Mimosa Networks Launches Its First Gigabit Wireless Products

Via Tech Crunch

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Mimosa Networks is finally ready to help make gigabit wireless technology a reality. The company, which recently came out of stealth, is launching a series of products that it hopes to sell to a new generation of wireless ISPs.

Its wireless Internet products include its new B5 Backhaul radio hardware and its Mimosa Cloud Services planning and analytics offering. By using the two in combination, new ISPs can build high-capacity wireless networks at a fraction of the cost it would take to lay a fiber network.

The B5 backhaul radio is a piece of hardware that uses multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) technology to provide up to 16 streams and 4 Gbps of output when multiple radios are using the same channel.

With a single B5 radio, customers can provide a gigabit of throughput for up to eight or nine miles, according to co-founder and chief product officer Jaime Fink. The longer the distance, the less bandwidth is available, of course. But Fink said the company is running one link of about 60 miles that still gets a several hundred megabits of throughput along the California coast.

Not only does the product offer high data speeds on 5 GHz wireless spectrum, but it also makes that spectrum more efficient. It uses spectrum analysis and load balancing to optimize bandwidth, frequency, and power use based on historical and real-time data to adapt to wireless interference and other issues.

In addition to the hardware, Mimosa’s cloud services will help customers plan and deploy networks with analytics tools to determine how powerful and efficiently their existing equipment is running. That will enable new ISPs to more effectively determine where to place new hardware to link up with other base stations.

The product also is designed to support networks as they grow, and it makes sure that ISPs can spot problems as they happen. The Cloud Services product is available now, but the backhaul radio will be available for about $900 later this fall.

Mimosa is launching these first products after raising $38 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates and Oak Investment Partners. That includes a $20 million Series C round led by return investor NEA that was recently closed.

The company was founded by Brian Hinman, who had previously co-founded PictureTel, Polycom, and 2Wire, along with Fink, who previously served as CTO of 2Wire and SVP of technology for Pace after it acquired the home networking equipment company. Now they’re hoping to make wireless gigabit speeds available for new ISPs.