A Hybrid Rural Delivery Network for Broadband Stimulus AlphaStar(R) & CTC Build Unique WiMAX 4G System

INDEPENDENCE, Mo., March 12, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- AlphaStar International, Inc. and Computers & Tele-Comm, Inc., (CTC) announced today a unique joint venture to provide very high speed WiMAX 4G services for any area anywhere across the entire USA. According to CTC President, Graeme Gibson, "The Digital Divide just got smaller. Today with this announcement, rural areas with no access to broadband fiber finally have a solution to getting connected at 4G speeds. Our mutually developed hybrid model takes advantage of the AlphaStar Teleport, a facility originally built by the U.S. government as part of President Reagan's Star Wars initiative. AlphaStar (tour) can track any area of the USA including Hawaii and US territories to deliver true 4G speeds. Costs are contained by using the satellite primarily for the backhaul of Internet bandwidth." Bandwidth is then relayed by ground based WiMAX transmitters although the system can also serve to supply Metro WiFi systems or be used for mobile and maritime applications as well as Disaster Recovery and homeland security purposes. Low cost radios can be used rather than a two-way satellite receiver at customer locations. The Teleport can also deliver video and audio streaming. By caching the AV streams and large portions of the internet locally at the WiMAX transmitter performance is dramatically improved at affordable cost.

President Obama approved over $7 billion to foster rural and accelerated urban broadband infrastructure. Gibson continued, "By partnering with AlphaStar, we can build complex projects in areas that nothing else can reach. The intent of Congress was to make broadband access available to the rural United States regardless of population densities and economic feasibility. This system marries the go anywhere capability of direct broadcast satellite backhaul with CTC's low cost WiMAX distribution of services on the ground, a perfect marriage for fast deployment and building bridges over the digital divide." The partnership will help local government, companies, and organizations applying for grants and loans from the stimulus to make their funding go much further. John Wahba of AlphaStar pointed out "The hybrid model can be deployed within weeks to months (depending on scope), serves underserved and unserved areas, and offers immediate employment as intended by the legislation. The model is scalable and allows other rural ISP's to join the effort including wireless, rural Telco's and cable companies and we welcome them to our partnership." Organizations and groups can now download the CTC authored Rural Reference Model. This model will help operators in their planning and budgeting process as it supplies baseline references, technical capability, and integration with other systems. Gibson added: "Our approach is quite broad; we intend to be able to invite many projects and groups based on this truly unique capability. We also have prepared a joint white paper explaining the benefits of the hybrid design." Operators interested in this can write graeme @ ctcco.com or call 816-252-4080 for additional information.