Examining 900 Mhz Product Offering

Firetide has announced a 900 Mhz mesh radio (see the product page for the 900 Mhz model). It's a dual-radio unit with (1) 900 MHz radio and another radio that operates at 2.4/5.8 GHz. This allows a local wireless link that can perform better in environments with obstacles (tree being the most common real world problem).

Firetide confirmed the product is now shipping and that the North American MSRP is $500 more than the traditional unit (HotPort 6000).

Firetide state that the 900 MHz version "delivers the industry’s highest throughput [for 900 MHz] – up to 26 Mbps, depending on line of sight conditions." That's vague and somewhat contradictory given the fact that the main use of 900 is for non line of sight. 

As for throughput, Firetide wrote, "throughput in the field when trees are involved will vary between 3 - 18 Mbps; the actual number will depend on how thick the tree canopy is, distance, existing interference and available channel width." With so many factors impact performance, such performance claims have to be verified in tests.