Navini Networks

Navini Networks was a company that developed an Internet access system based on WiMAX wireless communication standards. This access system was subsequently acquired by Cisco Systems in October, 2007.

Company

In January 2000, Wu-Fu Chen and Guanghan Xu formed Navini Networks and developed a wireless Internet access system. The company was based in Richardson, Texas and was privately funded by several investment-funds.[1]

In 2001 it was awarded the 'Start-Up of the Year' award by KPMG and in 2002 it won some national and regional prizes. Between the formation and early 2003 it attracted $66.5 million from private investors and employed 130 employees.[1]

When it was sold in October 2007 for $330 million to Cisco Systems, Navini had 70 customers.[2] A Navini customer would be an

Products

Navini developed a WiMAX wireless internet-access infrastructure consisting of two main parts: the central headend system with the special antennas and the RipWave modems or customer premises equipment

The Navini products offered a non line-of-sight wireless access system. The popular Wi-Fi systems require an unobstructed view between the antenna of the transmitter and the receiver for a good reception of the signals: when the view is obstructed the signal strength decreases and the reach of the signal is very small. By using a technique called spot beaming, normally used in satellite communications, it was possible to use radio-signals on frequencies that would normally require an unobstructed path between the transmitter and receiver or high-power transmitters.

A Navini system consists of one management-system, one or more base-systems and the user-modems or customer premises equipment.

Ripwave EMS

At the heart of a Navini-based internet access system is the EMS or Element Management System. The EMS is a network management system and can manage one or more base-systems. The EMS is a server application to manage the base-systems and end-user equipment. The Navibi EMS is a Java based IP-network management system and could run on a Windows or SUN server platform using SNMP.[3]

Base System

The base system is the head-end equipment to which users within the reach connect to. A base-system can be compared to a base system or GSM-mast in a cellular telephone network. The central system consisted of an indoor unit and an outdoor eight element antenna system.[4] A single BTS could allow up to 1000 end users connected to it. An end-user could connect to different base-systems, depending on which station gave the best connection at that time, but it wasn't possible to 'hop' from one BTS to another without losing the connection: the system wasn't designed for mobile communication. The Ripwave system is based on the TD-SCDMA technology and one of the founders of the company, Dr. Xu, wrote the initial drafts for this standard.[5]

The RipWave system was one of the first land-based systems for private use that uses spot-beaming to realise the non-line of sight connection between the CPE and the BTS. Spot-beaming is used in satellite communications to aim a signal from a satellite to a specific area and so increase the signal-strength in that area.

Originally the base-station was sold as the RipWave MX8 system but after the acquisition of the company by Cisco the base-systems were sold as Cisco BWX 8300 series until it was marked as End of Life in 2008.[6]

Customer premises equipment

To get access to a Navini WiMAX base-system the customer uses a special radio-transceiver: the customer premises equipment or CPE. The Navini CPEs or modems introduced since September 2007 are based on the IEEE 802.16 standard.[8] The old modems, sold as BWX100 systems, are EOL from 18 September 2009.[9]

A CPE consists of a modem, which is in reality a radio transceiver, and has a built-on antenna. To improve signal-quality it is possible to connect an external antenna to the modem. The Ripwave CPE uses an active antenna. Although the Ripwave technology doesn't support the active handover of a call from one base-station to another (such as in cellular networks) it does support nomadic use: a CPE isn't fixed to a specific base-station: if the provider allows it, a CPE connect to any base-station in their network or even allow connections from modems of another ISP's.[10]

fate	Acquired by Cisco
foundation	2000-01-01
founder	Wu-Fu Chen and Guanghan Xu
defunct	2007-10-23
location city	Richardson, Texas
location country	USA
industry	Telecommunications
products	Ripwave WiMAX

Company

Products

Ripwave EMS

Base System

Customer premises equipment

High costs

External links

References