In the News

Police Magazine – March 2007

Article featuring PacketHop, Lakewood Police and the Long Beach DHS exercise.

WiFi Planet – March 9, 2007

Article "New Jersey Police Try Mobile Mesh" discusses Lakewood Police.

Mobile Radio Technology – March 1, 2007

Article "Here's Looking At You" describes the increasing reliance on video surveillance and includes information on PacketHop's video surveillance capabilities and insights from Lakewood Police.

Public Safety Communications – March 2007

Article "Lakewood New Jersey Police Install Mesh Network" describes the Lakewood Wingstock deployment (NOTE: Article is on page 2 of the linked PDF).

Mobile Radio Technology – February 1, 2007

Article "PacketHop Unveils First Announced Customer" details the Lakewood Police implementation.

Training, Not Technology, Seen As Key To 9/11

"Five years after 9/11, government officials have still barely begun work on developing a unified form of communications that could link state, local, and federal agencies together in the event of a major disaster."

PacketHop 2.0 Supports 4.9 GHz

"PacketHop, a software company out of Redwood City, California, has been building applications to let police, fire and EMS personnel make instant, on-the-fly, self-forming mobile mesh networks with their Wi-Fi laptops for some time."

Public Safety Interoperability: Slowly Gaining Ground

"Five years after the 9/11 terrorist attack and one year after a devastating hurricane season the nation continues to work on communications solutions to help public safety agencies respond to emergencies."

PacketHop releases version 2.0 with cell backhaul, 4.9 GHz support

"PacketHop's software platform is designed to allow those in public safety to work together without having a network nearby. The latest version of the software supports the increasingly popular and available 4.9 GHz radio cards that essentially port Wi-Fi into this coordinated, low-contention, higher-wattage frequency range."

Instant wireless networks for emergencies

"A Redwood City startup has developed new technology that will help police, fire departments and other first responders keep communication networks running after terrorist attacks or major disasters, like earthquakes or hurricanes."

The Up Side and Down Side of Wireless Mesh Networks

"Motorola MeshNetworks and Nortel provide both fixed and mobile mesh networks, and each of these two large vendors has partnered with PacketHop."

In the communication age, connection is everything

"I got to see a demo of a cool example of mesh networking from a company called PacketHop. It markets itself to emergency services - police, fire, and the like... the technology itself is darned impressive."

Communications Breakdown

"(PacketHop's) network is self-forming enough that as other terrestrial infrastructure becomes available, it will take advantage of it. So if you have some backup communications, you can utilize them. If you have none at all, the local teams of responders can still communicate with one another."

The good, the bad, and the unknown about mesh

"PacketHop contends that it gets around the whole infrastructure interference and overload issue during an emergency by outfitting all public safety emergency responders with mesh software that turns their Wi-Fi devices into instant but temporary local Wi-Fi mesh networks that can operate with or without a Wi-Fi access point."

First Responders' Alternative Network 'Meshes' with City

"Michael Griffin of the Office of Emergency Services called the exercise 'unquestionably an important milestone' and lauded PacketHop's ability to achieve connectivity 'on land and water, where fixed infrastructure was not available.'"

Rescuers' Latest Tool is Wi-Fi Technology

"'(PacketHop) reduced the need for a lot of voice over radio,' Griffin said. 'On-scene commanders weren't tied to discussing things over radio frequencies, such as the location of equipment, situational updates and strategy briefings. Once the network was established, everybody saw the same thing.' The system also freed up radios for tactical use, which Griffin calls a 'real plus' for officer safety."

Wireless disaster recovery: Tools and Best Practices

"Another interesting possibility involves the use of client meshes which require no traditional infrastructure at all. This is a fascinating area...have a look at PacketHop for more info. PacketHop is in fact focusing on public-safety and government applications at present."

Mesh Nets Step Up

"PacketHop's software can be particularly valuable to enterprise customers with large facilities and buildings that have to fill communications needs quickly, says John Muleta, a member of PacketHop's advisory board and former chief of the FCC's wireless telecom division."

Whiz-Bang Wireless At The Scene Of A Crime

"PacketHop's Communication System...could be especially useful for law-enforcement agencies that need to set up a network around an incident scene. They can use the suite of multimedia applications to instant message each other, send photos of suspects, whiteboard on the photos and stream video... Additionally, they can locate and track different law-enforcement units that are part of the network on electronic maps."

Muni Mesh Mash Up

"PacketHop has always been different from its pure metro mesh rivals. Instead of using a layout of 802.11-based mesh router boxes to wirelessly transfer data over much greater areas than standard 802.11 networks, PacketHop has developed software for WiFi clients that allows the devices themselves to act as nodes in an ad-hoc mesh network...The point of using its software to form an ad-hoc network, says PacketHop, is that first responders wouldn't be beholden to an existing, fixed network that may get overloaded in an emergency."

Start-up builds wireless mesh net

"PacketHop seems to be unique in creating what it terms a mobile mesh, which forms and reforms as wireless notebooks and tablets come within range of each other. These clients can also connect to any fixed conventional wireless LAN access point. That means that police, fire and emergency crews are able to create an instant wireless network at any location."

PacketHop Is Ready to Mesh

"Startup PacketHop this week will introduce its first commercial product, designed for customers that need to deploy wireless mesh networks on the fly. The AWARE™ Communications Suite enables the formation of an instant wireless network among Wi–Fi devices without the need for a centralized server or access points."

PacketHop announces first product

"Software vendor PacketHop today announced the release of its first commercial products at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officers (APCO) conference. PacketHop will make the 1.0 release of its TrueMesh mobile mesh-networking software and its Aware for Public Safety suite of applications."

Instant Connection for First Responders

"What we do is really different from the mesh companies like Tropos, Nortel, BelAir, all of which do some sort of meshing infrastructure," says David Thompson, PacketHop's vice president of marketing. "Their play is that doing [mesh] allows for cheaper backhaul.... End users don't see any of this." He says PacketHop software creates "very mobile, highly scalable meshes" that account for people entering and leaving the mesh.

Meshing with Public Safety

"What you have is all of a sudden first responders have this ability wherever this incident takes place to be able to communicate with one another - with high bandwidth and state-of-the-art tools," said David Thompson, PacketHop's vice president of marketing."

Recent Fundings

"PacketHop, a developer of mobile mesh networking software and multimedia applications for instant wireless group communications, raised $10 million in a third round of venture funding. This round was led by GF Private Equity Group, along with previous investors including U.S. Venture Partners, Mayfield and ComVentures."

Instant Networks

"(PacketHop) software enables standard Wi-Fi-equipped laptops, PDAs, and other devices to form their own 'mesh' networks and share video, photos, messages, and location data. With the technology, emergency workers at a disaster site can "set up a network on the fly without the need for infrastructure," says Michael Howse, the startup's president and CEO."

Motomesh Not Just for Public Safety

"Motorola basically continues to provide a proprietary, closed solution," said David Thompson, vice president of marketing at PacketHop. "If you want to do their version of [ad hoc] meshing on a mobile client, you have to buy their proprietary equipment. You want to avoid that situation, or you become locked into Motorola and single-sourced again."

Where Mesh Goes From Here

"Motorola builds proprietary systems," so customers who work with them must buy all Motorola components, said Michael Howse, PacketHop's president and CEO. As for mesh networking, "they have a proprietary radio, proprietary routing, and really for MeshNetworks to work, you have to buy all MeshNetworks equipment." PacketHop, by contrast, has based its product on open networking standards.

WiFi Planet News

"It will be joined by other mesh products including the software-based PacketHop, a hardware-agnostic product that will also be geared toward public safety."

Meshing With Mesh Networks

"Michael Howse, president of PacketHop, a competitor of the former MeshNetworks and member of the 4.9 GHz Open Standards Coalition, expressed concern that Motorola will dominate the market and develop a proprietary approach that will stifle interoperability."

The Art of MANETs (pdf format)

"Federal, state and local public safety agencies in the San Francisco area saw a MANET in action in February 2004, during a three-hour homeland security exercise at the Golden Gate Bridge. Led by the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, the Golden Gate Safety Network coalition used technology from PacketHop to transmit text messages, video feeds and maps displaying GPS location data."

Despite ruling, 4.9 GHz still up in air

"Nortel earlier this year teamed with PacketHop, which provides mobile mesh networking software that forms ad hoc broadband wireless networks via standard IP radio-equipped devices, to jointly market Nortel's infrastructure and PacketHop's software client technology. Users that have already been investing in devices for the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi band can incorporate PacketHop's software to support mission-critical applications", said Michael Howse, PacketHop's president and CEO.

PacketHop Wins 2005 Mobility Award (pdf format)

"The 2005 Mobility Awards honor the best and finest mobile computing and wireless data communications products and services that were announced in 2004. 'There's a need to honor the best and finest mobile computing and wireless data communications products and services,' said J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D. Chief Analyst with MobileTrax LLC. "

RadioResource MissionCritical Communications (pdf format)

"Mesh Networking - Mobile broadband capabilities can be a powerful addition to your communications arsenal." Article by David Thompson, PacketHop's vice president of marketing.