Backbone Directory: airBand

Dallas-based airBand provides wireless data and voice access in six markets nationwide, and works with ISPs on both an agent and a wholesale basis.

by Jeff Goldman [December 21, 2005]

airBand was founded in early 2000 with the aim of using wireless technology to provide cost-effective broadband data services to its customers.

Lisa Kolczun, the company's Vice President of Marketing, says airBand's target customers at the time were businesses that needed broadband access but couldn't yet get DSL. "We were able to serve those customers with wireless," she says.

In addition to offering broadband wireless access, Kolczun says, airBand now also offers VoIP services. When the company launched those services in 2004, she says, they were run over a wired T-1—but that's starting to change. "What we're doing now is deploying pre-WiMAX technology so that we can start deploying voice over wireless," she says.

Going forward in 2006, Kolczun says, both pre-WiMAX and actual WiMAX solutions should eliminate the need for wired voice connections. "Once the WiMAX equipment becomes available, we'll obviously adopt that as quickly as possible—but with some of the pre-WiMAX equipment, we believe that we can get that now," she says.

The company currently offers service in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Phoenix, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. The last two cities, comprising the company's northeast presence, are the result of airBand's recent acquisition of the fixed wireless assets of Baltimore-based Accelacom.

Working with ISPs
In addition to its own sales force, airBand also has an agent channel, which Kolczun says is the way most ISPs work with the company. In those cases, airBand manages the billing and the ISP simply receives a commission.

Still, Kolczun says the company does work with a few ISPs for whom airBand provides a connection which the ISP then uses to deliver branded services to its own customer base. In those cases, it's all about both companies having a stake in the deal—if an ISP is willing to make significant volume commitments, airBand is more than willing to work with them to find a mutually advantageous pricing plan and sales agreement. The service can then be run on a purely wholesale basis, allowing the ISP to do everything from branding the service to providing support and managing the billing.

The ideal arrangement for airBand, Kolczun says, is to work with ISPs that specifically serve residential users, since that's not a market that airBand's own sales force targets. "Let's say a company wants to get a huge pipe from us, and they are in turn going to have their own infrastructure to break that out for residential customers—that's something that we'd be very supportive of," she says.

The service is also perfect, Kolczun says, as a backup option for redundancy. "For ISPs, if their bandwidth's down, their business is down—so for some of the smaller ISPs, they can wholesale from us and get a connection that they can then use as backup."

On the other hand, Kolczun points out that there's no reason for airBand to work with ISPs that compete with its own sales force. "If someone wanted to come in and resell in the greater Dallas area to enterprises, we would probably not be very interested in that," she says. "At that point, we would want to push them towards the agent channel."

A last-mile solution
The company's focus is specifically the last mile—most backhaul, Kolczun admits, is still best handled over a wired connection. "We could do something between some of our markets that are very close together if we thought it was worthwhile—but to be honest, the pricing for backhaul between markets with fiber has come way down," she says.

On the other hand, Kolczun says wireless is a perfect solution for last-mile connections. "We own the network, so we don't have a middleman that we're reliant on for any kind of troubleshooting," she says. "And our installation times are very rapid—we can install in days if we need to."

That kind of speed and flexibility, Kolczun says, is crucial for any company—like an ISP—that wants to resell service. "When you're reliant on someone else to deliver the network for you, you want to know that they own it, so they can be very responsive," she says. "You want to know that they can get things up and running for you very quickly, and that they can have the scale."

Corporate Contact Info:

	Executive:	Mark F. Spagnolo, President and CEO
	Headquarters:	14180 N Dallas Pkwy, Ste 400, Dallas, Texas 75254
	Voice:	469-791-0000
	Fax:	469-374-0741
	Toll free:	866-AIRBAND
	Customer support:	866-THE-BAND
	Wholesale services contact	Jeff Severs, VP Business Development, jsevers@airband.com
	Products and services:	http://airband.com/products/index.html
	Agent inquiry form:	http://airband.com/join/agents.html

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