Los Gatos, Calif. – August 18, 2009 – Firetide Inc., the leading provider of wireless infrastructure mesh networks, today announced that the company experienced record growth in the first half of the 2009 calendar year. Since the company’s first full year of shipping product in 2005, Firetide has on an average doubled its revenues year after year and experienced quarter after quarter growth. Revenue growth in North America declined slightly in the second half of 2008 as the economy stalled, but quickly began to accelerate in first half of 2009, nearly 50% growth compared to second half of 2008. To date, the company has more than 3,000 customers and 1,000 systems integrators worldwide, along with leading distributors and solution partners.

“Municipalities have already begun to plan deployments of city-wide wireless infrastructure, having proved the technology in public safety applications first,” said Bo Larsson, chief executive officer of Firetide. “We believe that Firetide will enable the second wave of extensive municipal wireless deployments, as ubiquitous fiber-equivalent wireless infrastructure becomes a reality.”

Strong demand for the company’s equipment is coming from four main sectors: public safety and municipal networks, where Firetide is the indisputable leader in high-bandwidth wireless infrastructure, transportation, industrial, and Smart Grid applications for utilities. With the company’s new ‘game-changing’ MIMO (802.11n) infrastructure mesh solution now shipping to customers, Firetide expects to expand its leadership into large-scale, municipal wireless mesh networks used for a variety of public safety, municipal and government applications. 
 
“The wireless infrastructure market (cellular, mesh, WiMAX, Wi-Fi), while anticipated to experience an overall decline in 2009 as a result of the economic crisis, is now positioning for recovery in 2010 and beyond. Certain segments, such as mesh and WiMAX, are expected to demonstrate robust growth rates of 20-30% going forward,” said Godfrey Chua, research manager for IDC's Wireless and Mobile Infrastructure service. “The unprecedented performance of the Firetide MIMO mesh should open new opportunities for Firetide, especially in the municipal wireless infrastructure space.”

Firetide’s assessment of the resurgence in the municipal wireless market is in line with the public RFP (request for proposal) information the company has been monitoring. After a dip in Q4 of 2008, RFPs for public safety wireless infrastructure, including video surveillance and other high-bandwidth applications, are on the upswing. RFPs for public Wi-Fi access, although less numerous than public safety RFPs, have exhibited a steady growth since Q1 of 2008, quadrupling in the course of 15 months.

Looking to the future, transportation and Smart Grid projects will contribute significantly to the company’s revenues in the remainder of 2009 and 2010, as communication infrastructure and physical infrastructure become one and the same. To improve the efficiency of the nation's Smart Grid and transportation networks, utilities and transportation agencies need not only a sound physical infrastructure, but also a way to communicate easily and seamlessly – to share data applications, provide security and enable communications. Firetide’s recently introduced 900 MHz non-line-of-sight mesh is an ideal solution for street-level connectivity where buildings and foliage often present a challenge. Meanwhile, high-throughput mobile infrastructure enabled by Firetide MIMO mesh will provide real-time security and other applications in the transportation sector. Integrated video surveillance solution – Firetide IVS-100 – simplifies integration and installation of video security deployments in the core municipal vertical and new markets, including transportation.

About Firetide Inc. 
Firetide is the leading provider of wireless infrastructure mesh networks that enable concurrent video, voice, and data for municipal, public safety, and industrial applications. Firetide provides reliable high performance wireless infrastructure mesh and access solutions for video surveillance, Internet access, public safety networks and temporary networks wherever rapid deployment, mobility and ease of installation are required. Headquartered in Los Gatos, Calif., Firetide is a privately held company with worldwide product distribution. http://www.firetide.com 

Media Contacts
Scott Green
CLS Communications, Inc.
scottgreen@myastound.net
650-679-9044

Ksenia Coffman
Firetide
kcoffman@firetide.com
+1-408-317-8985