3Com Announces New High-Speed Wireless Bridges to Extend Enterprise Networks With Outdoor and Indoor Wireless.

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. -- 3Com Offers New High-Speed 11g Wireless Bridges to Connect Buildings, Such as on a Campus, and Save on Wiring Costs Between Buildings

3Com Corporation (Nasdaq: COMS) today announced new 802.11g building-to-building wireless bridges that allow customers to connect two or more buildings through secure, high-speed wireless connections. As part of 3Com's network extension solutions, the 3Com(R) wireless bridges are ideal for customers who want to save on the costs of wiring or re-wiring between buildings within 10 miles of each other. 3Com offers two types of wireless bridges - a fixed, self-enclosed outdoor bridge and an indoor bridge with a variety of antenna options - to give customers a choice, based on their unique deployment requirements. Various businesses, schools, government offices or healthcare facilities can use the building-to-building wireless bridges to transfer information and images, provide reliable Internet access, and support mobile users as a cost-effective extension of a central network.

"We continue to enhance and add to 3Com's wide variety of wireless solutions for enterprise customers, consistent with the renewed 3Com wireless blueprint we unveiled last month," said Brent Nixon, director of enterprise wireless product management, 3Com. "The cost savings of reliably connecting buildings through advanced wireless technology is attractive to our customers with either small-to-medium-sized or large campus networks. Companies that are building a new building can consider the benefit of high-speed wireless technology in a way they may not have automatically considered earlier."

"We have successfully used 3Com's wireless bridges to bring Internet connectivity to a temporary site that houses classrooms for the district," said Steve Dantinne, supervisor of technology, Vineland Public Schools. "By upgrading to the 11g high-speed wireless bridge, we will be able to provide the bandwidth needed for a variety of applications and multimedia content for our students."

3Com's Building-to-Building Wireless Bridges Span Out For High-Speed Connections

3Com's new 11g wireless bridges include indoor and outdoor "bridge" systems that deliver up to 54 Mbps of network performance. Traditionally, this building-to-building connection was done by digging trenches and running fiber (at costs up to 10 times the cost of a wireless bridge), or provisioning T1 lines (at a fraction of the bandwidth, yet with significant monthly service charges) between buildings, or using slower 802.11b wireless bridging equipment. However, new, standards-based, building-to-building wireless technology gives customers a new option for high-speed connectivity. Furthermore, even for organizations with existing wired infrastructure in place between buildings, the building-to-building wireless bridges are a valuable add-on that brings inexpensive and practical redundancy to supplement existing connectivity.

The 3Com Wireless 11g 54 Mbps Outdoor Building-to-Building Bridge is designed to be mounted on the outside of a building and to link via wireless to either an outdoor or indoor bridge at another building. The outdoor wireless bridge is concealed in a National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) weather-proof enclosure, specifically designed to stand up to harsh environmental conditions. The product has a built-in, high-gain antenna, which helps increase performance by reducing the distance between the radio and the antenna. This bridge is an appealing choice for customers who want fixed lines of wireless network connectivity for the long term, and they opt for external systems to save space inside and to minimize the need to adjust the antenna.

Customers can position the 3Com Wireless 11g 54 Mbps Indoor Building-to-Building Bridge inside the building while having an antenna mounted inside or outside the building, optimized for performance and security. The system extends the corporate network over the wireless connection to an indoor bridge positioned at another building, extensively ranging from a few feet away to within 10 miles. For exceptional configurability, the indoor bridges can be used with a variety of antennas that can be purchased separately. Also, this indoor bridge can be used to span wide open areas within buildings, such as warehouses or airplane hangars, for connectivity to another area without the time or expense of pulling wires.

Using the wireless bridges enables customers to save on the monthly costs of T1 (or E1, internationally) for connectivity between buildings. Furthermore, the high-speed bridges can be up to 30 times faster than traditional wired WANs (i.e. T1 lines) between buildings, and customers gain the advantage of owning the connections between buildings, as opposed to only using a part of the public network with T1. In addition, trenching fiber cables between buildings is expensive and can become exceedingly difficult when buildings are at a distance and the customer does not own every piece of land in between. Therefore, high-speed wireless bridges have emerged as a viable alternative to trenching expensive cables.

Pricing and Availability

The 3Com Wireless 11g 54 Mbps Indoor Building-to-Building Bridge is priced at $990 (US list). The 3Com Wireless 11g 54 Mbps Outdoor Building-to-Building Bridge is priced at $1599 (US list). Both bridges are expected to ship in late September.

About 3Com Corporation

3Com is a leading provider of innovative, practical and high-value voice and data networking products, services and solutions for enterprises of all sizes and public sector organizations. For further information, please visit www.3com.com, or the press site www.3com.com/pressbox.

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