Regarding Gilder/AT&T/Terabeam/ARTT etc:
seattlep-i.com
>>> Friday, March 10, 2000
By DAN RICHMAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Dan Hesse, the innovative head of AT&T's Wireless
Services in Bellevue, made some sacrifices yesterday
when he ended a 23-year career at AT&T.
Hesse, 46, has become president and chief executive of
TeraBeam Networks Inc. The privately held,
130-person company uses laser beams to carry
high-speed data streams that give urban businesses
wireless, high-speed Internet access.
The company already is testing in Seattle what it hopes
will become an internationally used technology.
But Hesse says he leaves behind co-workers who are
"like family," a record of innovation -- and considerable
wealth, in the form of stock options that could
skyrocket with an intial stock sale when AT&T spins
off its wireless unit, just weeks from now, into a
separate, publicly held company. Analysts say that
could be the largest initial public offering ever.
Why did he do it?
"From an excitement and financial perspective, there
couldn't be a worse time to leave," he said. "I love
AT&T. But I passed that (money) by for the excitement
of being able to create a great company from scratch,
with a superb team. I've never seen a technology
breakthrough in telecommunications that's as significant
or radical as what I've seen over at TeraBeam."
Hesse, who holds master's degrees from MIT and
Cornell, joined AT&T in 1977 and served there in a
variety of positions, including domestic and international
sales, services, network engineering and operations,
human resources, business development, product
management, and manager of Internet services.
After stepping up to run AT&T Wireless Services in
May 1997, he created the highly successful Digital One
Rate plan, which eliminated roaming and long-distance
charges for cell phone users.
"I did everything there is to do in a large company," he
said. In doing so, he became "a brand name in the
wireless business," said independent analyst Jeffrey
Kagan.
But in December, Hesse was passed over as the head
of AT&T's Wireless Group, which includes the
Wireless Services division he headed. After that, "many
industry watchers knew (his departure) was just a
matter of time," Kagan said.
Hesse joins a growing list of top executives to have left
AT&T over the past two years since C. Michael
Armstrong became chairman and chief executive of the
largest American long-distance company. Hesse is
succeeded at AT&T Wireless Services by Mohan
Gyani, 48.
When TeraBeam founder and Chairman Greg Amadon
first called Hesse, in January, "I had this curiosity, but I
was very skeptical about what he described," Hesse
said.
What Amadon -- who calls himself a serial entrepreneur
-- described was a technology based on free-space
optics, broadcasting infrared light beams carrying
Internet data at a rate of gigabits per second.
High-capacity Internet service is widely available among
nations and cities through fiber-optic networks, and
within companies through wire-based local- or
wide-area networks. It's the so-called last mile,
between where the fiber-optic line ends and the
corporate network begins, that has proved difficult to
bridge.
"From the POP (point of presence, where the fiber
optic connection ends) to the office building, the
Information Superhighway turns into a dirt road," Hesse
said.
That's where TeraBeam's technology comes in.
Customers receive the data-bearing light beam through
a dish-shaped receiver mounted inside the office
window.
"Essentially, it's fiber-optic technology, but it doesn't use
wires and it's beamed to multiple points," Amadon said.
Once the gap between the end of fiber optic lines and
the office is bridged, "it will open the door for
high-definition TV videoconferencing on every
desktop," Hesse predicted. It will allow "grabbing
hunks of video the way you grab Web pages today,
having databases talk to each other, and being able to
have servers based locally, for better control, rather
than at remote facilities," Amadon said.
While last-mile fiber-optic cabling can take three years
to lay within a city, Amadon said his company can
deploy its technology in a city within six weeks. The
light beams can be blocked by heavy fog, which is why
mist-shrouded Seattle was chosen as a test market.
Blockage can be minimized by placing cell sites closer
together, he said.
"If it works here, it will work anywhere," Hesse said.
The company will guarantee 99.99 percent reliability, he
said.
Technologist George Gilder, of Housatonic, Mass.,
called TeraBeam's technology "truly revolutionary,"
saying it "shatters the last-mile bottleneck into shards of
light."
TeraBeam has one paying customer, a Seattle
e-commerce concern. The company has hired top
officers for marketing, engineering and manufacturing
and is now focusing on building its service team,
Amadon said. It's "very well financed" and is about to
complete another round of financing, he said, declining
to elaborate.
After keeping a low profile here for 30 months, the
company will debut officially at PC Forum in
Scottsdale, Ariz., next week. It will move from small
offices near I-5 to 25,000 feet downtown by April 1.
"I initially wanted Dan as a board member, but he got
the CEO bid because of good chemistry and his
incredible background," Amadon said.
Hesse says his plan is to take TeraBeam national and
international, penetrating the top 50 markets worldwide.
Business will be good in Europe as well as here, he
said, because the last-mile problem is even bigger
overseas. That's because state-owned telephone
companies have excluded the competition that has
improved the American telecommunications
infrastructure. "It is a huge potential market," he said.
Hesse said the ramp-up, from 130 employees and one
customer, will be "very significant," but he declined to
discuss timing. "There's an awful lot that goes into rolling
out a national company from scratch," he said.
TeraBeam holds about 10 patents and has a
competitive lead of two to three years with its
technology, he estimated.
"There's a hell of a lot you can do to get way ahead" in
that much time, he said. Potential competitors include
US West, GTE, Nextlink, Teligent and WinStar, he
said.
Bellevue-based Advanced Radio Telecom Corp. uses a
competing technology, radio signals, to achieve similar
results.
"This is not just a technology. It's industry-changing,"
Hesse said. "I think this company will be one more thing
that puts Seattle on the map, up there with McCaw
(Cellular), Microsoft and Boeing."
When asked what his biggest challenge will be in the
new job, Hesse paused.
"I'd have to say that might be crossing from the Eastside
to my Seattle office on the 520 bridge every day," he
said. "I dread it."<<< |
