Buh-Bye PTP, PMP & Canopy

[d119]

Vector Capital to Purchase Wireless Broadband Networks Businesses from Motorola Solutions
On August 23, 2011, Motorola Solutions announced it had reached an agreement with Vector Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, to acquire the company’s Point-to-Point (PTP or Orthogon) and Point-to-Multipoint (PMP or Canopy) Wireless Broadband Networks businesses. PTP and PMP will operate as a single standalone company called Cambium Networks.

Although the company is divesting the PTP and PMP businesses, indoor wireless network solutions remain a core part of Motorola Solutions' business strategy and will remain as one of the three core tracks in the PartnerEmpower Program. Channel partners who resell WLAN, TEAM and MESH solutions will maintain their existing relationship with Motorola Solutions.

This transaction is expected to be complete by the end of September. More details will be provided as transition plans are finalized. Please do not hesitate to contact your channel account manager or distributor if you have any questions.

GOOD RIDDANCE.

[boteman]

Vector Capital to Purchase Wireless Broadband Networks Businesses from Motorola Solutions
On August 23, 2011, Motorola Solutions announced it had reached an agreement with Vector Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, to acquire the company’s Point-to-Point (PTP or Orthogon) and Point-to-Multipoint (PMP or Canopy) Wireless Broadband Networks businesses. PTP and PMP will operate as a single standalone company called Cambium Networks.

GOOD RIDDANCE.

Curious. Many other correspondents on here rave about Canopy and the PTP links. You don't agree? Or do you mean good riddance to the purchasing company?

[d119]

Let me just say this:

Motorola sold some of this stuff for use in ASTRO trunking systems, and never could make it work after having countless engineers, technicians and support-types working on it both in Schaumburg and in the field.

It's like Fisher-Price microwave, if you will. PTP-800 was the first of it to support true hot-standby, but even then it's kind of a hodge-podge.

I've always put my money on true-blue microwave solutions such as Harris, Alcatel, NEC, etc. This stuff just gave me too many heartaches and too many late nights. I still have three customers using it so it's not out of my hair yet. Just left too much of a sour taste in my mouth.

But again, this is all just personal opinion.

[wavetar]

Interesting. The stuff seems to work great for TRBO and NXDN linking...not sure what the issues could possibly be with P25 to make it any different.

[Bill_G]

We were selling Orthogon Systems before it was purchased by Mot, sold many systems as Mot product, and will probably continue to sell it in the future. The lower tier Canopy product (AP, SM) have been great for a lot of our customers. It solved many simple connectivity problems at very low cost. I rarely have problems that don't ultimately turn into installation workmanship and materials issues, or multipath / interference problems. These systems tend to go in once, and stay in service for years without failure.

[d119]

Interesting. The stuff seems to work great for TRBO and NXDN linking...not sure what the issues could possibly be with P25 to make it any different.

Simulcast was the issue, which TRBO and NXDN don't do.

They were taking T-carrier circuits into a RAD multiplexer and out of that to the PTP 600 via ethernet. They could never get the site on the other end to stay in phase with the rest of the simulcast no matter what they did.

When the link was switched out to PTP 800 (still using the RAD TDMoIP multiplexer), it worked fine.

I'm glad this happened anyway, as the PTP 800 is on licensed spectrum, whereas the PTP 600 was on PS 4.9GHz which is still susceptible to regular interference from co-channel PS users. So far, knock on wood, the PTP 800 has been flawless so I won't harsh on it too badly. PTP 400/600 is a different story.

Motorola concluded there was something related to timing and latency in the PTP 600 that made it unusable on SZ 4.1 systems.

[wavetar]

Ah that makes more sense...the timing is much more important in simulcast for sure. Thankfully I live in Eastern Canada, land of relatively little frequency use, so simulcast just doesn't exist out here.

[Bill_G]

That's why we use Harris Intraplex NetExpress muxes when doing simulcast over ip. It automatically takes into account the longer latencies of ip transport.

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