Energis pins wireless broadband hopes on illegal network

Energis is considering using innovative, but currently illegal radio technologies to get its wireless broadband licences on the European market.

Rather than broadcast to broadband fixed wireless receivers from a single station, Energis is experimenting with new technology that allows data to be sent back and forth from every point on the network. Unfortunately the technology they want to use is currently outlawed.

The company is in talks with Caly Networks about deploying an IP-based system based on Time Division Duplexing (TDD), using the 28GHz wireless fixed broadband licences which Energis bought at auction last year.

In order to deploy the technology Energis will need to gain regulatory approval from the Radiocommunications Agency, and wireless broadband licences will have to be augmented to cover TDD before it can be used. However, Caly Networks has been in talks with them for some time which is positive.

TDD lets all the points in the network send information back and forth to each other, creating a flexible mesh which can send data packets much more efficiently than point-to-multipoint network.

The system will initially appeal to companies that spend £500 to 800 per month on data communications, says Cees van der Stoep, Caly Networks's vice president of sales and marketing.

Van der Stoep expects it to be deployed by the second quarter of 2002 if Energis decides to adopt the system, but an implementation by Caly for high-speed datacoms services company Utfors in Sweden is likely to be the first in Europe.