Backbone Directory: TowerStream

The fixed wireless provider offers ISPs an affordable, flexible, and reliable alternative to wired connectivity.

by Jeff Goldman [February 22, 2005]

Jeff Thompson founded the wireless broadband provider TowerStream back in 2000.

Thompson, TowerStream's President and CEO, ran a traditional dialup ISP in the '90s, which he sold to Citadel Broadcasting Corporation in 1997. After selling the ISP, Thompson says, he decided to focus on the biggest problem he had faced as an ISP—getting last-mile services—and so he founded TowerStream.

While the bulk of TowerStream's business is with small- to medium-sized businesses, Thompson says the company does also have some large enterprise customers—and, in each market TowerStream serves, a few ISPs. TowerStream's services start at a T1 equivalent (1.5 Mbps), extending to 100 Mbps (the equivalent of 66 T1s) for $5,000 a month—with speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps available.

Currently, markets served include the following:

• San Francisco, CA
• Los Angeles, CA
• Chicago, IL
• New York, NY
• Boston, MA
• Providence, RI
• Newport, RI
• Westerly, RI

Obviously, wireless is a great solution in more remote areas where wired offerings are either unavailable or prohibitively expensive. "If you're an ISP that's 30 miles away from downtown Chicago, a DS3 that's 30 miles long to get back to Chicago will have large distance costs," Thompson says. "For them to get 100 Mbps from us, it's a lot less expensive, even though we're giving them 100 Mbps instead of 45 Mbps."

Reliable and flexible
But there are other key selling points in addition to cost. The flexibility of the offering—bandwidth can be upgraded or downgraded easily in 1.0 Mb increments—is also key. "Some of the smaller ISPs are using our services because we have a good sweet spot between 2 and 5 Mbps, which they can't get with a traditional T1—it just physically doesn't work," Thompson says.

Speed of deployment, Thompson says, is another strength. "The average business T1 takes about 22 to 26 days to install," he says. "We have quicker installation, and we have a great SLA."

And upgrades are simple as well. "A lot of ISPs know that if they get a quick order from one of their customers for 10 or 15 Mbps and then they realize they're going to need more on their backbone, it could take quite some time for them to upgrade with a large RBOC," Thompson says. "With us, they can just upgrade quickly—depending on what equipment we've put in their location, sometimes it's hours, sometimes just a few days."

If a potential client has concerns about the reliability of a wireless connection, Thompson says he simply tells them to talk to a few of TowerStream's clients. "We've got 750 buildings lit, and a lot of happy customers," he says. "All we do is have them talk to our references, and they'll soon find out we're even more reliable than most T1s that they're already going through."

Heading to WiMAX
TowerStream's networks are currently deployed using "pre-WiMAX" technology. "We're one of the four Intel partners that's going to be part of a large beta trial of all the people that are certified now," Thompson says. "So we'll be beta-testing some of the actual certified gear pretty soon—and we'll see where that takes us."

That future, Thompson says, will definitely include certified WiMAX. "It's a standardized product," he says. "It's going to enable us to have a better cost structure in the future, because the CPE prices will come down. If you're using a proprietary technology, those prices will not come down—so it's very important to get to the standard."

Thompson says TowerStream's offering is currently unique, largely because wireless deployments present so many challenges. "It's a very capital-intensive business just like any other ISP business, but you also have to know how to work with RF," he says. "That's why even the small WISPs are having a tough time at it, because they think it's just like reselling T1s—and it's a very different physical business."

On that note, Thompson says reassuring potential clients that TowerStream will survive is just like reassuring them that wireless can be reliable. "We have Fortune 500 customers—we have a lot of great references," he says. "We're kind of like the JetBlue of Internet services: we have a lot of happy customers. So when a potential customer wants to talk to someone, we don't say, 'There's just one guy you can talk to.' We say, 'Here's a list of 50.'"

Corporate Contact Info:

	Executive:	Jeff Thompson, President and CEO
	Voice:	401-848-5848
	Toll Free:	866-848-5848
	Offices:	Tech II, 55 Hammarlund Way, Middletown, RI 02842 440 Totten Pond Road, Waltham, MA 02451 32 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10013
	E-mail:	info@towerstream.com
	Sales:	866-848-5848 or sales@towerstream.com
	Support:	800- 306-6993 or support@towerstream.com
	Web Contact Form:	http://towerstream.com/content.asp?signup
	Products:	http://towerstream.com/content.asp?whatweoffer
	Service Areas:	http://towerstream.com/content.asp?serviceareas
	SLA:	http://towerstream.com/content.asp?sla
	Newsroom:	http://towerstream.com/content.asp?presscenter

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