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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Darren DeNunzio who wrote (4077)	6/7/1999 5:22:00 AM
From: Darren DeNunzio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

High-Speed Internet Access May Be In The Air By Kathleen Cholewka The best route for that last mile to carrier customers may be through the air, after all. AT&T's suggestion last month that it would turn to its stalled Project Angel fixed wireless technology project to reach customers that aren't served by its planned cable telephony empire points to a possible rebirth of fixed wireless as a mass-market access alternative. Although AT&T (www.att.com) continues to sit tight on meaningful information about its long-promised project, activity in other quarters is starting to pick up. At last month's CeBit trade show in Germany, Lucent Technologies (www.lucent.com) unveiled its Wireless Internet Systems initiative, which promises to deliver Internet Protocol local loop services. Lucent says its technology, which it picked up in its January acquisition of Wave Access, will offer access speeds of 128 kilobits per second and faster. The Lucent product differs from technology now used by broadband wireless service providers such as Teligent and WinStar Communications in that it is intended for widespread deployment to businesses and homes. Services from Teligent (www.teligentcorp.com), WinStar (www.winstar.com) and other providers deliver higher data rates to big office buildings or multidwelling units. Lucent has started hawking its wireless access products in Europe, where local infrastructure tends to be less robust than in North America. That strategy fits in with the overall deployment of fixed wireless technologies to date. Fixed wireless is widely used to deliver basic phone service in regions where wired infrastructure is lacking or nonexistent, primarily because fixed wireless is cheaper and faster to deploy than wireline service. In the U.S., fixed wireless could become the high-speed access route for big parts of the country that won't be served by planned infrastructure upgrades. "There's an overbuild in metropolitan areas, but there are large sections of the U.S. that are not urban and at this rate won't have high-speed access for years," says Nitin Shah, vice president at Lucent's wireless data networking unit. Fixed wireless systems are an alternative to phone lines and leased lines of all kinds. They consist of a combination of carrier base stations and switches and end-user wireless receivers, which are usually a type of dish or modem device. Shah says two U.S. carriers now are testing Lucent's products, although he declines to name those companies. Fixed wireless access holds the biggest appeal for Internet service providers and local competitors that want access to customers without having to use the copper phone lines that the Bell companies own. "With wireless, you don't have to dig ditches," Shah says. But fixed wireless also could hold some appeal for incumbent service providers, especially if it is able to deliver higher data rates. For incumbents, wireless access could help free up access lines on their voice networks, since wireless data can be routed directly to a data switch.