Wi-Fi on Steroids Heads for U.S. (Bozeman !)

Broadband One Networks plans to introduce a wireless data service in September that would give high-speed Internet access to laptop-toting businesspeople roaming miles away from the nearest antenna.

Broadband One, a San Diego startup, will introduce the service in Bozeman, Montana, a college town tucked away in the south-central part of the state. If the service does well there, the company plans to offer the service in other parts of the country.

By Elisa Batista

http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,63081,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4

Broadband One Networks plans to introduce wireless data service iBurst this September in Montana. The service would give high-speed Internet access to laptop users roaming miles away from the nearest antenna.IBurst is about 100 times faster than cellular connections currently offered by cell-phone providers. And users can roam up to 5 miles away from a base station — unlike Wi-Fi services, which tether users to a range of about 300 feet.

The service, iBurst, is the brainchild of Marty Cooper, the inventor of the first cellular phone. It falls into a sweet spot that isn’t covered well by existing offerings. IBurst is about 100 times faster than a cellular connection currently offered by cell-phone providers. And users can roam up to 5 miles away from a base station — unlike Wi-Fi services, which tether users to a range of about 300 feet.

"Baloney about finding a hot spot somewhere," Cooper said. "Wi-Fi is great for the home and great for the enterprise, but it will not give you ubiquitous service."

In Sydney, Australia, where iBurst is conducting another test, consumers and businesses have embraced it with enthusiasm. Personal Broadband Australia, a wireless data company, plans to offer the service to the rest of the country by 2005. People are having fun with iBurst, surfing the Internet while riding the bus across town and checking e-mail in an elevator to show off the system’s capability, according to anecdotes shared by Cooper’s company, ArrayComm. ArrayComm supplied both Personal Broadband Australia and Broadband One with licenses to sell the iBurst service.

"The rest of the world is going to follow us," Cooper said.

But ArrayComm already faces a lot of competition. Even the smallest hamlets in the United States are wired with cellular networks, and Wi-Fi hot spots are becoming fixtures in many public spaces like cafes, restaurants, libraries, airports and even ballparks.

It also doesn’t help that Intel and key telecommunications companies have put their weight behind the WiMAX Forum, a group supporting a unified wireless standard called 802.16 that will boast the same capabilities as the iBurst network. The first WiMAX products, however, won’t hit the market until 2005.

"Even though iBurst was designed from the ground up to be superior for data transmission, carriers have their legacy systems," said Alan Reiter, president of Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing, a consulting company. "It is very difficult to convince a cellular operator to move to a new technology."

Still, that doesn’t mean that iBurst won’t find a niche market. Ed Rerisi, analyst at ABI Research, predicted that Bozeman residents would take up iBurst services because they are in a rural area and don’t have many options for broadband Internet. Rerisi said iBurst could conceivably overtake the local DSL business and become the premier provider of broadband in town.

"In the short term, iBurst will most likely be accepted," he said. "But acceptance in a microscopic network doesn’t guarantee long-term success worldwide."

Taking its cue from the successful Australian trial run, ArrayComm said it is in talks with wireless service providers in South Africa and Mexico to launch iBurst networks in those countries.