Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cometa's Hotspot Hassles

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 12:30:11 -0400

Cometa's Hotspot Hassles
07.07.03

Cometa Networks Inc. -- the ambitious hotspot project backed by some of the
biggest names in the industry -- is falling well short of its projected targets
for installing 802.11 wireless LAN access points in major cities across the U.S..

When the hotspot venture, funded by AT&T Corp. (NYSE: T - message board), IBM
Global Services, and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC - message board) with venture
capital from Apax Partners and 3i Group plc, originally launched in December 2002
it talked about installing between 25,000 and 50,000 access points in restaurants,
cafes, hotels and other retail outlets across the country by the end of this year
(see Rainbow Unveiled)
But seven months into 2003 the company has installed very few of these hotspots --
some sources say that it only has ten trial sites up and running so far, including
a handful in McDonalds restaurants in New York City.

Mickey geez! What's going on?

"Clearly they have not executed on [the original plans]," says Meta Group Inc.'s
Chris Kozup, noting that the San Francisco-based company "didn't even bid" on the
contract to run a public WLAN service in the international airport in its
hometown, a site now operated by T-Mobile USA.

I don't know the exact number [of hotspots installed] but I know it's not very
many," says Yankee Group's Sarah Kim. "I think the number that they first
announced was a little aggressive."

So what's taking Cometa so long to get up and running?

According to an executive from a wireless operating support systems (OSS) startup
who didn't want to be named, the companies involved in the project have been at
loggerheads over the best way to install and manage hotspot sites. IBM Global
Services, which is nominally the partner tasked with setting up these sites, had
wanted to build a management system from scratch. However, the other partners
nixed this suggestion as too expensive and are now searching for off-the-shelf
software to handle management and billing tasks.

Cometa had not returned our calls about these issues by press time.
Yankee's Kim thinks that Cometa's delays can only benefit operators like T-Mobile
USA, which already has 2,000 WLAN sites around the U.S. The more time it takes
Cometa to roll out a network, the fewer prime sites (airports, hotels, brothels --
the usual suspects) there will be available for it to plant a hotspot on. "The
longer it takes other players to get moving, the more it becomes a question of a
lockout," says Kim. "T-Mobile has the first-mover advantage."

— Dan Jones, Senior Editor, Unstrung

http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=36594&site=unstrung

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Coral Calcium for Greater Health - $23.95
http://www.challengerone.com/t/l.asp?cid=2805&lp=calcium2.asp
http://us.click.yahoo.com/MmkSQC/NTVGAA/ySSFAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/