Vivato Shuts Down Operations

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () WARPSPEED COM>
Date: December 16, 2005 1:54:29 PM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () WARPSPEED COM>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Vivato Shuts Down Operations
Reply-To: dewayne () WARPSPEED COM

Vivato Shuts Down Operations
By Eric Griffith
December 16, 2005

<http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3571531>

Unstrung and WiFiNetNews [Note:  Glenn has a lot more detail at  
<http://wifinetnews.com/archives/006144.html>] are reporting this  
morning that Vivato has ceased operations.

The Spokane, Washington-based company made a big splash with its  
debut in 2002, securing $20 million in venture capital to back what  
it called at the time a "Wi-Fi switch." The product was very  
different from the switches of other start-up WLAN switch companies  
like Airespace, Trapeze and Aruba — it was  a large, wall mounted  
panel using smart phased-array antennas with a patented  
PacketSteering technology  to provide 802.11 covering an entire floor  
of a building. Later, they created an outdoor version. Eventually the  
panels were renamed as Base Stations. The company also created  
microcell access points to provide lower-cost coverage for indoors.

The company was dogged by production delays and management changes.  
It took a long time to embrace 802.11g after most of the industry had  
already done so. Costs for the equipment were also high — at its  
debut in October last year, the outdoor base station with 802.11g  
support (model VP2210) was close to $10,000. New technologies like  
WiMax and MIMO-based 802.11 likely put a very tight squeeze on the  
company.

Just last week the company announced what may have been its last  
sale, to the Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg. The school  
is using two VP2210 Base Stations mounted on buildings (plus ten  
microcell APs) to cover the entire campus with 802.11g Wi-Fi. Other  
big deployments announced included Vivato powered hotzones in the  
cities of Frankfort, Kentucky and Kent, Washington.

Calls to Vivato headquarters and spokespeople have gone unreturned  
today.
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>



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