WiFi-CityWide, InfiNet Wireless and Lockheed Martin have formed a partnership with support from Charter Business to build a pilot municipal Wi-Fi and public safety network in support of their bid to the city of Riverside, Calif. The pilot, expected to be exercised over a period of several weeks, will demonstrate an integrated public safety and Wi-Fi wireless network to meet the requirements of the Wireless Riverside RFP. The public safety network will make use of the FCC designated 4.9GHz band and the municipal wireless network will make use of the traditional 2.4GHz band.

WiFi-CityWide is the engineering and integration operator for the project. Their parent company, Baja Wireless, operates a 250 square mile Wi-Fi network in Ensenada and Rosarito Beach, Baja California. InfiNet Wireless, a provider of broadband wireless access (BWA) equipment in Eastern Europe and recent entrant to the North American market, is providing the wireless connectivity for both the public safety and the Wi-Fi portions of the network. InfiNet Wireless will provide network connectivity equipment in a variety of configurations including 4.9GHz and 2.4GHz mesh, 5.8GHz backhaul and 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radios.

Lockheed Martin Information Technology, Public Safety Services group, will operate the public safety portion of the network, as well as provide the customer and technical support services. Charter Business, which provides broadband communications solutions to Riverside businesses, will be provisioning the bandwidth necessary for the pilot demonstration.

"The collaboration of these best-in-class technology companies will support Riverside's vision of building an affordable municipal wireless broadband network in combination with a public safety communication network," said Mike Doble, CEO of Public Safety Broadband, the solution architect for the pilot project. "The demonstration incorporates several applications for fixed, nomadic and mobile users."
KW