Phase II of the "Wireless Taipei, Taipei Unwired" M-City project is expected to be completed by the end of August 2005 and follows Nortel's successful deployment of a Wireless Mesh Network in 2004 supporting Phase I of the project. When complete, Taipei City's M-City project expects to have over 10,000 access points installed across 90 percent of its 272 square kilometers.

By the end of 2005, the M-City project will provide anywhere, anytime mobile communications throughout the commercial area of Taipei. The network will be operated by Qware Systems.

Nortel's Wireless Mesh Network solution doesn't require extensive cabling to be laid. The wireless access points have built-in intelligence for managing the network, keeping information flowing if any one point is overloaded or temporarily out of service. In addition to the Wireless Mesh Network, Nortel's Optical Ethernet and IDC firewall solutions will be added.

The biggest engineering challenge for connecting such a large number of access points throughout Taipei City is identifying where each point needs to be placed, then ensuring each location allows transmission of a clear signal without interference. Pinpointing ideal locations for the more than 10,000 access points has been simplified by a new software tool called MeshPlanner. MeshPlanner is designed to allow network designers to provide superior service coverage and secure network access for seamless mobility throughout a city or campus while reducing planning and implementation costs.