Pace unveils WiMAX solution for delivery of content to and around the home

IBC 2007, Amsterdam, Stand 1.221 — Pace Micro Technology plc (LSE:PIC), the leading independent developer of digital TV technologies for the global pay-TV industry, is demonstrating how 802.16 delivery to the home can be combined with 802.11 distribution in the home, to provide operators with a truly wireless content delivery solution and expand their service footprint.

This demonstration highlights the opportunities available to operators who embrace the WiMAX standard. Using fixed wires access (FWA) systems, cable operators can expand their footprint to new subscribers without the need to lay new cables. Satellite operators can provide a full triple-play package by using WiMAX to deliver fast broadband to subscribers who may otherwise be too far away from an exchange to benefit fully from high bandwidth DSL. Telcos can use WiMAX to provide a full digital service – incorporating video, data and voice – to potential customers, giving them a different business model and opportunity to compete with the more traditional operators.

The demonstration consists of a server unit in the home, which connects wirelessly to an external WiMAX base station using Pace’s ‘Connections Suite software’ – which has been entirely developed at Pace. This server unit then delivers broadband content – either video or data or both – to clients around the home, including set-top boxes, mobile phones and PCs, using WiFi.

Pace is teaming up with Metalink (NASDAQ: MTLK) , a provider of high-performance wireless and wireline broadband communication silicon solutions, and Runcom Technologies, the pioneer in OFDMA® enabling technologies for Mobile WiMAX to enable this demonstration.

Darren Fawcett, Chief Technologist – Wireless Systems at Pace commented: “WiMAX is still an emerging technology, but it promises to revolutionise the broadband market and open up a whole range of opportunities for payTV operators and telcos.

“It is the flexibility inherent in the WiMAX system – due to its agility in frequency of operation, adaptive modulation, and advanced link coding – which combine to reduce operator expenditure costs, improved throughput and range – that puts it forward as a potentially very powerful system for the future.”

Barry Volinskey, Vice President Marketing at Metalink commented: “These innovative solutions are based on Metalink’s WLANPlus™, a high-throughput IEEE 802.11n-compliant wireless LAN technology. WLANPlus offers the industry ‘Low Packet Error Rate’, which is essential for robust video delivery, providing a reliable foundation for the provision of wireless triple-play and entertainment networks with multiple simultaneous HD video streams and extended coverage.”

“The co-operation with Pace is a very important step in the evolution of Runcom’s OFDMA powered products that include a wide variety of commercial products available worldwide,” said Israel Koffman, Vice President of Marketing at Runcom Technologies.

According to IMS research , shipments of WiMAX CPE are expected to increase from an estimated 250,400 shipments in 2006 to 41.9 million in 2012, and the number of base station sectors shipped will increase from around 7,000 in 2006 with revenues of $0.1 billion to around 408,000 in 2012 with revenues of around $2.2 billion.

Pace first demonstrated its WiMAX expertise at ANGA Cable in early 2006.

Links: Pace Micro; Metalink; Runcom Technologies