Meru and Firetide Form Partnership to Deliver Voice Over Mesh Solution

Monday August 22, 9:00 am ET

Partnership Enables Seamless VoIP for Triple Play Wireless Mesh Networks

SUNNYVALE and LOS GATOS, Calif., Aug. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Firetide, Inc., a leader in wireless mesh networking, and Meru Networks, a global leader in wireless Voice over IP (VoIP) infrastructure, today announced a strategic partnership to deliver high quality, reliable voice communication over wireless mesh networks.

The joint solution includes Firetide's HotPort high performance mesh network and Meru's Wireless LAN System, the only WLAN infrastructure built specifically to handle voice over wireless. The Firetide-Meru solution allows for cost-effective voice over mesh deployments for universities, hotels, recreational venues, airports, municipalities, warehouses and other environments where structured wiring or other solutions are too difficult or costly to install.

"Firetide's HotPort(TM) mesh network is an ideal fit for Meru's WLAN System," said Ihab Abu-Hakima, president and CEO of Meru Networks. "Together, our joint solution solves the management and implementation problems associated with current wireless and VoIP systems, allowing customers to deploy wireless voice networks with minimal upfront build-out expenses and quick return on investment."

Meru's Air Traffic Control technology and WLAN System bring the benefits of the cellular world to wireless LAN environments, offering the reliability, scalability, and security necessary to deliver converged voice and data services over a single WLAN infrastructure. Meru's WLAN System provides Fortune 500 enterprises, universities, and healthcare organizations with the predictable bandwidth and over-the-air Quality of Service required to support a wide range of wireless applications.

Firetide HotPort high performance mesh networks provide a high capacity, self-healing wireless mesh backbone for outdoor and indoor networks. The HotPort system was designed for maximum performance, scalability, and ease of use and allows standard Ethernet devices to be connected to the mesh, creating secure wireless video, voice and data networks. Firetide's HotPort network provides a high quality, low latency wireless infrastructure to support Meru's centralized WLAN architecture and smart access point technology.

"Our customers are continuously extending the services available on their wireless networks," said Bo Larsson, CEO of Firetide. "Voice over wireless is quickly becoming a key application area and our partnership with Meru provides customers with a high quality, feature-rich VoIP solution that works seamlessly and easily with Firetide mesh networks."

For more information about Firetide products, please visit www.firetide.com. For more information about Meru Networks, please visit www.merunetworks.com.

About Firetide, Inc.
Firetide is a privately held wireless mesh technology company that develops networking equipment to deploy high performance, scalable wireless mesh networks quickly, easily and affordably. Firetide's Instant Networking solution is ideal for building backbone infrastructure for Wi-Fi networks, Internet access HotZones, video surveillance, and temporary networks in a variety of environments such as, airports, hotels, campus environments or other locations where wiring is too difficult or expensive to install. Investors include Menlo Ventures, HMS Ventures, Hawaiian Electric Industries, and Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners. For more information, visit the company's website at www.firetide.com.

NOTE: Firetide(TM) and HotPort(TM) are trademarks of Firetide, Inc.

About Meru Networks
Meru Networks is a global leader in Wireless Voice over IP (VoIP) infrastructure solutions. With its innovative, award-winning Air Traffic Control technology that brings the benefits of the cellular world to the wireless LAN environment, Meru's WLAN System is the only solution on the market that offers the reliability, scalability, and security necessary to deliver converged voice and data services over a single WLAN infrastructure. Meru's Wireless LAN System provides major Fortune 500 enterprises, universities, and healthcare organizations with the predictable bandwidth and over-the-air Quality of Service required to support a wide range of current and future wireless applications. Founded in 2002, Meru is based in Sunnyvale, California. For more information on Meru Networks and its products, visit www.merunetworks.com.