You've all heard that this week an 800 lb. gorilla named Cisco officially joined the mesh networking party, validating mesh and probably signaling its imminent success. Cisco is the networking giant, so the fanfare is somewhat understandable; but the mesh market already has a number of advanced offerings. Even with HP and IBM on board, Cisco's dual radio mesh networking product isn't one of them.
Motorola, Strix and BelAir each offer multiradio products that can provide a municipality with both public access muni-WiFi and a separate public safety band. Cisco's initial dual radio offering can only offer one or the other. I know the better technology won't always win the day, and Cisco is sure to offer more comprehensive mesh products in the future; but this launch feels kind of like the iTunes ROKR phone: overdue and outdated.
In other news: FierceMarkets is pleased to announce that yesterday we launched FierceIPTV. This once-a-week email offers concise summaries of new developments in IPTV technologies and insight into the business strategies about the bundling of video, voice and data processing. To download a copy of our first issue, and sign up for a free weekly email, please visit: www.fierceiptv.com. - Brian