the radio frequency spectrum has been authorized by the Federal Communications Commission for wireless point-to-point commercial use. Use of these frequency bands for commercial use was pioneered by GigaBeam's founders.

The company's technology, utilizing these large blocks of authorized contiguous spectrum, enables multi Gigabit-per-second wireless communications through use of Gigabit Ethernet protocols. The current speed achieved by the WiFiber product lines is one Gigabit-per-second -- equivalent to 647 T1 lines or 1,000 DSL connections. GigaBeam also plans deployment of future products capable of 10 Gigabits-per-second which is the 10 Gigabit Ethernet protocol standard.

GigaBeam's WiFiber technology is similar to terrestrial fiber in terms of speed and reliability for deployment in Metropolitan Area Networks (MANS). WiFiber has a substantial advantage over terrestrial fiber, however, because it can be deployed in a day and costs less to deploy than terrestrial fiber. Terrestrial fiber can take months to deploy and also require significant regulatory and environmental approvals prior to installation.

Herndon, Va.-based GigaBeam (www.gigabeam.com) is a provider of high performance wireless point-to-point communications access solutions that operate in the licensed 71-76 GHz and 81- 86 GHz radio spectrum bands. GigaBeam equipment operates at multi-gigabit-per- second speeds.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (www.sfwater.org) is a department of the city and county of San Francisco that provides water, wastewater, and municipal power services to San Francisco. Under contractual agreement with 29 wholesale water agencies, the SFPUC also supplies water to 1.6 million additional customers within three Bay Area counties. The SFPUC system provides four distinct services: regional water, local water, clean water (wastewater collection, treatment and disposal), and power.

###

Sponsored Recommendations

ArmorBlock 5000: Boost Automation Efficiency

April 25, 2024
Discover the transformative benefits of leveraging a scalable On-Machine I/O to improve flexibility, enhance reliability and streamline operations.

Rising Cyber Threats and the Impact on Risk and Resiliency Operations

April 25, 2024
The world of manufacturing is changing, and Generative AI is one of the many change agents. The 2024 State of Smart Manufacturing Report takes a deep dive into how Generative ...

State of Smart Manufacturing Report Series

April 25, 2024
The world of manufacturing is changing, and Generative AI is one of the many change agents. The 2024 State of Smart Manufacturing Report takes a deep dive into how Generative ...

SmartSights WIN-911 Alarm Notification Software Enables Faster Response

March 15, 2024
Alarm notification software enables faster response for customers, keeping production on track