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An announcement  has been made by Firetide (News - Alert) Inc., provider of wireless infrastructure mesh networks, regarding a partnership agreement with Thales Portugal S.A., global technology systems integrator, to deploy a real-time, wireless mesh video surveillance network in Mumbai.

Onboard video surveillance and broadcast of text message to onboard display will be provided in the network to be deployed.

According to João Araújo, chairman and CEO, Thales (News - Alert) Portugal S.A., the company selected Firetide for the Mumbai metro over other wireless vendors due to their unique wireless infrastructure mesh network equipment which is capable of providing the high speed bandwidth and reliable performance necessary for real-time, video streaming in such a harsh network environment.

Built in Mumbai, the financial capital of India, the Mumbai metro is a three-line, and high capacity subway system spanning 40 miles. The first phase of the metro is scheduled to be completed in 2010.

 Firetide mesh nodes will be placed on the trains, as well as along the tracks at intervals of 500 meters. 10 Mbps speed between the train and ground nodes at all points of the track at a speed of 50 mph will be allowed by the system. It was critical to be able to provide zero packet loss during signal handoff between ground nodes. All security features, including AES encryption, WEP and WPA2 and encapsulation of IP layer data have to be supported by the system.

Firetide’s selection over the competition was due to three attributes of Firetide’s mesh infrastructure equipment. They include the mobility controller supporting inter-mesh and intra-mesh roaming scenarios and also meeting stringent performance requirements. Link redundancy in various scenarios of metro operation was provided by Firetide’s AutoMesh routing protocol. The third attribute was the system’s modular feature and product design. This allows customers to plan, design, and easily build out large-scale mobility solutions.

Bo Larsson, CEO of Firetide  said the selection of the company by Thales Portugal, S.A. demonstrates the company’s leadership in providing wireless mesh infrastructure solutions for highly challenging mobility and real-time video applications in difficult environments. The company looks forward to working with Thales on this exciting and groundbreaking Mumbai metro wireless system.