Altair selected by Netgear to power its mobile broadband Router Family of LTE Routers

The NETGEAR-Altair Mobile Broadband Routers Will Enable Carriers to Deliver Excellent Broadband User Experience Alongside Toll-Quality Voice over LTE

HOD HASHARON, Israel, January 8, 2013, via LTE-depot — Altair Semiconductor (www.altair-semi.com), the world’s leading developer of ultra-low power, small footprint and high performance 4G LTE chipsets, today announced that its FourGee-3100/6202 chipset has been selected by NETGEAR to power its line of LTE routers. The first product that is being developed under the combined efforts of NETGEAR and Altair is the Mobile Broadband Router (MBR1518), a TD-LTE router designed for home and small-office use that boasts a high performance Wireless LAN, USB attached storage and ruggedized firewall.

Given the enhanced spectral efficiencies, available spectrum, and volume synergies with LTE-FDD; public fixed wireless and mobile operators are migrating from WiMAX to TD-LTE, resulting in rapid growth of TD-LTE networks.The MBR1518 TD-LTE router addresses this emerging market. Simultaneous growth in TD- and FDD-LTE also demands products that enable operators to seamlessly migrate from one technology to another. NETGEAR and Altair are focused on delivering such products.

“By teaming up with Altair to develop high speed mobile routers, we will be delivering, to our service provider customers, highly integrated, feature-rich single mode LTE and Voice over LTE products,” said Michael Clegg, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Service Provider Business at NETGEAR.

“We are excited to join forces with NETGEAR, a proven leader in fixed broadband technology, and we look forward to working closely with the NETGEAR team in bringing to market innovative and high-performance LTE products,” said Eran Eshed, Co-Founder and Vice President of Marketing of Altair. “The exclusion of 3G technology in favor of LTE will allow us to significantly reduce the overall cost of the device while maintaining the superior performance and user experience of 4G LTE.”

Trials of the MBR1518 are currently underway and service providers can expect a broad product roll-out in 2013.