Wireless Rocks The Monopoly, Part Two

Lucent's ORiNOCO Outdoor Solution (consisting of the ORiNOCO Central Outdoor Router (COR), the ORiNOCO Remote Outdoor Router (ROR), and the Outdoor Router Client software) frees ISPs from local exchange carriers.

By Wayne Kawamoto

[September 15, 2000]

Hardware
Lucent Technologies unveiled a wider choice of certified outdoor antennas for its ORiNOCO Outdoor Router system. According to the company, the new antennas (a 24 dBi Directional Parabolic Grid, 12 dBi Directional Wide Angle, and 10 dBi Omni Directional) let ISPs offer high-speed wireless networking and Internet access with ranges of up to 26 kilometers (point-to-point). The new antennas join the existing family of ORiNOCO antennas that include 14 dBi directional Yagi and the 7 dBi omni directional antennas. The antennas may be mixed-and-matched to meet specific geographic coverage requirements.

Lucent claims that the more powerful antennas reduce wireless infrastructure costs by requiring fewer central outdoor routers to service an area, and give system integrators and ISPs more flexibility in designing their wireless network configurations.

"Now, ISPs and system integrators can come to Lucent for one-stop shopping: outdoor routers, antennas, cabling, pigtails, surge arrestors, the whole package," says Rob Jansen, product manager for the ORiNOCO Outdoor Solution. "Lucent now provides a wide variety of complete outdoor antennas and hardware bundles, tested and certified to work together, so that the ISP or system integrator does not have to take the time and expense to get antennas and systems certified to work together."

Pricing and Availability
A complete Outdoor Router Solution starts at $4270. This 11 Mbps point-to-point link includes two Remote Outdoor Routers, two PC Cards, two antennas and all related manuals, surge arrestors, cabling, and mounting equipment.

Software
Lucent's new client software completes the ORiNOCO Outdoor Solution (the ORiNOCO Central Outdoor Router (COR), the ORiNOCO Remote Outdoor Router (ROR), and the Outdoor Router Client software). With the Outdoor Router Client, an ISP can provide high-speed unlicensed wireless connectivity for residential customers with data rates of up to 11 Mbit/s between residential homes and the Point-of-Presence (POP) of the ISP, especially in rural areas. The ISP remains independent of the local exchange carrier while offering customers a cost effective and immediate wireless broadband connection.

The Outdoor Router Client (ORC) is an NDIS Miniport driver that runs on Windows 95, 98, and NT. This driver enables an ORiNOCO Fixed Wireless PC Card (11 Mbit/s) to communicate to with the Central Outdoor Router (COR).

Availability
You can download the software.

After you have downloaded the software, use the license number in the copy you downloaded to fill out the form.

Update: Some information available here.

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"Wireless ISPs Are Here"

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