• PC World
• » Networking & Wireless

AT&T, IBM, and Intel have formally announced a new company, Cometa Networks, to help provide nationwide broadband wireless LAN Internet access. Cometa plans in 2003 to deploy WLAN Wi-Fi "hot spots" offering a raw data rate of 11 megabits per second in the top 50 U.S. markets.

Daniel Francisco, an Intel spokesperson, says Intel has invested in Cometa through its Intel Capital arm. The company's goal is to jump-start public-access WLAN development and deployment so that Wi-Fi hot spots are within a 5-minute walk from any spot in urban America, or within a 5-minute drive in the suburbs.

Intel's next-generation processor for laptop computers, the Banias, will eventually incorporate Wi-Fi WLAN technology in the silicon. AT&T will provide the backbone for the Cometa network, and IBM will handle site installation and provide back-office billing systems.

Interest Strong

Wi-Fi WLAN hot spots provide a much higher data rate than the 20 to 70 kilobits per second offered by cellular carriers such as AT&T Wireless Services, but the range of WLANs is limited to about 300 feet. A nationwide network of public-access hot spots of the kind projected by Intel's Francisco would allow mobile workers and fleet operators to easily and quickly find a location that offered high-speed data.

Jeff Amerine, managing director of network services for the FedEx Freight division of FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee, says he's "superexcited" about the prospects of widespread public-access WLANs. He says the company's next-generation wireless handheld computer for drivers can operate over Wi-Fi networks and the General Packet Radio Service wide-area network from AT&T Wireless.

Easy access to Wi-Fi networks would allow FedEx Freight to transmit fat applications, such as freight bills, that couldn't be sent easily over the lower-bandwidth GPRS network, he adds. FedEx Freight plans to conduct tests of public-access Wi-Fi networks next year, Amerine says.

Richard Tisdale, chief information officer of Petro Stopping Centers, an El Paso, Texas-based truck stop operator, says he believes truck fleet operators will embrace Wi-Fi technology quickly, making it imperative for gas stations and for truck stop operators to offer public-access Wi-Fi service. Tisdale predicts that within two to three years, practically every truck stop in the United States will offer such service. Those that don't, he says, will get passed by.

Tisdale says he has received at least three sales pitches for public-access WLAN service from different vendors in the past month. But before he chooses a Wi-Fi partner, Tisdale says, he needs to be sure it has the technical capabilities to cover a large Petro Stop lot, which can hold as many as 400 trucks. That's a far more demanding environment than coffee shops, hotels, or airports, where Wi-Fi hot spots have already been installed.

It will take more than one Wi-Fi access point to serve a typical truck stop, Tisdale says, and the harsh electronic environment could require special configurations of the system.

Vendors Jockey

Allan Adler, chief executive officer of WorkingWild, a Scottsdale, Arizona, start-up, says his company plans to focus its Wi-Fi network on fleet and enterprise users such as field sales personnel, whom he calls "windshield warriors."

Last month, WorkingWild signed an agreement with Houston-based ConocoPhillips to offer Wi-Fi service in 15,000 Circle K convenience stores and gas stations nationwide.

Adler declines to disclose his enterprise pricing, but he says it will be "very aggressive." For example, Boingo Wireless, a Santa Monica, California, public-access Wi-Fi aggregator, charges $75 a month for unlimited access.

SiriComm in Joplin, Missouri, is also planning a nationwide WLAN network that will be based in full-service truck stops and designed to serve large fleets. Hank Hoffman, SiriComm CEO, says he plans an initial deployment of 400 hot spots in truck stops.

Barney Dewey, an analyst at Outlook4Mobility in Los Gatos, California, remains skeptical about the financial viability of stand-alone pubic-access Wi-Fi networks. He says the biggest hole in the Cometa business plan is the lack of cellular-carrier partners. Dewey says he believes the cellular carriers plan to roll out their own national Wi-Fi networks, which will allow users to easily switch from cellular networks to WLANs.

Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile USA, a division of Bonn, Germany-based Deutsche Telekom, has already installed an extensive public-access Wi-Fi network in airport lounges. AT&T Wireless has started to roll out Wi-Fi service in airports. Dewey says he believes those companies, as well as Sprint PCS Group in Overland Park, Missouri, which has an interest in Boingo, will prefer to forge their own Wi-Fi path rather than partnering with Cometa.

Toshiba and WorkingWild, which don't have a network partner such as Cometa and AT&T, face heavy network backbone costs, according to Dewey. He says that installing even a relatively inexpensive Digital Subscriber Line in 15,000 Circle K stores "amounts to a lot of money" every month.

Ken Dulaney, a Gartner analyst, predicts that other major wireless carriers such as Bedminster, New Jersey-based Verizon Wireless will soon launch their own Wi-Fi networks. He foresees "a rush of investment" to stake out prime hot-spot real estate across the country.

• See more like this:
• wi-fi,
• cometa,
• wireless,
• hot spots,
• network,
• intel,
• ibm,
• at&t