Orthogon Systems Expands WiMAX-Compatible Product Line with Launch of OS-Spectra Lite; Carrier-Grade Connectivity; High Performance at a Lower Price Point

Business Wire, Oct 26, 2005

BOSTON -- Orthogon Systems, a leading provider of fixed wireless solutions for reliable connectivity in difficult environments, today announced the launch of OS-Spectra Lite, a secure point-to-point wireless Ethernet bridge that delivers the same reliable, carrier-grade connectivity and high performance as the OS-Spectra at a lower entry-level price. Capable of connecting separate networks for up to 125 miles with performance of up to 150 Mbps aggregate user throughput and fully WiMAX compatible, the OS-Spectra Lite has been specifically designed to address the high-bandwidth networking requirements of both telecommunications backhaul as well as applications for large enterprises, including those used in healthcare, education and government industries.

Orthogon Systems also announced today the availability of its OS-Spectra 58200 software release, now available for download. With this new software release, OS-Spectra Lite customers will be able to activate a single T1/E1 port, bridging both switched-circuit and Ethernet traffic over a single wireless connection. Furthermore, the addition of the T1/E1 port activation enables enterprises to eliminate recurring monthly costs from leased lines.

The 58200 software release also provides customers with bandwidth allocation on demand. With this capability, the OS-Spectra system intelligently detects when more bandwidth is needed in order to transport large files, such as those affiliated with video. Instead of the usual 50/50 split for upstream and downstream traffic, the system allocates a greater amount of bandwidth on-the-fly to move large amounts of data, making the wireless network more efficient around the clock. And this process is done automatically, eliminating the need for any manual input.

"We're experiencing a marked increase in customer applications requiring high-capacity backhaul that also provides five 9's of reliability," said Kevin Leibl, president, Advanced Network Systems, an Orthogon Systems Preferred Partner and full-service communications integrator based in Charlottesville, Va. "The availability of OS-Spectra Lite enables us to deliver a more cost-effective solution that effectively handles demanding backhaul loads with carrier-class reliability. Even at the lower price point, the performance remains the same."

The OS-Spectra Lite is the newest edition to Orthogon's OS-Spectra family of products. It has been expressly designed for customers that only require 150 Mbps and have limited budget resources. For companies in need of higher bandwidth, Orthogon also offers 300 Mbps through its OS-Spectra 300 product.

"The OS-Spectra Lite gives service providers as well as enterprises, municipalities, healthcare facilities and educational institutions the ability to gain carrier-grade availability and high performance at an attractive price," said Phil Bolt, CEO, Orthogon Systems. "We saw a real need to deliver a 150 Mbps product while keeping in mind the budget constraints of certain customers. Furthermore, the OS-Spectra Lite provides all the security, reliability and manageability that our award-winning OS-Spectra family of products has come to be known for -- even in the most challenging environments."

Award-Winning Performance -- Lower Price Point

Extending the award-winning OS-Spectra product line, the OS-Spectra Lite operates in the unlicensed 5.8GHz band and is FCC and ETSI certified. It maintains exceptional link availability of up to 99.9999 percent in long-range Line-of-Sight (LoS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) environments as well as over large bodies of water. A truly software-defined radio, the OS-Spectra Lite provides feature and performance upgrades via simple software downloads and is easy to install and manage.

Built upon Orthogon's proven radio technology, OS-Spectra Lite offers customers the following features:

Multibeam Space-Time-Coding --The OS-Spectra Lite minimizes signal fading due to path obstructions or atmospheric disturbances.

Advanced Spectrum Management with intelligent Dynamic Frequency Selection (iDFS) -- Interference-free operation is ensured by constantly monitoring the link for congestion and automatically switching to the most interference-free channel.

WiMAX Compatibility -- OS-Spectra Lite features a narrow 30 MHz channel, making it an ideal system to backhaul up to 150 Mbps of traffic from a WiMAX base station to the wide-area network and allowing organizations to preserve spectrum for last-mile access. In addition, OS-Spectra Lite supports the WiMAX MIB (Management Information Base), enabling users to seamlessly integrate the solution into a complete end-to-end broadband wireless network.

Security -- For the highest levels of security, customers are provided with an advanced Air Interface that incorporates a proprietary data scrambling technique as well as AES encryption. It acts as a transparent Ethernet bridge enabling customers to superimpose complete end-to-end network security solutions such as virtual private networks (VPN).