The City of Oulu, Finland, is using Strix Systems’ Access/One® 2400 Outdoor Wireless System (OWS) to build its first city-wide wireless mesh network. Strix mesh technology will provide faster connection speeds and extended coverage beyond the coverage offered by the old WiFi network. The Strix mesh network delivers high-speed broadband mobility and high-quality voice, video, data access to the general public.   

The wireless network, called panOULU, provides open and free wireless (WiFi) Internet access to the general public and an established business plan for panOULU subscriptions enabling organizations to provide its own open panOULU visitor network to customers and guests in its premises.

The network is also available to municipal field operations and business users to help enhance their productivity and competitiveness. Oulu is northern Europe's most significant high-technology competence center, particularly in the areas of IT and wellness technology.

The panOULU network, in operation since 2003 provides open access to over 11,000 users.  Statistics for January 2007 reports 5,656 regular users, 194,170 sessions, and 8.4 million online minutes.

The panOULU network currently has 675 access points (APs), of which 60 provide outdoor coverage for users on the city’s buses and ferries and even the city’s bookmobile.

Additional outdoor access points cover a large range of municipal service points, including in the city’s libraries, schools, health stations, hospital, sports facilities, theatre, city hall, youth and culture center, and elderly centers.

The network is provided by the seven-member panOULU consortium, which comprises the City of Oulu, the University of Oulu, Oulu Polytechnic, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, and three telcos: Elisa Plc., Netplaza Ltd., and Oulun Puhelin Plc.

The City of Oulu's COMPETENCE Oulu 400 program will expand the panOULU network by an additional 210 APs by the end of 2007.  The expansion starts with 60 Strix Systems OWS 2400 APs to build the outdoor mesh network in the city center and other selected areas by October 2007.

The City of Oulu, together with the University of Oulu, reviewed and tested technologies provided by other leading manufactures and found that Strix’s multi-radio Access/One OWS delivered the performance and flexibility it needed.  The Strix OWS offers simple and automatic configuration and seamless integration with the existing network, while providing the highest throughput and most resilient and versatile performance.

Strix OWS 2400 was specifically chosen for its reduced Opex and lowest total cost of ownership; competing single- and multi-radio products required additional cost-prohibitive wired backhaul capacity.  Without the Strix solution, expanding the outdoor network would have been too costly in the long term.

Mr. Heikki Riikonen, Project Manager, City of Oulu – “Strix Access/One OWS is the perfect fit for our network.  It provides the performance and low Opex we’ve been looking for.”

Jim Mooreland, Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Strix – “The panOULU network is a unique example of an innovative public/private partnership established to enable large-scale wireless access networks and bring entire cities on-line".

MULTIMEDIA
PanOulu News    http://www.panoulu.net/news/en/1172583900
City of Oulu:     http://www.ouka.fi/english/index.asp
panOULU network:    http://www.panoulu.net
panOULU logo:       http://www.panoulu.net/media/panOULU_logo_reg.png
panOULU sign:      http://www.panoulu.net/media/panOULU_kyltti_500x200.png
General panOULU presentation: http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~skidi/panOULU/panOULU_presentation.ppt

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The Strix Access/One OWS and IWS modular mesh products deliver the largest capacity (up to six radios and 768 users per node, three to six times the norm), highest throughput (five times the norm at 35 Mbps), and best scalability (users can add more radio boards or new technologies). An independent wireless mesh test, sponsored by Light Reading and completed in June 2006, found Strix’s OWS 2400-30 delivers the best throughput and capacity and the greatest scalability for voice applications and mobility/roaming.  Strix networks scale to 10 or more wireless hops with near-zero throughput loss and latency, enabling customers to deliver real-time applications with a minimum of wired connections for a given area, which reduces CapEx and OpEx.
   
About Strix Systems
Strix Systems is the worldwide leader in wireless mesh networking. Strix’s Access/One products are the industry’s only modular (chassis-based) mesh systems, delivering the largest capacity, highest throughput and best scalability.  This new generation of products provides the broadband mobility and reach to support voice, video, and data applications. Sold globally by a network of first-class distributors and integrators, Access/One solutions have been deployed in hundreds of networks worldwide, outdoor and indoor, for service providers, metros, public safety, government, energy, transportation, hospitality, education, enterprises, and residential markets. For more information about Strix Systems, please visit www.strixsystems.com.