Based: Yoqne'am-Illit, Israel
Founded: 2000
www.wavionnetworks.com

Why is it Fierce? Wavion is showing a spatially adaptive AP aiming to optimize outdoor metro WiFi, with the added advantage of not having to make any changes to standard WiFi clients. Wavion's APs use custom-designed ASICs and embedded software to leverage a total of six antennas and six radio transceivers, resulting in increased range, coverage, capacity and scalability. The key to Wavion's solution: Digital beamforming and Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA). Digital beamforming exploits the multiple signals received and transmitted by the antenna array and the multipath phenomenon to improve signal quality. SDMA enhances beamforming by providing a higher level of processing enabling simultaneous downlink communications with multiple users over the same frequency channel. Wavion's SDMA technology quadruples downlink capacity: It creates up to four downlinks to four different users simultaneously, transmitting one data stream per user. Each stream is "beamed" by means of beamforming in such a way that the signal is maximized at the target user's location and minimized at the other users' locations.

What to look for: Whether Wavion can avoid Vivato's fate. Vivato, a technology-savvy company with a similar product, went belly up a couple of years ago, proving that good technology and sound equipment are not enough when it comes to wide area wireless deployments. Price (Vivato's was too high), system design, flexibility and adaptability are as important.

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