Wireless Rocks The Monopoly, Part 4

There is a specter haunting the telcos: the invisible specter of wireless. ISPs, you have nothing to lose but your chains. The significance of three spearheads of change: Sprint, Lucent, and WaveRider.

by Gerry Blackwell

Watch Out First Movers, Here Comes Sprint!
Bad news for entrepreneurial fixed wireless ISPs everywhere. Heavy-hitter Sprint recently launched its low-cost broadband wireless ISP service, Sprint Broadband Direct, in Phoenix AZ.

Worse still, Sprint and WorldCom have announced a merger agreement, under which they hope to offer broadband wireless service to 60% of the households in the United States in more than 100 cities by the end of 2001.

Sprint will charge a very competitive $40 a month, plus a one-time installation fee of $300, for always-on broadband Internet access for a single system. Additional computers will cost extra.

The service, which uses licensed MMDS wireless technology, will provide downstream burst rates of up to 5 Mbps, and typical download speeds of 1 to 2 Mbps.

EarthLink Sprint will provide the Internet service, which includes six e-mail accounts, six megabytes of Web storage, and five hours per month of remote dialup Internet access for use when subscribers are out of the coverage area.

At launch time, Sprint Broadband Direct had over 85% of the homes and offices in the Phoenix metroplex covered. Service is available to anyone who has line of sight to the Sprint Broadband Direct transmission tower and is within 35 miles of South Mountain or Shaw Butte.

Sprint boasts, with some justification, that its Broadband Direct service will outperform — and outsell — both DSL and cable-based services. Competing fixed wireless services are apparently beneath its notice.

[ed. note: see, for example, the article Wireless ISPs are Here. ISP Planet's initial coverage of the Sprint announcement can be found in the article Sprint's Wireless Technolgy Rocks the Monopoly.]

Public Access Internet
VirtuaLAN Inc. of Denver CO, a Telecom Partners company, has announced a "strategic relationship" with Lucent to offer fixed wireless Internet and VPN services in hotels, convention centers, and airports across the United States.

VirtuaLAN will use Lucent's recently announced ORiNOCO Internet Access Server product, whose website is http://www.wavelan.com/.

The company was vague about when the first networked facilities would go live — and about nearly every other pertinent detail, including pricing. Which means the announcement may be a pre-emptive strike.

It's clear that public access Internet service using fixed wireless technology is a potentially profitable new market opportunity for ISPs, as well as start-ups like VirtuaLAN.

VirtuaLAN will set up wireless LANs — something like cell phone networks — in public facilities and link them to an Internet POP.

Subscribers using laptop or handheld computers equipped with one of Lucent's WaveLAN ORiNOCO interface cards, such as the recently released Residential Gateway card, will be able to log in to the network when they're in the facility and get access to VPNs or the public Internet.

Lucent says the technology provides connectivity at up to 11 Mbps — which would be shared among logged-on users.

Security is obviously a huge concern for a wireless LAN in a public facility. Lucent claims the ORiNOCO Access Servers provide additional levels of security beyond that provided by the standard Wi-Fi 802.11b wireless local area technologies they use.

A few high-end hotels are now offering wired broadband Internet access in rooms, but travelers in airports and other facilities are generally out of luck. Furthermore, wireless networks on the VirtuaLAN model should be easier to install than wired networks in most facilities, including hotels.

[ed. note: see two recent articles, Selling to Hotels and Increasing Interest in Supplying Airport and Hotel Access.]

And from the user's perspective, even in a hotel room, wireless access should be much simpler — no jacks to locate, no need for special cables or ports.

The VirtuaLAN/Lucent announcement refers to an "exclusive relationship," but even if this means Lucent won't sell the technology to any other ISP looking to offer public access service — which seems unlikely — there are other wireless LAN vendors.

Priced right, broadband wireless access services in airports and other public places could find a huge market.

First North American ISP Catches A Wave
Business market ISP HighWave Communications Inc. of Pickering, Ontario in Canada, is the first North American service provider to go live using the LMS2000 broadband fixed wireless product from Toronto-based WaveRider Communications Inc.

The technology, introduced earlier this year, will let HighWave provide its business customers in Durham Region near Toronto with connection speeds up to 11 Mbps using the 2.4GHz unlicensed spectrum.

The LMS2000 product is the first offering in WaveRider's Last Mile Solution (LMS) product line. The company says the LMS product family can provide a cost-effective, highly scalable wireless Internet connection for business and eventually residential customers as well.

While WaveRider has had modest success with LMS2000 and an earlier generation of fixed wireless products overseas, the HighWave sale marks an important breakthrough in the North American market and an indication that LMS2000 is ready for prime time.

HighWave is offering the broadband wireless service under the name DurhamWave. The company also provides Web site hosting, e-commerce and corporate e-mail services.

[Does your company have a fixed wireless technology announcement of interest to ISPs and CLECs? Please send it to wireless@isp-planet.com.]

Related Articles
Wireless Rocks the Monopoly, Part 3: The FCC will consider permitting unlicensed UWB wireless operation. The technology could make wireless deployment even easier, both outdoors and within buildings.

Wireless in Montana: Why aren't more ISPs selling wireless Net connectivity — especially considering the lack of rural broadband alternatives? One Montana ISP says it's neither difficult nor expensive.

Setting Up Wireless: As wireless equipment becomes more popular with ISPs, the ISP lists are teaching companies across the US how to use the equipment. Here is one example.

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