Personal Broadband Australia (PBBA) has completed an extensive customer trial of its iBurst network in Sydney, placing the service firmly on track for a Q4 commercial launch. (See Electronics News 13 Feb 03 page 3.)
Under the trial, more than 400 users were given two months of unlimited access to the network throughout Sydney via PCMCIA-card modems manufactured by Kyocera and installed in customers’ notebook PCs. Users reported strong data rates of up to 1 Mbit/s in urban ranges of up to 5 km, with speeds of up to 600 kbit/s seen at 12 km. Some users also experienced indoor penetration from out-of-sight base stations more than 4 km away.
Trial participants used a variety of common Internet applications, off-the-shelf computing platforms, and standard operating systems, requiring no more than a few minutes of self-guided modem installation at the outset of the trial
Concurrent with the user trial, extensive engineering evaluations of the system’s performance have shown it to meet or exceed pre-deployment expectations. The trial has validated conclusively the advantages ArrayComm’s fully-adaptive antenna technology provides in wireless networks, according to PBBA’s CEO Charles Reed.
“Given the remarkable success of this technical trial, we are moving at full speed to put the finishing touches on the back end systems and other parts of our operation, and we are anxious to go live with commercial customers later this year,” Reed says.
The company also provided feedback from a range of trial users, including St George Bank, Portal Software (who will conduct billing services for the system - see Electronics News 9 Oct 03 page 4) and Telecom New Zealand Australia. “We have loaned iBurst cards to some of our customers and they can immediately see the potential iBurst offers for their business,” TNZA solutions general manager Chris Carlisle says. “We are planning to integrate iBurst into our Mobile Office solutions so that our customers can use it to access their office applications while they are on the move.”
Echo Solutions managing director Tony Mulry echoes the sentiments. “Corporates, after using the service, will wonder how they survived without it.”
ArrayComm’s iBurst technology allows broadband transmission over unpaired frequencies in the 3G portion of the RF spectrum. The heart of the system is ArrayComm’s patented smart antenna technology.
“We are delighted by the success of our iBurst strategy in this and our other trials in Asia,” ArrayComm president and CEO Sam Endy comments. “The feedback is consistent—our decision to design a truly mobile broadband wireless solution from the ground up, as well as our business model choice of entrusting equipment development and manufacturing to Kyocera and LG Electronics, are paying handsome returns in the form of unmatched system performance and traction with major operators.”