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Arcwave Touts Wireless Plant Extension Benefits Over Other Wireless Solutions at Cable Industry Conferences

Posted on: Tuesday, 3 January 2006, 09:00 CST

Arcwave, Inc., a provider of wireless solutions for the cable industry, today announced that Chris Martin, vice president of marketing for the company, will present the case for Wireless Plant Extension (WPE) technology at the upcoming 2006 NTCA Broadband Summit in Las Vegas, January 11-13. The company also announced that Martin's recent presentation on WPE at the Cable Television and Broadband Expo 2005 received a positive response from cable operators.

At the NTCA event, Martin will explain how rural and small cable operators can use WPE technology to extend their existing cable services to the millions of underserved small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Martin will speak as a part of the "Wireless Broadband Access Technologies" panel on January 12, from 1:30 - 3:00 p.m.

Earlier this month, at the Second Annual Cable Television and Broadband Expo 2005, Martin participated as a member of the "Getting Down to Business" panel. As a part of the panel, Martin emphasized the service benefits of WPE over other wireless technologies such as WiMAX and WiFi that offer broad coverage, but lack the business-class service transparency required to profitably penetrate the commercial services market. Several cable operators on the panel concurred with Martin and indicated their preference for WPE solutions to extend their voice and data services to the SMB segment.

Martin further emphasized that general purpose wireless solutions based on WiFi or WiMAX protocols can effectively provide broadband services for hotspot or rural market applications respectively by creating service islands. However, unlike WPE, these technologies do not support delivery of standard cable modem or optical Ethernet services and require the creation of new service offerings based on their own underlying protocols. In addition, because of start-up costs and other operating expenses, these wireless solutions will actually provide lower operating margins than services delivered over a standard wired network.

"Only 40 percent of SMBs in the U.S. currently have access to broadband services and 90 percent of SMBs are within a mile or two of cable plant infrastructure," said Martin. "But, it has been too expensive for cable operators to physically extend their network to reach these new commercial customers. Now, with WPE, cable companies can easily expand their footprint to service this lucrative market, and significantly improve profit margins without building out their network or substantially increasing operating costs. At the same time, they can deliver business-class service that far surpasses other wireless protocols."

Wireless Plant Extension differs from other wireless solutions in its ability to extend standard cable service offerings into new markets at minimal expense. Cable operators can deploy and manage WPE wireless equipment using existing field engineers and network management systems. Moreover, since WPE provides a transparent bridge from the cable plant to the customer modem, the cable operators' startup costs are limited to training and network integration.

About Arcwave

Arcwave is the leading developer and provider of wireless plant extension solutions for the cable industry. Arcwave's products enable domestic and international multiple system operators (MSOs) to leverage the latest wireless technologies to extend the reach of their existing services and to increase service offerings within their current plant and operating infrastructure. The company has patented technology and experience in the wireless industry combined with a unique understanding of the MSO business model. Arcwave's solutions are designed for "plug and play" deployment and leverage existing and future technologies, such as Wireless DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification), 802.11, 802.16d and 802.16e. Arcwave's ARCXtend product has been deployed by 14 of the top 15 cable system operators in more than 100 regions of the country. The company is funded by Vulcan Capital, Venrock Associates, SBV Venture Partners, Comcast Interactive Capital and Mayfield.

For more information about Arcwave and ARCXtend, visit www.arcwaveinc.com.

ARCXtend is a trademark of Arcwave, Inc., and DOCSIS is a registered trademark of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Source: Business Wire

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