Airspan Extends Micro-Class WiMAX Base Station Functionality With New MicroMAX Frequencies

Airspan Networks, Inc., a worldwide provider of WiMAX and Wi-Fi based broadband wireless access networks, has announced the general availability of its MicroMAX base station in additional frequency bands, enabling sales in the growing Indian subcontinent market in 3.3 GHz and in the unlicensed 5 GHz bands widely utilized in the United States and Latin America.

As part of Airspan's portfolio of WiMAX base stations, MicroMAX is a micro base station with a pay-as-you-grow architecture that allows operators to start from a single or very few Base Station Radios (BSR) and, as the demand for capacity increases, base stations are added to economically satisfy the demand.

Airspan has also commenced shipment of its popular Base Station Distribution Unit (BSDU) in a Micromax configuration. The BSDU enables data aggregation, centralized management and synchronization of multiple MicroMAX base station radios.

MicroMAX is available in a wide range of licensed, unlicensed and lightly licensed bands. With the introduction of the new bands, MicroMAX is now available in licensed bands 3.4-3.6 GHz FDD band, 3.3-3.5 GHz TDD band and 3.6-3.8 GHz FDD. In unlicensed bands, MicroMAX is available in 5.47-5.725 GHz TDD and 5.725-5.875 GHz TDD.

MicroMAX in the 5GHz bands enables operators and wireless service internet providers to deploy WiMAX technology without the potentially expensive cost of acquiring licensed spectrum. Unlike products historically used in this band, MicroMAX provides a superior wide area air interface 802.16 protocol designed specifically for high performance in sectors with a large number of subscriber units. In addition MicroMAX's use of 256 FFT OFDM provides superior multi-path immunity, and double the spectral efficiency of non WiMAX products that use 802.11 derived air interfaces.

Commenting on the announcement, Eric Stonestrom, Airspan's CEO and president, said, "We are pleased to have these new products and frequency variants that allow us to address these exciting new markets and get access to new customers. Our unique products in the unlicensed band will be able to serve a large addressable market in addition to the highly visible licensed bands."