Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Motorola Canopy unlicensed wireless -- nice write-up by Steve Stroh
Motorola Canopy is a delightfully simple, stupid, first-mile wireless product that I have used happily for over three years. Steve Stroh has interviewed several of the senior managers of Motorola's Canopy team and done a very nice summary of Canopy's progress and prospects in the latest issue of Stroh's FOCUS on Broadband Wireless Internet Access (subscription required -- and worth it).
Stroh explains
Stroh goes on to reveal Canopy's WiMax migration strategy, pointing out that its Canopy experience with clean outdoor-oriented packaging and deployment gives it a distinct advantage over other newer WiMax entrants.
A very nice write-up of a worthy product.
Stroh explains
[Canopy's] primary design goals are to operate reliably in license-exempt spectrum, relatively simple construction and resulting low price (depending on volume, potentially as low as $200/unit), and be easy to deploy, including the option of user self-installation. Canopy has been well received by Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) Service Providers (SPs) because it does operate reliably in license-exempt spectrum using a robust modulation technique (Binary Frequency Shift Keying - BFSK; essentially "digital" Frequency Modulation - FM) and a relatively wide channel (33 MHz). Canopy systems are available for the 5.2 GHz (Canopy is one of the few outdoor systems for this band; a challenge because of very low allowable transmit power), 5.3, and 5.8 GHz bands, as well as new systems released earlier in 2004 for the 2.4 GHz and 902-928 MHz license-exempt bands.He goes on to recount how Canopy ran into trouble with Motorola's licensed-band strategy, how it was almost killed, how its division was almost sold -- a fascinating glimpse into the corporate life of a potentially disruptive technology -- and how it has finally been accepted as a member of the Motorola product family. According to Motorola, Canopy now runs at up to 7 megabits per second with latencies as low as 5 milliseconds. And I can attest personally, from first-hand experience, that it is so easy to set up that even I can do it.
Stroh goes on to reveal Canopy's WiMax migration strategy, pointing out that its Canopy experience with clean outdoor-oriented packaging and deployment gives it a distinct advantage over other newer WiMax entrants.
A very nice write-up of a worthy product.
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