Airspan signs MOU with Marconi for a mutual reseller agreement
March 11, 2005
HANOVER, Germany -- Marconi Corporation plc (London: MONI and NASDAQ: MRCIY) has today announced it has agreed with Airspan Networks (NASDAQ: AIRN) to resell Airspan’s AS.MAX family of WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) broadband wireless access products under its own brand.
The two companies have signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) which will pave the way for a mutual reseller agreement under which Airspan Networks will also agree to resell Marconi’s AXR (Access Radio) multiservice radio backhaul platform to its markets.
Marconi will resell Airspan’s HiperMAX, MacroMAX, MicroMAX base-station products and EasyST and ProST customer premise equipment. Marconi will manage these products through its own ServiceON Access network management suite.
The AS.MAX product family has been designed to provide indoor, self-installable deployment. The EasyST is the first product to offer fully indoor plug-and-play WiMAX services and is being demonstrated for the first time at the Airspan stand (E09 in Hall 13) at the annual CeBIT exhibition in Hanover, Germany. The product line will be available for trials in the second quarter of 2005 and commercially available in the third quarter.
“WiMAX is an exciting development in broadband wireless access; for the first time broadband wireless connectivity for residential and small business markets can be an economic reality. The self-installable, all-indoor terminal capability offered in the EasyST was an important factor in us choosing to work with Airspan,” said Alex Marshall, vice president of product marketing at Marconi. “WiMAX is the perfect complement to our product lines that offer multiservice access for all types of wired users and sits alongside the AXR multiservice, backhaul platform in our radio portfolio. Furthermore, I am delighted that Airspan has agreed to market AXR as part of its product offering to its customers – it is the ideal WiMAX backhaul solution.”
Commenting on the agreement Eric Stonestrom, President and CEO of Airspan Networks, said: “The launch of AS.MAX is an important milestone for Airspan as it is unique in offering an all-indoor, self-installable capability. We have launched the AS.MAX product line at this point to take advantage of being in the first wave of WiMAX Forum Certified Products™. Marconi has a very comprehensive range of microwave radio products and adding AS.MAX allows it to offer a unique breadth of wireless solutions, complementing a similar capability in Optical and multiservice Access.”
“Airspan recognises Marconi’s AXR as being a powerful access backhaul solution. It works well in cellular and DSL backhaul and is well suited to the high aggregate data rates presented by a WiMAX base station. We are very pleased to be able to offer AXR as part of our product range,” Eric added.
Marconi Corp. plc
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