This experimental license allows the company to conduct nationwide trials of new products and technologies at 2.5 GHz and in the newly created 4.9 GHz public safety band.
In response to the national tragedy of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent advent of the Department of Homeland Security, the FCC dedicated the 4.9 GHz band exclusively for use by the public safety community.
The new designation is intended to support bandwidth-intensive applications like video on demand and VoIP, as well as providing instant access to critical information and databases.
MeshNetworks solutions leverage battlefield networking technology originally developed for the US military under DARPA directed programs.
As a result, the company's products contain important capabilities not found in fixed mesh networking solutions including: a layer 2 routing engine, ultra-fast route acquisition, dynamic bandwidth allocation (fairness), real-time congestion management, QoS, assignable user priority, mobile handovers, infrastructureless peer to peer capability and proven scalability.
"Many public safety agencies are already benefiting from the capabilities of our MeshNetworks Enabled Architecture (MEA)(R) technology," stated Peter Stanforth, CTO of MeshNetworks.
"This experimental license will allow us to test and deploy a range of solutions that operate in the newly designated 4.9 GHz public safety band. We are pleased to be the recipient of this grant from the FCC and look forward to continuing to serve the communication needs of the public safety community."
Specifically, the grant allows MeshNetworks to deploy a total of 1000 nodes, with a maximum of 200 per demonstration network. These quantities will enable the company to deploy metro scale demonstration networks.
Each node is licensed to operate with a maximum Effective Radiated Power (ERP) of up 16W. The FCC had already granted MeshNetworks extensive experimental and demonstration rights in the 2.4 Ghz and 5.8 Ghz bands