RedZone was founded in 2005 to provide affordable high-speed Internet service to communities in Maine. As of June 2006, our network extends across 250 square miles in the Midcoast, and services customers in 10 local towns. Our corporate vision is to provide affordable high-speed Internet service in underserved areas of Maine, and New England.

The RedZone network consists of a combination of proprietary wireless mesh, and standards based 802.11 WiFi technology. Mesh networks are the only broadband wireless medium that provide metro-scale and performance. Our mesh radios are used to backhaul customer traffic throughout our midcoast network, and to provide premium service packages to residents and business. WiFi is used as an access method for our Entry Level service package, and for hotspot connectivity for mobile customers, including local police, fire, EMS, business travelers, and tourists.

Background of WiFi Technology

Mesh networks have emerged as the most cost effective means to bridge the digital divide. US cities, towns, and counties will spend over $700 million over the next three years to build municipal-owned wireless broadband networks. Major metro areas such as Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, and Portland, OR have already begun the process of building out metro-wide wireless broadband networks, and hundreds of other cities and towns are in various stages of a community-wide network deployment. These broadband wireless networks provide multiple benefits to the local community, including:

• Stimulate the local economy by providing low-cost broadband Internet access to residents and businesses;
• Boost productivity for mobile workers (real estate, sales, field technicians, transportation, etc.);
• Increase security as a mechanism for law enforcement personnel to access critical databases and file police reports from the field.

Unlike DSL and Cable, WiFi is the only broadband option that provides true roaming capability, with over 107,000 public WiFi hotspots around the globe. Our ever-increasing reliance on email, IM, and Internet access for personal, and business communications is driving the demand for "Broadband Everywhere", and WiFi is the only proven technology that meets the need.

Some analysts believe that we will have a national WiFi network within the next decade, with enough capacity to provide cellular voice service, high speed Internet, and streaming video. In fact, the state of Rhode Island has already begun the build-out of a statewide wireless broadband network, and Sandoval county, NM has launched a $9 million, five-year program to deliver up to 1 gigabit per second to every citizen – wirelessly.

A Proven Success

Wireless mesh is a rapidly maturing technology with an increasing number of Mesh networks spannng entire cities. The community of Chaska, MN chaska.net has deployed 350 mesh radios in order to provide contiguous broadband coverage to over 15,000 residents. Metrofi metrofi.com, a private company in California, has deployed a mesh network covering 75% of the city of Cupertino (15,000 residents) and the neighboring communities of Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale. In Taiwan, the capital city of Taipei has installed 4,100 mesh radios to provide contiguous wireless Internet access for the city’s entire population of 2.6 million residents.