OVERVIEW

Applications Using Tropos MetroMesh Technology

Let's face it, Wi-Fi is huge. In fact, Wi-Fi's explosive proliferation gives consumers, businesses and governments a vast and ever-growing range of Wi-Fi-enabled devices. With an installed base of more than 250 million clients, Wi-Fi isn't just for laptops anymore. It's also for phones, PDAs, gaming devices, video cameras, parking meters, utility meters and sensors that detect biological, chemical and radioactive hazards. We've even seen a Wi-Fi enabled municipal garbage can. Don't ask.

The wealth of applications we see today represents a vast array of revenue potential for network operators. And because Wi-Fi is so explosive, we're seeing new and creative uses every day. When coupled with a Tropos® MetroMesh™ network, the new breed of Wi-Fi-enabled devices delivers an almost limitless variety of applications. These include:

Mobile Internet

Whether it's consumers enjoying an afternoon at the park, enterprise field employees or police officers on the beat, metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh networks allow people to take their offices on the road, with reliable broadband data connections in the field. Factor in the emerging location-based services such as targeted searches and social applications (think MySpace with a "find me" option), and metro Wi-Fi represents a fundamental shift in the way people access their data.

Residential and Small Business Broadband Internet Access

Metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh networks offer the lowest capital and operating costs and fastest set-ups of any alternative for true broadband (>1 Mbps downloading and uploading) service to the home or small business.

Video Surveillance

In this era of heightened concern about homeland security, video surveillance cameras connected through a metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh network provide extra eyes on the street. Video images of an incident site deliver real-time situational awareness to first responders.

Video surveillance can be deployed as part of a citywide public safety wireless network, or for specific homeland or industrial security projects. In all cases, MetroMesh technology enhances the economics of video surveillance and makes it deployable on a true metro scale.

Wireless Meter Reading

Utility meters, SCADA devices, and parking meters have one thing in common - they need to be read regularly. This is normally a labor intensive process. Fortunately, intelligent, digital meters and networking technology have converged to enable meters to be read from a distance, saving human effort, time and cost. When coupled with a city-wide MetroMesh network, these devices can be read automatically, with no human intervention, from one side of the city to the other.

Voice

Wi-Fi-enabled phones are becoming increasingly popular. Many alternatives have emerged, including hybrid Wi-Fi/cellular phones, Wi-Fi phones for conventional VoIP, and IP soft phones.

MetroMesh networks are the perfect way for users to connect anywhere in the Wi-Fi coverage area with the low cost and simplicity of Voice-over-IP.

Multiple Independent User Communities on a Single MetroMesh Infrastructure

The multi-use MetroMesh architecture allows many of these applications to run at the same time. Opening the networks to a wide variety of applications and users best leverages the capital investment in the network and amortizes fixed operation costs over a larger user population. Running many applications is the key to maximizing return on investment in metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh networks.