Tropos Releases Spec For Citywide Wi-Fi Devices

While the technology for creating city-wide wireless mesh networks is well-developed, mesh vendor Tropos Networks Wednesday released a specification for end user devices that receive those wireless signals.

The company released what it calls the Tropos Metro Compatible Extensions (TMCX) specification for Wi-Fi devices used by consumers and businesses. The company said in a statement that the spec has the two goals, the first of which is to insure strong performance by the end user devices. Such devices could include Wi-Fi-enabled laptops that may not otherwise have enough power to pick up signals from a citywide network, particularly when the signal might be partially blocked because the user is indoors.

The second goal is to simplify management and provisioning by the wireless provider, according to the company. This latter goal will help service providers lower their costs, Tropos claimed.

"Tropos is committed to the growth and advancement of the metro-scale Wi-Fi industry as a whole," Chris Rittler, Tropos' vice president of product management and business development, said in a statement. "The TMCX spec for client devices provides increased performance, reliability, and manageability for metro-scale Wi-Fi networks."

One vendor, PepLink, has already incorporated the specification into its equipment, Tropos said. The company said it is making the specification available to Wi-Fi chipmakers and device vendors.