Mimosa Networks, the Campbell, Calif., startup that wrapped a $20 million funding round in May and released its first product in August, is now ready to deliver on its second product release: devices that will enable ISPs to get wireless broadband signals into consumers' homes.
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Mimosa's A5 and C5 product family. |
This marks Mimosa's first product release that is really directed at the consumer market, as its previous products were directed at ISPs for backhaul. The new release introduces products that can be directly connected to smart devices and mounted to the home.
Mimosa is offering three access point products designed to connect the last mile. Specifically, the company unveiled its new 802.11ac 4x4:4 suite of A5 access points and C5 client devices, the next wave of products in its "Cloud-to-Client" solution.
Together, the access point and client create "the world's highest capacity low-cost outdoor solution and the first with MU-MIMO (Multi-User MIMO) capabilities," according to the company.
Mimosa's devices range from those that are designed for rural areas where there's not a lot of interference to those that would be deployed in city environments. Notably, however, none of those access points would cost more than $1,100, reports TechCrunch, substantially changing the price structure for deploying broadband networks.
"We've taken Wi-Fi technology and reused it to deal with the efficiency issues and spectrum interference issues we see with Wi-Fi today," Mimosa cofounder and chief product officer Jaime Fink told VentureBeat. "This announcement is the real meat and differentiation of our company with last-mile access. It's pretty game-changing."
While existing Wi-Fi technology focuses on individual client speed, Mimosa says it believes the future of the industry lies in the advancement of spectrum re-use and other technology innovations to maximize use of all available spectrum.
"Where broadband advancement is successful, fiber and wireless technologies work together. Providers build out fiber as far as it's economically viable and from there, wireless bridges the gap," said Brian Hinman, CEO of Mimosa, in a press release. "With the ability to rapidly scale cost-effectively, Mimosa wireless products represent the new access paradigm as copper technologies fade from the telecom landscape."
Mimosa launched its backhaul product in August. The B5 Backhaul radio runs on 5 GHz spectrum and features coordinated massive MIMO technology, which enables collocated radios to deliver 16 MIMO streams and 4 Gbps of throughput while sharing the same channel. The B5 radio conducts constant spectrum analysis to find the best, interference-free radio link, according to Mimosa.
Mimosa and Quantenna announced back in January that Quantenna's 5 GHz 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi chipset would be used in Mimosa's unlicensed wireless hardware suite.
The A5 access point is available in three different options: A5-90 (90º sector), high gain A5-360 (360º Omni with 18 dBi gain) and low gain A5-360 (360º Omni with 14 dBi gain). The C5 client device is available in 20 dBi gain. All four of the products will debut in wireless ISP networks in summer/fall of 2015 and are currently available for pre-order.
Mimosa says it is giving new entrants the ability to compete with current wireline incumbents. The company was founded in 2012 and so far has raised more than $38 million in venture capital funding.
For more:
- see this press release
- see this TechCrunch story
- see this VentureBeat story
- see this Gigaom article
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