Telabria Announces Plans for UK-Based WiMAX Network

Telabria, the award-winning UK wireless network provider, has announced plans to build the first WiMAX network in the United Kingdom. The network, which is now under construction, will deliver high-speed wireless broadband services to residential, business and enterprise customers in the South East of England, and provide backhaul for Telabria's growing installed base of WiFi hotspots in the region. The service will commence trials in January, with a commercial launch by mid 2005. “We're extremely excited about the network we're building,” said Jim Baker, Telabria founder and Chief Executive Officer, speaking at the WiMAX World Conference in Boston. “WiMAX is a revolutionary standard which, over the next few years, will fundamentally change the structure of broadband networks”. In September Telabria joined the WiMAX Forum, the industry body formed to promote and certify the compatibility and interoperability of IEEE 802.16 broadband wireless products.

Telabria is deploying its network initially in the county of Kent, which has a population of over one and a half million people in an area of 1,442 square miles. The company intends to deliver wireless broadband services uniting voice, video and data, to urban and suburban centers as well as to rural regions currently underserved by copper-based broadband. “We believe that in the UK market WiMAX-based services can compete head-on with fixed-line residential and SOHO contended broadband such as ADSL, as well as offering SME customers a wireless alternative to uncontended T1/E1, leased line or faster services,” continued Baker. “To enable this we have designed a hybrid wireless distribution network using technologies that offer excellent performance, scalable capacity, carrier-grade Quality of Service (QoS), rapid provisioning, and low-cost subscriber units”.

Telabria will be deploying 802.16 compliant equipment, upon which WiMAX is based, for both backhaul and point-to-multipoint links. For the 'last mile' connection to subscribers, Telabria has chosen SkyPilot Network of Belmont, California and its carrier class SkyPilot System. Jim Baker explains: “While WiMAX offers us a perfect medium for getting high bandwidth from our fiber points into target service areas, it's going to be some while before subscriber units - the devices needed by our customers to get a broadband connection - reach a price that is cost effective in residential and SOHO markets. SkyPilot offers a highly scalable and complimentary 5.8GHz 802.11-based solution today where indoor and outdoor subscriber units capable of around 3Mbps throughput are competitively priced today; by comparison, we expect initial WiMAX CPE to be at least three times the cost of an equivalent SkyPilot solution. While this may be acceptable for enterprise customers, it would severely affect any opportunity for residential and SOHO market penetration where we're offering a wireless DSL replacement. By combining 802.16 compliant equipment with SkyPilot's highly efficient yet low-cost 802.11-based system, we have created a hybrid infrastructure that enables Telabria to launch a service and acquire subscribers today.”

“Telabria is an innovator in wireless mesh and continues to demonstrate its leadership with this hybrid deployment that combines the industry's leading carrier-class mesh from SkyPilot and high-performance WiMAX-ready backhaul while providing the industry a model of integration of 802.16 and 802.11 technologies to deliver ubiquitous, affordable broadband offerings to the UK market,” said Mark B. Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of SkyPilot Network. “Our advanced designs built upon a foundation of industry standards have allowed us to provide our customers worldwide with products to meet their market requirements, and we are pleased to be working with Telabria to bring the benefits and features of the SkyPilot System to their customers today and in the future.”

Over the last nine months, Telabria has been building wireless networks that deliver broadband services to rural communities where telephone exchanges have not been enabled for broadband or which are too far from the local exchange to get a connection. The existing satellite backhaul in these communities will be replaced with WiMAX backhaul during 2005. Simultaneously, Telabria has been deploying WiFi hotspots in Central London, Essex, Sussex, Surrey and Kent at a rate of 25 per month, and which are expected to number over 400 by mid 2005. Located in pubs, inns, hotels, and public libraries, and currently using ADSL for backhaul, Telabria expects to switch them all to wireless backhaul. “With its high aggregate capacity and non line of sight (NLOS) characteristics, WiMAX is ideal for backhauling from multiple hotspots, and we want to completely cut out any reliance on the copper local loop as soon as possible”, said Jim Baker. “Furthermore, our WiFi hotspots of today will also be our WiMAX points-of-presence (POPs) of tomorrow, enabling us to build networks where our customers are always 'best connected' wherever they are in our coverage area.”

“Telabria's planned network is a prime example of how emerging technology such as WiMAX can revitalize urban and rural economic growth in areas such as my constituency,” said Derek Wyatt MP, Chairman of the All Party Internet Group and Telabria's local Member of Parliament. “Not only will this network be the one of the first of its kind in the world, but local residents and businesses will benefit from the significant improvement in broadband access across the entire region, where many today have none at all”.

Recent Issues