Motorola announces availability of point-to-point offering

Apr 30, 2008 12:49 PM, By Donny Jackson

Motorola this week announced the availability of its PTP 500 series of wireless Ethernet bridges, which are designed to complement the vendor giant’s existing point-to-point portfolio.

Operating in the 5.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands, the PTP 500 series provides a maximum data rate of 105 MB/s and a maximum range of 155 miles between fixed points. The PTP 500 series is designed be to a mid-range product for operators seeking higher data rates than 43 MB/s provided by Motorola’s PTP 400 series but not wanting the expense associated with the 300 MB/s PTP 600 series, said Robert Baker, general manager of Motorola’s point-to-point group.

As a result, the PTP 500 series is expected to be particularly attractive to operators that do not want to pay $3000 per month for wired metro Ethernet connectivity, Baker said during an interview with MRT.

“With an MSRP of $13,995, you can see that you can deploy [PTP 500] links of this type and get a return on investment in under a year,” Baker said, noting that the unlicensed solution also is typically more cost-effective than licensed microwave links for lower-speed links.

Motorola believes the PTP 500 series is an appealing backhaul solution for a variety of operators, including wireless Internet service providers and some public-safety agencies, Baker said. Although the PTP 500 series operates in unlicensed bands, it provides non-line-of-sight and over-water connectivity featuring high availability, in large part because of an advanced spectrum management system that continually monitors the radio-frequency environment 500 times per second.

“So, if another user comes into the spectrum and starts to interfere, the radio will sense that and will do a real-time channel switch into a clear space,” Baker said. “This is technology that we understand is unique to Motorola and allows us to provide very high availability in the unlicensed band.”

For those interested in disaster-recovery solutions, products in Motorola’s point-to-point portfolio can deployed very quickly, as was demonstrated when its solutions were used to restore a major Mexican network that went down, Baker said. In London, Motorola deployed 11 wireless links over a weekend, he said.