Proxim: The city of San Josè

Overview

The tenth largest city in the USA and home to the largest concentration of technology expertise in the world— more than 6,600 technology companies, several thousands more related companies; City of San José is forecasted to grow further with an estimate of 324,000 residents and nearly 200,000 new jobs by 2030.

Mindful of the population and the concomitant vehicle traffic, San José secured $20 million of Traffic Light Synchronization Program grant funds to upgrade its traffic management system. To support this upgrade, the San Jose team required a metropolitan area network (MAN) to enable all traffic signals to be monitored and managed from the city’s traffic management center and also help to share the traffic data between all regional traffic management centers, public safety service providers and emergency operations centers.

Challenges

There are approximately 900 traffic signals and 320 traffic surveillance cameras that rely on an extensive network of fiber, copper, and wireless links to communicate to the City’s traffic management center.  Additionally, other transportation infrastructure, such as LED street lights, and vehicle speed feedback signs, rely on this MAN to support real time management capabilities.  Due to dense foliage, typically over 30 feet, present throughout the city, the paramount concern for San José was to procure a wireless solution that could communicate despite the obstructions and the severe non line of sight conditions.

Solutions

Proxim’s was selected as the best solution to meet the stringent outdoor requirements.  Leveraging the advantages of WORP® and 3×3 MIMO nLoS functionality, the Tsunami® MP-8200 was able to meet the needs of the City.  The Tsunami® 8200 relayed real-time information with QoS and high uptime despite being installed between dense foliage obstructing wireless line of sight. “Since deployment, more than 50% of the links have been installed among trees and foliage and have worked well, even exceeding our expectations,” said Ho Nguyen, Project Manager for the City of San José. Over 200 units of Proxim’s high power point to multipoint Tsunami® 8200 base stations and subscriber units have been installed to ensure San José ITS applications are consistently available.