Not to be outdone by industry leaders such as Qwest Communications International Inc. (QWST), Cisco Systems Inc. Tuesday
joined a small army of 10 companies to expand the wireless Internet market.
Cisco (CSCO)
has teamed with such companies as Motorola Inc. (MOT),
Broadcom Corp. (BRCM)
and Samsung to propel the development
of consumer devices and appliances ripe with cutting age technology.
The strategic alliance is buoyed by a new technology, called the Media
Access Control and Vector Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, which offer two-way data, voice and video communications over the
air to homes and businesses at high speeds. VOFDM lowers the cost of
offering a wireless network and increases subscriber coverage.
The devices work quite well in congested cities by staunching
line-of-sight, distance reach and antenna size problems of existing
wireless systems. Cisco expects to standardize these multiple supply source
systems, enabling businesses to receive broadband access in more areas at lower costs.
“Cisco’s goal is to bring the Internet revolution to as many people as
possible, and our new wireless technology and partners will play a key
role,” said Donald Listwin, executive vice president of Cisco Systems.
“With a global team of silicon, consumer electronics and service partners we will bring innovative new access options to our customers.”
Separately Tuesday, Cisco Systems Tuesday purchased Tasmania Network Systems Inc., a leading developer of
network caching software technology for $25 million in stock.
Cisco will swap $25 million of stock for all outstanding shares, warrants and options of the privately-held Tasmania.
Cisco will incorporate Tasmania’s technologies into its Cache Engine 500
series of products to offer its service provider and enterprise customers efficient content networking services, including content-aware network
caching.
Network caching accelerates content transmission and network performance by localizing traffic patterns. This moves data closer to the user, saving the client time and money.
