While WiMAX has breathed new life into a once-stagnant broadband wireless sector, many in the sector feel will still take time for WiMAX systems to reach mass deployment in the market. But with public wireless LAN (PWLAN) deployments on the rise and carriers looking for new options to replace T1/E1 services to enterprises, there is a growing demand for point-to-point broadband wireless systems today.

With the development of its WinLink 1000 product, Radwin is hoping to provide a low-cost solution that will help bridge the gap between the broadband wireless systems n market today and the WiMAX systems coming down the road. "We can setup a complete link with less than $3000," said Sharon Sher, CEO and founder of Radwin, which is a spin off from israel-based Rad Group. Compared to other solutions on the market, Sher said that carriers can save a minimum of $2000 during deployment.

One of the key reasons that Radwin can keep costs low is through the use of an off-the-shelf WLAN radio. Typically, broadband wireless systems are developed around a homegrown radio architecture, which can prove to be costly. By tapping into an off-the-shelf Wi-Fi solution, Sher said that Radwin could leverage the steep declines in price being driven by other sections.

But, to make its system work, Radwin also need to make changes in order to make Wi-Fi suitable for a WAN environment. Specifically, Radwin opted to flip out the existing 802.11a/g MAC with a proprietary MAC structure optimized for broadband wireless applications. "We built our own MAC from scratch," Sher said.

Reduced packet loss is one of the big changes that came from Radwin's MAC layer tweak. When crafting the MAC, Sher said his design team focused on keeping packet error rate low in order to reduce retransmission on the link. From these efforts, he added, the WinLink 1000 system can deliver less than 8-ms delay when T1 traffic and less than 3-ms delay when handling Ethernet streams.

As expected, Radwin also made changes at the antenna layer to improve throughput and distance in WinLink 1000 system. Typically, as Sher pointed out, Wi-Fi systems use an antenna that has between 0- to 7-dBi gain. Radwin, on the other hand, is implementing an antenna with 28-dBi gain, which translates into better reach and link throughput.

Through the MAC and antenna changes, Sher said the WinLink 1000 system delivers an up to 50-Mbit throughput and up to 50-mile operating range. The system, which is available now, operates in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands and comes equipped with Ethernet and T1/E1 interfaces.