from IBD today -
Speedy Wireless Web Access: More
Than Just A Pipe Dream
Date: 8/27/99
Author: Susan Breidenbach
If you can't get the high-speed Internet access you want from
your telephone wires or TV cables, take heart: A new
generation of microwave wireless services can deliver the same
kind of performance.
Wireless Internet access isn't new. For years, various services
have trickled information at sub-modem speeds to personal
digital assistants and laptops equipped with bulky adapters.
Subscribers were committed cybernauts who sacrificed
performance for mobility.
But the new wireless services can outperform wire-based
connections such as digital subscriber line and cable modems.
The latter are trying to retrofit an existing wired network that
can't always accommodate higher speeds and don't always
provide connections where you want them.
''One of the advantages the wireless providers will have is
more ownership. They are doing the last mile themselves,'' said
Eric Rasmussen, an industry analyst with TeleChoice Inc., a
market-research firm based in Owasso, Okla. ''The ability to
handle installations and upgrades very quickly is a huge
advantage.''
The most noteworthy is San Jose, Calif.-based start-up Soho
Wireless, a division of Network System Technologies Inc.
Soho Wireless is using this free medium to beam the Internet
to Silicon Valley, but plans to expand.
Baton Rouge, La.-based Usurf America Inc. has begun pilot
installations of a wireless system to business customers in the
New Mexico towns of Los Alamos and Santa Fe.
MobileStar Network Corp. , a Richardson, Texas-based
start-up, is deploying a nationwide network for business
travelers to use in hotels and frequent-flyer lounges. Users pay
a $39 monthly membership fee plus use charges.
Soho Wireless charges $49 to $189 per month, depending on
the number and types of computers, and equipment rental is
another $23 to $39. Soho Wireless has placed microwave
antennae in small businesses in downtown San Jose and nearby
Palo Alto with Internet access at speeds of up to 2 megabits
per second - 60 times faster than the typical dial-up modem.
Individual laptops communicate with the Soho Wireless
network through a tiny antenna that protrudes less than an inch
from the end of a credit-card-size adapter. An external version
of the antenna plugs into desktop PCs, and a multiuser model
can be shared by computers attached to a local-area network.
MobileStar is using the same technology as Soho.
''Big files come down without a problem, and the speed is
incredible,'' says Gene Blakeslee, chief financial officer of San
Jose National Bank. He likes the mobility, which lets him move
around the office or even go outside.
Based on a radio frequency standard, the gear is being
produced by manufacturers such as Lucent Technologies Inc.,
Aironet Wireless Communications Inc. and Nokia Corp.
The Book Cafe in Campbell, Calif., hooked up with Soho
Wireless a year ago, after an abortive effort to use digital
subscriber. The bookstore and print shop wanted to shorten
the download time for clip art and print jobs. The wireless
solution also seemed ideal for a new business service: PCs
rented out by the hour.
''We were told we could get 384-kilobit (digital subscriber), but
it turned out we were too far from the switch and only got
144-kilobit,'' said Tim Reiling, The Book Cafe's owner. ''And
the (digital subscriber) was down several times in the two
months we had it.''
Soho Wireless, then one of Reiling's customers, stepped in and
made The Book Cafe its first subscriber.
''They had no idea what to charge, so they asked what we
were paying for (digital subscriber),'' Reiling said. ''(They)
quoted half -$150.''
(C) Copyright 1999 Investors Business Daily, Inc.
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