It's strange to read this article. It looks like ATT's Project Angel is a Metricom like deployment. It's my understanding that Angel is LMDS??? They seem to mix their metaphors here, but if I'm guessing corectly any move by AT&T to deploy Angel will be good for Netro.
Regards, Mark
AT&T To Give Angel Its Wings
By Fred Dawson, Inter@ctive Week
zdnet.com
October 18, 1999 9:25 AM ET
A new AT&T wireless service promises to more than double the data rates now available over conventional dial-up connections, as well as give users of portable computers a wire-free way to make network connections.
Sources familiar with the project said AT&T Wireless will use some elements of the company's Project Angel in the new wireless data service. The service would be the first commercial offering to emerge from the 6-year-old development effort, albeit in a shape and form different from what its developers initially intended.
The AT&T wireless service would compete directly against similar offerings from other service providers, most notably MCI WorldCom. MCI plans to resell a wireless data access service developed by Metricom, a company in which it made a major investment earlier this year.
While some wireless operators are waiting for the arrival of so-called third-generation technology to bring high-speed data service to wireless networks, commercial 3G deployments are still at least two to three years away. Rather than wait, some operators are seeking a more immediate way to deliver anytime, anywhere connectivity at high data rates to portable computers.
In addition to AT&T Wireless and MCI WorldCom, ArrayComm is putting together a consortium of unnamed service provider partners with an eye toward creating a nationwide portable data service. The service would be based on ArrayComm's "smart antenna" technology, which will deliver data rates in excess of 1 megabit per second within two years.
AT&T believes being early to market with saturation coverage is the way to go, said Kenneth Woo, a spokesman for AT&T Wireless.
"We always said we would be ready for commercial deployment [of Project Angel technology] by sometime in 2000, and that is still the case," he said.
Woo said AT&T started market trials of the Angel-based service in early June in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The company is working on an advanced wireless system that insiders said will be able to support up to four lines of packetized voice services along with fast Internet access. That traffic will be carried over a thin slice of spectrum carved out of the cellular and personal communication service allocations already owned by AT&T Wireless. This is no mean feat, since the carrier now uses most of its 25 megahertz of available spectrum for analog and digital voice service.
AT&T would not discuss details about its plans for the new service, but wheels are in motion, sources said.
"AT&T is definitely proceeding with site acquisition and field preparations," said Chuck Sackley, senior vice president for sales and marketing at Wireless Facilities, a supplier of engineering and construction services for the wireless industry. "They've already selected some contractors, and we're talking with them in hopes of being chosen as well."
Wireless Facilities is handling some of the construction and all of the radio frequency engineering for Metricom's network build-out. "There's a real battle shaping up in the market for portable access to the Internet at fairly high speeds," Sackley said.
Metricom plans a commercial launch of its Ricochet service in a dozen U.S. markets by mid-2000, expanding to more than 40 markets by mid-2001, said John Wernke, the company's senior vice president of marketing and sales. MCI WorldCom, which holds a 37 percent stake in Metricom, is the first carrier to sign on as a retail provider of Ricochet, Wernke added.
Ricochet is designed to deliver signals to users from shoebox-sized microcells mounted on light and utility poles. It will serve a large number of users with data delivered at 128 kilobits per second or better downstream, and 64 Kbps upstream, Wernke said.
Meanwhile, ArrayComm is promising a more ambitious service based on its smart antennas. Large-scale field trials of its iBurst system are planned for late next year, with an eye toward launching a 1-Mbps service in 100 U.S. cities covering about 60 percent of the nation's population, said Martin Cooper, ArrayComm's chairman and chief executive. "For this system to be real, it has to be ubiquitous," Cooper said. |
