Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Wireless networking technology gains strength

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 12:57:50 -0500

Wireless networking
technology gains strength

By The Raleigh News & Observer
via NewsEdge.

January 19, 2003

Look skyward, you Web surfers of little patience and slow
connections. Salvation awaits.

Entrepreneurs are dotting communities across the state and nation
with antennas that can transport you to your favorite cyberspace
destinations as much as 50 times faster than traditional dial-up
service.

Wi-Fi technology already has turned homes, offices and coffee
shops into wireless playgrounds. Now, Wi-Fi is stretching across
neighborhoods miles wide, giving consumers an alternative to cable
or telephone companies for high-speed broadband access.

Wi-Fi is proving to be phenomenally more flexible as a technology
than anybody expected a year or two ago, said Joe W. Laszlo,
senior analyst with Jupiter Research in New York. It's the most
promising wireless broadband offering on the table today.

About 1,000 wireless Internet service providers have been launched
nationwide, including more than a dozen in North Carolina,
according to Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine, an online
publication that tracks the industry. They function much like
Earthlink or AOL, but link customers with antennas instead of
wires.

With an investment of about $10,000 to $500,000, depending on the
transmitters and receivers purchased, they're in business, serving
3- to 15-mile swaths.

The providers usually get started in rural areas where more
popular high-speed technologies, namely DSL links from phone
carriers and cable modem service from cable-TV companies, don't
reach.

The rollout of broadband wireless systems is much cheaper and
cost-effective, said K. Robert Hoskins, editor and publisher of
Broadband Wireless Exchange. They're becoming more and more
popular.

An antenna perched 220 feet above the intersection of Interstate
40 and N.C. 42 will begin blanketing the western Johnston County
community known as Cleveland with fast Web signals this month. QRO
Wireless, a startup, has invested about $40,000 and worked since
early summer to make it happen.

That is to say, since about the time IBM laid me off, said Jim G.
McGrath, vice president of operations.

He and Ernie S. Nieradka, a friend of about six or seven years who
used to work at First Citizens Bank, had kicked around the idea of
starting a business -- maybe a beer and bait shop by the lake,
McGrath said -- for some time.

They, along with a Florida partner, settled on the Internet
service after finding that many of their neighbors, including a
population of Research Triangle Park workers, were frustrated by
their Web connections.

Technical and capital constraints had prevented telephone and
cable companies from expanding there, leaving residents to contend
with dial-up delays.

We put out a survey and started advertising a little bit, and we
got a tremendous response, said Nieradka, QRO's president. They
said, 'Please, please put this in!'

QRO expects to begin service within days and will cover a 4-mile
circle around its transmission tower. Prices for residential
customers will range from $39.95 to $49.95 per month, while
businesses will pay between $69.95 and $129.95, on par with other
broadband providers.

Those who subscribe will have a wireless receiver the size of a
large book attached to their roofs. The antenna is linked inside
using cable or separate wireless networking equipment.

The company has compiled a list of 260 potential customers and
plans to expand throughout Johnston County this year, Nieradka
said. It could be a lucrative market, given that Johnston was the
fastest-growing county in the state during the past decade.

I've got a real good feeling, he said. There's a need for this all
over Eastern North Carolina.

Although neighborhood Wi-Fi can give people a new way to reach
online destinations, it does have drawbacks. First, the
transmitter and receiver must be able to see each other at all
times. If large trees or buildings get in the way, the connection
won't work.

Some trees are OK; a forest is not, Nieradka said.

Unlike satellite systems, you don't have to worry about inclement
weather disturbing transmissions. But a neighbor's phone
conversation might. The system relies on unregulated airwaves used
by devices such as cordless phones and microwaves that can cause
interference similar to radio static. And there can be security
concerns. Informed hackers, for example, potentially could tap
into signals.

Companies such as QRO Wireless and Intechmedia Broadband, another
community Wi-Fi service provider near Angier, try to mitigate such
problems. They use encryption technology to thwart hackers, and
visit homes and offices to assess service viability before hooking
it up.

For people such as Rickie C. Lipscomb, the benefits outweigh the
pitfalls. The 54-year-old golf course superintendent lives by an
80-acre tobacco farm in Willow Spring and thought I was limited to
dial-up forever.

Sprint couldn't reach him with its DSL service, and Time Warner
said it was not economical to extend its lines about 1,300 feet to
reach his and two other homes.

I just stay on the Internet quite a bit and do a lot of
downloading music and stuff and needed something faster, he said.

Lipscomb was excited when a friend told him about Intechmedia last
year, realizing there was hope for turbocharged surfing. He has
been a subscriber since July.

I have no qualms with it at all, he said. It's awesome.

Intechmedia plans to expand across Harnett County this year,
possibly reaching as many as 90 percent of people there. Residents
of Sanford, Fayetteville, Nags Head and Duck also can get wireless
service, according to Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine.

So far, subscriptions to DSL and cable modems far outpace those to
Wi-Fi services, which rely largely on word-of-mouth to expand.
According to In-Stat/MDR, a market-research firm, fewer than
600,000 of the 18.9 million people with broadband connections used
a Wi-Fi link in 2002.

It's starting to gather a lot of steam, said Daryl H. Schoolar,
senior analyst for In-Stat/MDR in Scottsdale, Ariz.

By 2005, his firm predicts 2.56 million people will use wireless
connections at their homes and businesses.

And that's just one component of an even larger trend. Cities such
as San Francisco are creating smaller Wi-Fi hot spots in downtown
areas so people moving through with mobile computers can access
the Internet for free.

Combine those efforts with the growing number of coffee shops,
airports, hotels, homes and offices with small-scale Wi-Fi
networks, and analysts see the start of a revolution.

This business is really where the cell phone business was 20 years
ago,"Hoskins, the Wireless Exchange editor, said. "Eventually,
there will be enough ... coverage that you can roam anywhere.

That should worry at least one industry: mobile phone carriers.

Companies such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless have invested
billions of dollars in upgrades to let subscribers access the
Internet faster. Wi-Fi, which is cheaper and popular, could make
those expenditures obsolete.

It may put a big dent in their future prospects, Laszlo said.

Reported by The Raleigh News & Observer via NewsEdge.

http://www.computeruser.com/news/03/01/19/news1.html

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