BridgeWave Announces New Family of Extended Range 80GHz Point-to-Point Outdoor Wireless Products to Deliver Unprecedented Link Availability in All Weather Conditions.

New York Metro Medical Center Adopts BridgeWave's AR80X for Unique Wireless-over-Water Application to Share Critical Healthcare Data and IT Systems with Staten Island Hospital

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- BridgeWave Communications, the leading supplier of gigabit wireless solutions, today introduced a new family of high-speed, gigabit wireless links that feature extended-range antennas for market-leading network uptime and improved GigE performance. The new Gigabit Ethernet 80GHz Extended Range (GE80X) and AdaptRate[TM] 80GHz Extended Range (AR80X) are the first point-to-point, licensed outdoor wireless products to deliver "four nines" or better link availability at distances over two miles.

BridgeWave's new wireless links include two-foot antennas to reach 40 percent farther than previous products, making them ideally suited for a wider variety of enterprise connectivity as well as network operator access applications. Enterprises now have greater opportunities for inter-building LAN extensions while network operators can reach two-times more sites from a given rooftop. Aside from improved uptime, BridgeWave's narrow antenna beamwidths offer enhanced data security as well as interference and interception immunity. In addition, the company's AR80X model offers a unique capability that momentarily switches the link from GigE to 100Mbps transmission to provide continuous operation, even during moments of intense downpours.

According to Gregg Levin, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for BridgeWave, the GE80X and AR80X are important additions to the company's portfolio of high-speed, reliable and economical wireless links. "Our new extended range product line sets the standard for bandwidth capacity and network availability," he says. "With these new products, we are exceeding our customers' expectations for network speed, security and availability."

For Bayonne Medical Center in Hudson County, N.J., BridgeWave's new AR80X wireless links play an instrumental role in a state-of-the-art networking plan to consolidate IT services with newly acquired Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island, N.Y. When the projected cost for building a separate data center to support RUMC topped $1 million, focus was placed on finding an optimal solution that would enable the hospitals to share access to critical computing systems, applications and data while ensuring the highest levels of HIPAA compliance.

Bayonne's IT team first rejected a bandwidth-constrained 45Mbps leased-line solution that would exceed $5,000 in monthly fees. They also ruled out aggregating multiple 52Mbps wireless radios as well as optical wireless using free-space optics because neither technology met their reliability or distance requirements. However, BridgeWave's new AR80X product could easily bridge the 2.25-mile distance between the hospitals, which included clear line-of-sight over a busy waterway that spans Upper New York Bay and Newark Bay.

According to Anthony Antinori, IT director at Bayonne Medical Center, only BridgeWave's licensed AR80X product could deliver sufficient bandwidth and better than 99.99 percent link availability in all weather conditions. "BridgeWave's new AR80X was the only product on the market that met all the criteria for security, uptime and capacity with our unique wireless-over-water application," he says. "We installed dual, aggregated GigE BridgeWave AR80X links that give us all the capacity we'll ever need, peace of mind with the AdaptRate technology and the fastest return on investment when compared to leased-line alternatives."

With the largest installed base of GigE radios worldwide, BridgeWave continues to gain significant market traction. The company's high-performance, economical and secure wireless products are highly viable alternatives to fiber for LAN backbone extensions, high-capacity access services as well as emerging WiMAX/4G mobile backhaul applications.

According to Craig Mathias, a principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group, BridgeWave's GigE wireless products address a substantial and growing market opportunity. "The need for much higher performance in point-to-point broadband wireless links is being driven by both enterprise and operator requirements," he says. "With corporate networks supporting ever-increasing volumes of data, including time-bounded traffic, and with carriers deploying mobile broadband services to an ever-larger audience, GigE is beyond nice-to-have -- it's now essential."

Availability and pricing:

The GE80X and AR80X products are available now from BridgeWave's partners worldwide at a starting MSRP of $36,900 and $39,900, respectively.

About BridgeWave Communications

Founded in 1999, BridgeWave Communications is the leading supplier of Gigabit Ethernet outdoor wireless connectivity solutions. The company's exclusive AdaptRate[TM] technology and Forward Error Correction capabilities deliver the highest availability at the longest distances for full-rate GigE solutions. BridgeWave's point-to-point, fixed wireless solutions are ideally suited for a wide variety of enterprise, service provider, healthcare, education, public safety and government/military network applications. With the largest installed base of GigE radios worldwide, BridgeWave delivers the highest levels of product quality and reliability. For more information, visit www.bridgewave.com.