OnFiber extends network with Terabeam's wireless gigabit ethernet system.

Terabeam Corporation, a provider of broadband wireless systems, and OnFiber Communications, a provider of metro optical solutions, announced recently that OnFiber is the first carrier to use Terabeam's Gigalink gigabit Ethernet (GigE) wireless fiber system to extend its fiber optic network to serve additional customers.

The carrier's first deployment of Terabeam's GigE Gigalink provides service to Overture, a global leader in commercial search services on the Internet. OnFiber is using the Terabeam GigE Gigalink to extend service from the Pasadena headquarters of Overture, which is already connected to its fiber network.

The GigE Gigalink provides OnFiber the ability to provide alternative connectivity options to its existing customer base as well as expand its network reach. Currently, OnFiber operates fiber optic networks in 14 major metropolitan areas throughout the United States. In order to support future implementations, the OnFiber operations and engineering teams have completed Terabeam certification training.

"OnFiber has a robust infrastructure in all of its metros; however, our network is not ubiquitous. Terabeam's GigE Gigalink is one of the solutions that allowed OnFiber to connect Overture's corporate locations and address our customer's requirement for reliability at nearly one-tenth the cost of the alternative solutions," said Michael Guess, chief operating officer, OnFiber. "Terabeam's GigE Gigalink gave us the quickest and simplest way to provide the kind of cost-effective, high-quality service our customers expect from OnFiber."

"Our wireless fiber solutions are the ideal network complement to trenched fiber, especially in situations where fiber is cost prohibitive, where physical impediments make it difficult to deploy or where spatial diversity is desired," said Dan Hesse, Terabeam's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "OnFiber has been successfully expanding its fiber networks in the U.S. and we are now working together to deliver wireless fiber solutions to meet their customers' needs."

Terabeam's GigE Gigalink is the first radio frequency (RF) product certified by the FCC that provides full duplex Gigabit line rates. The GigE Gigalink provides an interface to a customer's communications network that transmits and receives signals at 1.25 gigabits per second (Gbps), which is equivalent to over 650 T-1 lines.