Airspan partner Stutler Technologies has been awarded the contract with Haviland Telephone Company which is responsible for the deployment, operation and management of the county-wide WiMAX system.

The WiMAX network, operating in the public 3.65 GHz band, will consist of base stations located in the highest points of the county, which will communicate with Airspan subscriber units placed in businesses and residential homes. The community has received donations of computer equipment and together with Airspan's WiMAX units will have access to high-speed, 24/7 wireless Internet access.

After observing the post-May 4th situation and noting the absence of an effective means of communications within the county and the community, a team from Kansas State University led by Dr. Bert Biles worked with Kiowa County to create a new, 21st century model for rural community communications. The project has three critical elements: The implementation of a county-wide WiMAX broadband wireless access network; the distribution of WiMAX enabled laptops and desktop computers to the households, businesses and government entities of the county; and finally, the development of a Community Media Center which will ensure member participation as well as a portal for community news and information.

Working hand-in-hand with Airspan-partner Stutler Technologies, the Greensburg and county leadership and KSU quickly ascertained the needs of the city and chose Airspan to supply the WiMAX equipment as best suited to the project goals and requirements.

"Airspan is very proud to be part of this project," said Declan Byrne, Airspan's Chief Marketing Officer. "Not only are we confident that our experience and solutions in the 3.65 GHz band will benefit the citizens of Greensburg and Kiowa County, but we are also confident that our partner Stutler Technologies is ideally placed to offer the best customer service and a guiding hand to this project."

"Airspan Networks was one of the first technology companies in America to step forward and offer rebuilding assistance to Kiowa County and Greensburg," noted Gene West, chairman of the Kiowa County Commission. "And Stutler Technologies, located just down the road in Emporia, KS, has provided invaluable technical support in designing our 3.65 GHz WiMAX system."

"We very much look forward to the completion of the project," continued West, "when each of our townspeople will have wireless access to the Internet. This media project has been an intricate building block to gluing this community back together. Our focus has been to rebuild Greensburg maximizing environmentally friendly technologies and WiMAX broadband access is perfectly suited to this goal. We have been delighted at the support for this broader effort from the public media."

"Our target is to eventually expand the project to include Airspan MiMAX-USB enabled laptops, netbooks, and other portable handheld devices to provide nomadic WiMAX access across most of Kiowa County. My personal goal," West said, only partially joking, "is to provide Internet to the tractor!"

The eco-friendly rebuilding of Greensburg has been profiled on Discovery's Planet Green, the first and only 24-hour eco-lifestyle television network.

J.J. Stutler, President of Stutler Technologies, added, "Working with Airspan on this project has been a pleasure. They not only understood the system requirements of the project and offered the best WiMAX equipment, but also shared our vision in supplying this community a robust, high-capacity network that will connect them to each other, across the county and to the rest of the world."

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