ISPCON Conclusions

At ISPCON, wireless technologies that could enable companies to serve Internet without the baby bells drew big crowds, while technologies like DSL that depend on the baby bells were unpopular.

by Jim Wagner of internetnews.com [April 7, 2001]

Judging by the popularity of the booths hosted by wireless equipment vendors at ISPCON this week, ISPs have just about had it with the local exchange carriers (LECs).

Walking down the aisles this week, you could see the lonely digital subscriber line vendors and providers presiding over deserted sections of floor space trying to get rid of their company memorabilia.

Wireless rocks the monopoly
Meanwhile, companies like Wave Wireless Networking and ClearWire Technologies, Inc., were experiencing Mardi Gras-size attendance at their booths, a clear indication that ISPs that weren't deploying a fixed wireless solution in their hometown were at least taking a serious look at the technology.

Take Pete Kumbalek, network administrator for NetNet, Inc., an ISP located in Green Bay, WI. While his company isn't providing fixed wireless right now, it's a good possibility NetNet will by the end of the year.

Local Insight, a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) in Green Bay that he works with, will be conducting field tests for a fixed wireless product in the next 30 days.

Kumbalek wanted to make sure he was completely up to speed on the technology before Local Insight started offering the technology to ISPs in his area, so he attended a seminar at ISPCON dubbed, "How To Start A Wireless ISP."

The seminar, like the booths in the exhibit hall, was packed. Chairs were taken from the anemic crowd attending the "ISP to ASP: A Changing of the ISP Paradigm," to seat the many ISPs who wanted to look into the suddenly popular Wireless ISP (WISP) business.

Des Desikan, BreezeCOM Wireless Access Solutions director of product management, must have felt like a pretty popular guy. Not only were his attendees hanging on his every word, they asked enough questions throughout the first of two classes that he had to modify his presentation for the second class to respond.

Freedom from the copper prison

"(ISPs) are finding out that dial up isn't satisfying their customers and DSL and cable doesn't go everywhere," Desikan said. "LECs had difficulties deploying their products, underestimating the quality of their DSL offering and overestimating the availability of the local loop to reach customers. Even when they reach a customer and finally hook them up, they can't achieve the promised speeds."

It's a tired story that's plagued the DSL industry since nationwide deployments began in earnest three years ago.

Making wireless installation a breeze
BreezeCOM, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based fixed wireless equipment maker, is certainly proof that the technology is gaining fast acceptance in the states and worldwide.

A company founded in 1992, BreezeCOM expects to make $125 billion in sales by the end of the year. That's a bold projection in today's bear market.

ISPs, said Patrick Pacifico, vice president of marketing and product management for Wave Wireless Network, by their very nature are an adaptable breed, and many are now looking at wireless to bring them broadband to pass on to their customers.

"ISPs by their nature are early adopters and most have had a bad relationship with their carriers," Pacifico said. "They are willing to try out a new technology and have been quick to embrace the fixed wireless solution."

Pacifico said that while his booth didn't see as many visitors this year because of the depressed market right now, the event was still very successful for his company.

"(Our leads) are down from previous years, but we still enjoyed a good amount of people who came out to see our product," Pacifico said. "We did a lot better than many vendors who came out here."

Mike O'Connor, president of West Central Ohio Internet Link, an ISP out of Lima, OH, said he attended the wireless seminars and booths to get more insight into the fixed wireless arena.

With roughly 18,000 users right now, O'Connor isn't looking to expand his fixed wireless empire right now.

About a 120 of his customers are using the fixed wireless solution he's been marketing for over a year, 95 percent of which are business customers.

Cable trumps DSL, but wireless trumps cable
The move to fixed wireless was done to protect his business, a move he felt he had to make to keep many of his customers from bolting to Road Runner's cable Internet service.

"For the longest time, we didn't have DSL to offer to our customers and Road Runner was taking about 40 of my customers a month," O'Connor said.

He said DSL has finally come to his area of Ohio, and plans to deploy Sprint's broadband DSL solution to his customers, but he doesn't want to abandon fixed wireless.

"I'm very comfortable with wireless right now," O'Connor said.

It's a sentiment more and more ISPs are agreeing with, as they try to expand their business model to incorporate this relatively inexpensive-to-deploy solution that bypasses the ILEC with its delay tactics and poor ISP support.

—End