Article Excerpt:
TWST: We would like to begin with a brief historical sketch of BelAir Networks and a picture of the things you are doing at the present time.Mr. Herscovich: BelAir Networks started three years ago, in November 2003. Of course, three years ago, wireless mesh was not the booming field that it is today, but we saw the opportunities presented by this new network topology and we invested in the development of our products. Since then, we've completed three rounds of financing including top-tier investors such as T-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom AG, and, more recently Comcast Interactive Capital, the venture capital fund affiliated with Comcast Corporation, the largest cable company in the US. There is strong and growing interest in wireless mesh technologies from top-tier companies like T-Mobile and Comcast.
TWST: Can you briefly explain wireless mesh and then also your particular
version of it, shall we say?
Mr. Herscovich: Wireless mesh is a new way of deploying and interconnecting
wireless networks which is particularly suitable for high-density applications.
Think of downtown New York City; lots of tall buildings, a grid of streets. A
typical wireless deployment would place equipment on the top of one of these
igh-rise buildings and then distribute the signal in a radius or area
surrounding that unit. But this approach is not ideal for providing coverage. A
much better solution is emerging now where units are instead placed on street
lamps. They interconnect to each other forming what's called a mesh, a highly
redundant topology, and interconnection between these units is done wirelessly.
It's very inexpensive and the net result is much better coverage in urban areas,
much higher capacity in the network, and the ability to support the "Quad Play"
services: voice, video, data and mobility. In fact, delivering carrier-grade
voice services is emerging as one of the key drivers for wireless mesh
deployments.
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