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CHASKA,
MINNESOTA, SELECTS TROPOS NETWORKS FOR CITY-WIDE BROADBAND
WI-FI NETWORK |
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Chaska.net, the City-Owned ISP, is Quickly Deploying Ubiquitous
Wireless Broadband Service to Residents, Businesses, Public
Safety, and Municipal Workers |
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SAN MATEO, CA, May 25, 2004
Tropos Networks, a leading supplier of equipment used to build
metro-scale Wi-Fi networks, today announced that chaska.net,
a wireless internet service provider (WISP) owned and operated
by the City of Chaska, Minnesota, is using Tropos equipment
to deploy a Wi-Fi mesh network across the entire 16 square miles
of the city. The network will provide users with ubiquitous
broadband (>1 Mbps symmetrical) coverage and unlimited mobility
anywhere within the city limits. The first phase of the network
deployment, consisting of 50 Tropos Wi-Fi cells, covering more
than four square miles, was installed and in the test phase
in less than two weeks. |
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“After carefully evaluating the technology
options for this type of installation, we determined that the
Tropos solution was simply without peer,” said Bradley
Mayer, IS Manager for chaska.net. “The Tropos product
allows us to offer exceptional services to the people of Chaska
at, by far, the lowest total cost of operation and of capital.
The network is incredibly simple to design and install, and
allows us to bring our wireless broadband service to market
in a very short timeframe. With our goal of complete network
coverage by July 1st, we needed a partner with the ‘fast,
low cost and simple’ metro-scale deployment experience
that Tropos has established.” |
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“The technology leadership championed
by Chaska is a great example of how city services can quickly
add true value to the community,” said Ron Sege, President
and CEO of Tropos Networks. “We are very proud that our
unique technology has helped to enable chaska.net deliver this
innovative service to the people of Chaska, quickly, at low-cost
and at large scale.”
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Chaska.net, formed five years ago to provide
broadband services to the educational institutions of Chaska,
worked closely with the City Council and City Manager in developing
the wireless broadband initiative. Chaska.net plans to offer
the 18,000 residents and 7,500 households of the city with high-speed
access for the nominal fee of $15.99/month. In addition, chaska.net
will provide in-vehicle broadband services to the officers of
the Chaska Police Department; this service will provide field
officers access to rich content, headquarters-quality applications
previously unavailable outside of the precinct. The municipal
workers of Chaska, such as building inspectors and public works
employees, will also be equipped with Wi-Fi enabled devices
such as laptop computers and PDAs. The end result will be a
city workforce with unprecedented access to critical information
in the field, increasing productivity and making the community
safer as a whole. |
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In the planning and installation of the metro-scale
Wi-Fi network, chaska.net worked closely with Twin Cities based
First Mile Wireless, a leading reseller and integrator of wireless
network solutions. For more than two years, First Mile Wireless
has provided consultation, RF engineering, and support services
for the growing chaska.net point-to-multipoint fixed wireless
network services. This partnership has helped chaska.net become
the technology leader in the Twin Cities wireless ISP market. |
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The city-wide chaska.net network will employ
200 Tropos 5110 Wi-Fi cells, an outdoor-optimized and ruggedized
node based on the 802.11 standard. The Tropos 5110 quickly and
economically uses the intelligent Tropos Predictive Wireless
Routing Protocol (PWRP) to provide pervasive coverage over metro
areas. The Tropos PWRP routes traffic wirelessly, eliminating
up to 95% of the wired backhaul associated with traditional
access point solutions. Tropos Wi-Fi cells form a wireless mesh,
dynamically routing traffic along the highest throughput path
to a wired gateway. This intelligent routing negates effects
of radio frequency (RF) interference, wired backhaul failure
and node failure. PWRP also scales to thousands of nodes with
the lowest routing overhead in the industry. Chaska.net will
use a combination of city fiber and fixed point-to-multipoint
wireless technology for its backhaul connections. |
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About Tropos Networks
Tropos Networks, Inc., is a leading supplier of systems used
to build metro-scale, outdoor Wi-Fi networks. Tropos unique
Wi-Fi cells, along with the first element manager to control
large Wi-Fi networks, enable public agencies and service providers
to deliver ubiquitous, city-wide mobile broadband to users in
any locale. These carrier-class IP networks are low cost and
easy to install and scale. The Tropos cellular mesh architecture
and use of optimized open-standard radios dramatically reduce
the need for wired backhaul while eliminating expensive proprietary
clients and complex software. Using the patented Predictive
Wireless Routing Protocol™, Tropos solutions deliver maximum
bandwidth to the user regardless of conditions, at unprecedented
Wi-Fi network scale. Tropos Networks is headquartered in San
Mateo, California. For more information, please visit www.tropos.com,
call 650-286-4250 or write to info@tropos.com. |
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Tropos Networks, Tropos and PWRP are trademarks
of Tropos Networks, Inc. All other brand or product names are
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holder(s). |
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About chaska.net
Chaska.net is a Wireless Internet Provider (WISP) owned and
operated by the City of Chaska; providing wireless Internet
services to residential and business users in Chaska and other
Caver County, MN areas. |
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About First Mile Wireless, Inc.
First Mile Wireless is a Twin Cities based value added reseller
and integrator of wireless network solutions. The company provides
turn key wireless and microwave solutions for Wireless ISP’s
and private wireless network applications. Solutions focus on
point-to-point, fixed multipoint, mesh, and limited non-line-of-site
technologies in the license-free 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands.
For more information on First Mile Wireless, visit their Web
site at http://www.firstmilewireless.com. |
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