Wi-Fi News

Ubiquiti Networks was founded in 2005 to develop embedded radios for OEMs and the military. "We've since expanded from there—and we've taken it to a very broad offering," says Ben Moore, Ubiquiti's vice president of business development.

Ubiquiti's product categories include embedded radios with a range of output power and frequency options, embedded systems for a variety of applications, mobile and portable products—and, specifically for WISPs, complete CPE solutions, including the PowerStation and the smaller, lower-priced NanoStation, both of which are available at 2.4 GHz and at 5 GHz. "What sets us apart there is the ease of use: the software is very easy to work with," Moore says.

The company's newest offering is a range of high performance embedded 802.11n MIMO products: the 2.4/5 GHz SR71-A, the 2.4 GHz SR71-2, and the 5 GHz SR71-5. "We're just releasing those products now, and we're very excited about the performance that's we're going to be able to get out of them," Moore says.

Price and performance

For WISPs, Moore says, the products' balance of price and performance makes them particularly attractive. "The PowerStation has an MSRP of $159 for the 2.4 model, and there's an MSRP of $79 for the 2.4 NanoStation," he says. "We feel like we're bridging the digital divide with the performance and the price points that we're able to put the product out to the market in."

The point, Moore says, is that while Ubiquiti's pricing is attractive, that's really not the company's main focus. "Price is definitely a key differentiator, but you're also looking at the innovative software," he says. "It's very easy to use, very user friendly, yet at the same time very powerful. And we've built some key features into the product—dual polarity, an external connector being offered in the same unit so you can extend the range of the product—and we've also come out with innovative accessories: we've got a window/wall mount available for the NanoStation that really makes it easy to install."

For support, in addition to phone and e-mail contact with the company itself, Moore says Ubiquiti's online forum is a popular source of information and advice on the products—as well as a good indicator of the products' global reach. "We actually provide a free t-shirt to anyone that signs up on our forum, because we want to drive people to our website and to increase the visibility of Ubiquiti," he says. "We have many support people that follow that forum on a daily basis to provide feedback and support for different applications."

Sticking with Wi-Fi

Looking ahead, Moore says Ubiquiti's current focus on Wi-Fi products (rather than WiMAX) is likely to continue. "That's our bread and butter right now, and at this point, we're probably going to continue on with that," he says. "We've got a lot of new products that we're working on that will also be tailored towards that environment."

That said, Moore also says the company remains open to all possibilities. "There is the opportunity for OEM work that will be done on the WiMAX side… as requests come in for us to build products for OEMs, we will look into doing that," he says. "But right now, our focus is on Wi-Fi, on the 802.11b/g/a/n networks… the performance that we're able to get out of our products, with the price points, is really hitting home with our customer base. And we see that demand continuing."

In fact, Moore says many of Ubiquiti's Wi-Fi products are able to give WiMAX a run for its money. "The capacity that our products offer really rival even the highest end WiMAX networks at this point in the game, in terms of performance, reliability, throughput, things like that… and it really enables WISPs to be free to use different access points, different base station products," he says.

And Moore says the company will continue to develop new solutions in the space. "We see there's a lot of opportunity for additional growth and additional products that will hit the market similarly to what we've done with the NanoStation… and with the MIMO product," he says. "The throughput that we're able to get on a product like that really opens up additional doors for our WISP customers."

By Jeff Goldman
www.wi-fiplanet.com