Unlike much of the industry which has focused on proprietary radio designs, SkyPipes takes a network-control approach to the problem. Our Point-2-Point Grid Systems couple standards based commodity radios with solid-state, passive phase array, electronically steerable directional beam antennas to create narrow beams of high-gain “connections” in the sky. SkyPipes harnesses well proven Wireless Laws to create its robust and highly reliable Adaptive Wireless Grid Architecture. SkyPipes' proprietary signaling software switches connections between many momentarily paired point-2-point nodes in real-time to carry data traffic over multiple hops, creating large service footprints, high throughputs with consistent connectivity. Subscriber nodes are self-provisioning and the network is designed to be self-healing. While our first offering will use commodity 802.11n WiFi MIMO radios, our solution is radio-agnostic and can be adapted to WiMax radios or licensed telco-frequencies as required by the market.

In recent years billions of dollars have been invested in next generation wireless solutions. The two primary types of network architectures developed by the industry have been central tower based Point to MultiPoint (PMP) and Mesh. The recently announced WiMax standard is yet another PMP technology. Both types of solutions have so far failed to adequately provide cost-effective, reliable, high-speed, fixed high bandwidth distribution solutions for the suburban residential market (as distinguished from more limited bandwidth mobile solutions). PMP solutions suffer from quality, capacity and consistency problems similar to spotty cell phone service (and are expensive). Mesh, on the other hand, can be inexpensive but does not scale well, has limited coverage areas, and suffers from low throughputs caused by self-interference.

SkyPipes achieves a significant performance boost in range, capacity and reliability by adding multiple layers of network management software and by coupling each radio node into a switched grid of radios using low cost, high gain, steerable beam antennas. At the lowest level, the high gain antenna on each node in a grid learns to point in specific physical directions when it is sending or receiving packets to/from specific network addresses in it’s router table. The re-aiming of the antenna can be done in less that 26 microseconds. Because nodes that are communicating with each other are focused at each other they benefit from a 20 db signal-to-noise gain. This translates to up to a 2 mile to 3 mile distance between nodes that could ordinarily not be further apart than 100 to 300 feet. That in turn translates to 6 to 8 mile service radius from each central Anchor Point .

Each node determines if a received packet is intended for it’s connected subscriber or is addressed to another network destination. If it is for the subscriber, it is routed to the subscriber’s computer via an ethernet connection into the home. If not, it is relayed on to the the next node. The latency is very low for each wireless hop--less than 2 msec. The network grid is highly reliable because each node locally stores multiple redundant alternate paths to use. In the likely event (as with all wireless connections) that something interferes with a connection, the nodes will instantly create alternate paths to get the data to/from the Anchor Point. Finally, a Central Server constantly receives information from each node about the quality and performance of connections with every other node in the neighborhood. If the Central Server determines that better paths would reduce recurring local congestion it changes the routing tables of the nodes so that those paths are preferred.

SkyPipes technology is differentiated from ordinary competitive WiFi Mesh Network architectures in that the acceptable distances between nodes is many times greater making SkyPipes a practical, low-cost wide-area network solution for suburban communities. Conventional mesh network architectures cannot create physically redundant alternate paths and are therefore inherently less reliable. Conventional mesh network nodes interfere with one another more than SkyPipes nodes do because SkyPipes’ aimed antennas reduce such interference significantly. Conventional mesh networks can usually deliver basic connectivity but cannot delivery SkyPipes' levels of very high throughput, speed and quality of service (QoS) for supporting advanced services delivery.

Broad patent protection has been granted in by the U.S. and by 20 other countries. Applications in 33 other countries are still pending. The patent contains fundamental methods claims on such basic concepts as linking the antenna aiming to a node’s routing table, falling back to redundant paths in the face of interference, and optimizing the network to reduce air space congestion using a central server.