Aiirmesh Communications Uses Tropos Equipment to Go Live with America's First Unwired Wi-Fi City.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 2004

The City of Cerritos, California, Now Covered

with Broadband Metro-Scale Wi-Fi Network 

Tropos Networks, a leading supplier of equipment used to build metro-scale Wi-Fi networks, today announced that Aiirmesh Communications of Woodland Hills, California, has unwired the City of Cerritos, California, with metro-scale cellular Wi-Fi equipment from Tropos and has gone live with the first service using the network. The Tropos 5110 Wi-Fi cells were used in Cerritos to create the first city in the country with ubiquitous broadband wireless connectivity available to residents, businesses, local government and nomadic mobile users.

"The carrier-class cellular mesh products from Tropos enabled us to provide complete coverage throughout Cerritos in the most efficient and economical manner possible," said Stan Hirschman, CEO of Aiirmesh Communications. "In addition, the Tropos products open up a completely unique subscriber market for Aiirmesh...the mobile broadband user."

The Tropos gear was used by Aiirmesh to quickly build a network that delivers true broadband to a variety of subscribers within the borders of Cerritos, an area of approximately nine square miles. Aiirmesh offers several service plans, including the Aiirmesh At-Home(TM) service for the residential user, Aiirmesh In-Town(TM) plans for the mobile user, and Aiirmesh Business-Pro(TM) for the corporate customer who needs dedicated bandwidth. The In-Town service, which allows users to purchase Wi-Fi service in hourly, daily, or monthly blocks, is the first offering to go live; visitors of Cerritos today can access this service with a standard Wi-Fi enabled client, such as a laptop computer or a PDA. The Aiirmesh At-Home and Business-Pro services are currently being rolled-out in a staged, planned manner and are now available for pre-subscription.

The City of Cerritos has had, until now, limited access to broadband data. No areas of the city are covered by cable broadband, and only a portion of the city has DSL service capability, providing inconsistent service at best. Aiirmesh has eliminated this broadband deficiency by offering every resident, business and visitor access to true broadband connectivity utilizing the metro-scale Wi-Fi equipment from Tropos Networks.

The Tropos 5110 Wi-Fi cell, an outdoor-optimized and ruggedized node based on the 802.11 standard, uses the intelligent Predictive Wireless Routing Protocol (PWRP) to provide pervasive coverage city-wide. The Tropos PWRP routes traffic wirelessly, effectively eliminating up to 95% of the wired backhaul requirements associated with traditional access point, or hotspot, solutions. The Tropos Wi-Fi cells form a wireless mesh, dynamically routing traffic along the highest throughput path to the wired gateway. This intelligent routing negates effects of radio frequency (RF) interference, backhaul failure, and traffic loads by selecting the best-performing route to a wired backhaul point. PWRP also scales to thousands of nodes with the lowest routing overhead in the industry.

"The Tropos solution is purpose-built for this type of application," said Ron Sege, President and CEO of Tropos Networks. "This is, without a doubt, the quickest and most economical way for a service provider to deliver true metro-scale broadband. Wired backhaul is used very efficiently, truck rolls are eliminated due to the use of standard Wi-Fi clients, and the network can be installed and extended quickly and easily in response to subscriber growth. The result is unprecedented bandwidth, coverage and mobility."

The City of Cerritos is one of the largest users of the Aiirmesh network. They have agreed to service subscriptions for many of their mobile employees, including city maintenance workers, code enforcement officers and building inspectors. In addition to being a user of the Aiirmesh service, the city is committed to the deployment of Community Broadband to all of the residents and businesses of Cerritos.

About Tropos Networks, Inc.

Tropos Networks, Inc. is a leading supplier of systems used to build metro-scale, outdoor Wi-Fi networks. Tropos unique Wi-Fi cells, along with the first element manager to control large Wi-Fi networks, enable public agencies and service providers to deliver ubiquitous, metro-scale, broadband wireless data to users in any locale. The Tropos solution creates truly wireless and carrier-class broadband networks that are low cost and easy to install and scale. The Tropos cellular mesh architecture, patent-pending protocols and optimized radios eliminate the need for backhaul at every node and deliver maximum bandwidth regardless of conditions. Tropos products enable larger coverage areas, decreased installation costs and decreased operational costs. Tropos Networks is headquartered in San Mateo, California. For more information, please visit www.tropos.com, call 650-286-4250 or write to [e-mail].

Tropos Networks and Tropos are trademarks of Tropos Networks, Inc. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holder(s).

About Aiirmesh Communications

Formed by a group of experienced Internet telecommunications and wireless technology experts, Aiirmesh is a value added reseller and provider of end-to-end solutions for Wi-Fi high-speed community broadband Internet services. Aiirmesh creates networks to meet the needs of consumers, public safety and enterprises. Working with Affiliate partners throughout North America, Aiirmesh designs, deploys and provides network management services.

Aiirmesh is a privately held company based in Woodland Hills, CA, with offices in Highland Ranch, CO, and Plano, TX. The Company can be reached at Aiirmesh Communications, 20335 Ventura Blvd. Suite 425, Woodland Hills, CA 91364. Phone: [phone].