AirBox X2 router wins prestigious award at NAB 2007

  • Cambridge, MA
  • June 7, 2007
  • FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Each year, TV Technology magazine’s “mystery engineer” seeks out and determines which companies have the most innovative products at the annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention. The selected products receive the prestigious Mario Award. Past recipients have included industry leaders such as Panasonic and Toshiba, as well as recent winner Sony.

The Mario Award is named after TV Technology writer Mario Orazio, a pen name for a leading broadcast engineer, who writes for one of the industry's most widely recognized columns, "The Masked Engineer." The Mario Awards were established in 1993 in order to identify companies with innovative products who present significant technical breakthroughs in their markets. The award is limited to ten companies yearly and over 1,500 companies competed for the award at NAB 2007.

WAAV, the world's leading provider of mobile routers, presented their AirBox X2 router at NAB and attracted plenty of attention from fellow conference attendees. It was the AirBox X2 cellular router that lured Mario to stop by and take notice. The AirBox X2 gives users access to two simultaneous cellular connections giving users double the bandwidth of a single connection. When used with two different service providers, users also benefit from the combined coverage area of both carriers. Like WAAV’s CM3 mobile router, the X2 has optional GPS capabilities for remote vehicle tracking.

Here’s what Mario had to say about the X2: “Mobile phones are pretty revolutionary, too, and some folks already gather news footage that way. Maybe someday pocket devices will completely eliminate news vans, but I don’t think so. In the meantime, folks are using everything from satellite to sneakernet to get stories back to the station.

Somewhere in that range is mobile-phone-based data transmission, but there are a few problems with it, like limited data rate and the possibility that the carrier you’re using might be out of available channels just when you need them (ever seen the effect of a tornado on a cell tower?). That’s where WAAV’s AirBox X2 cellular router comes in.

The X2 part means it can use two different carriers at once. If one’s tower’s down, maybe the other’s ain’t. It also means you get to increase the data rate. As a bonus, you can use its GPS to figure out which van is closest to a story. And try using satellite or a microwave mast while you’re chasing a twister. The revolution will be televised.” - taken from TV Technology.com on 5/30/07

About WAAV:

WAAV (pronounced "wave") offers network communication solutions, applications, and services. WAAV designs, manufactures, and markets the patented AirBox line of rugged cellular routers to provide broadband connectivity, turning vehicles into WiFi hotspots or remote environments into reliable Internet connections. WAAV's Control Room service allows centralized monitoring of all devices in the field. WAAV introduced the first broadband mobile cellular router in 2005 and was the first to offer a multiple-connection cellular router for broader bandwidths, increased coverage area, and redundant connectivity. WAAV continues to develop its product line to improve performance, reliability, and functionality for industry-specific solutions. With world-class reliability, performance, and support, WAAV’s product portfolio covers enterprise, government, fleet, video, original equipment manufacturer (OEM), and machine to machine (M2M) markets. Engineering services are available for custom integration and specific industry solutions.