ORLANDO, Fla.-A young Florida company is manufacturing a broadband base station system for cellular and PCS markets that it says has fewer components, uses less energy and can be programmed to be protocol independent.
Melbourne, Fla.-based AirNet Communications Corp. was founded January of 1994 and is led by Bernard “Bernie” Smedley, a former senior vice president of Motorola Inc.
The company plans to be an international supplier of broadband base stations that are switch independent, digital and programmable. AirNet intends to market its product to operators of cellular, wireless local loop and personal communications services.
AirNet’s software-based digital architecture is designed to permit an easy transition to a new protocol or it can use multiple protocols simultaneously. For instance, cellular operators can use the system to handle analog and digital technologies, such as Code Division Multiple Access or Time Division Multiple Access.
Since changes are primarily software-based, operators won’t run the risk of selecting an infrastructure platform or protocol that may become obsolete, AirNet said.
“AirNet base stations are compact, reliable and relatively inexpensive to acquire and maintain,” Smedley said. “Our unique digital processing capabilities provide very high capacity. They make it easy to install new features and services, such as data and video transmission.
At the heart of AirNet’s products is a proprietary “channelizer” called the Carney Engine. It manages the output of the radio receiver, separating the signals into channels and adjusting the bandwidth within those channels.
With the engine doing several jobs, there are fewer components in the AirNet system, the company said. Instead of multiple power splitters and multiple narrowband tuners, AirNet’s base station system uses a single broadband tuner and the Carney Engine.
The Carney Engine allows frequency reuse schemes that can more than double the capacity of a typical analog-based system, the company said.
AirNet is beta testing its PCS 1900 base station system for the U.S. market in the third quarter of 1996. It should be commercially available the third quarter of that year, the company said.
Phoenix Wireless Group, a Maitland, Fla.-based systems integrator, has purchased AirNet’s base station system for a wireless local loop application in Asia, using Extended Total Access Communication System technology.
The equipment’s ability to run concurrent multiple protocols was an important selling point, said Paul Mueller, vice president of marketing and sales for Phoenix Wireless.
“It’s all software defined, which gives you flexibility. We can put in analog local loop systems today and move then to GSM (Global System for Mobile communications technology) with a software upgrade,” Mueller said.
