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DragonWave, FiberTower Partner to Bring Bundled Microcellular Solutions

28th October 2011

ES Admin

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The burgeoning need for high-capacity data traffic to meet this growth within dense, complex urban areas has become a key motivator for microcellular deployments and is driving innovation in network development initiatives. In a move that directly benefits mobile operators, DragonWave Inc. and FiberTower have entered into an alliance that was announced today at 4G World in Chicago. This alliance allows DragonWave to bundle FiberTower spectrum with its Avenue product line, while also enabling FiberTower to offer bundled spectrum and equipment solutions.

Designed to meet city-zoning restrictions for street level deployments, the DragonWave Avenue incorporates the industry's smallest antennas to operate seamlessly with FiberTower's area license frequencies and provide unsurpassed microcellular backhaul performance. With Avenue now being marketed with FiberTower's expansive portfolio of 24 GHz and 39 GHz licenses, mobile carriers can deploy six-inch and smaller antenna solutions to provide street-level microcellular backhaul offerings. These bands offer a simple licensing process and are more readily available in markets where frequency congestion is an issue. FiberTower's spectrum licenses extend to over 99% of the United States.

DragonWave's newly announced Avenue product line is the industry's smallest microcellular device, which also utilizes the industry's smallest antenna to integrate microcellular backhaul, third-party base stations, power supply, battery backup, switching, and management in an all-in-one, environmentally-shielded enclosure.

DragonWave will demonstrate its new Avenue solution in Booth 1615 at 4G World 2011, Oct. 24-27, at McCormick Place in Chicago.

Clearly, as mobile operators are moving to microcellular architectures, innovative wireless backhaul solutions are needed said Kurt Van Wagenen, FiberTower President and CEO. The DragonWave Avenue comes at an opportune time for the industry and by leveraging FiberTower's extensive 24GHz and 39GHz spectrum, operators can now have a small, pole-mountable, street-level backhaul solution.

DragonWave has long recognized that Avenue is what was needed at the street level to effectively deploy microcellular coverage with high-performance backhaul, said Peter Allen, President and CEO, DragonWave. Our alliance with FiberTower assists operators by allowing them to leverage mini-antennas to meet burgeoning traffic demands using microcellular underlay networks. We very much value our partnership with FiberTower and, moving forward, we see microcells and wireless backhaul being fundamental to operators looking to meet 4G bandwidth demands and offer ubiquitous coverage.