Covad to offer wireless access through NextLink

NextLink Wireless has announced Covad Communications as its first third-party channel reseller, the two companies announced today. Covad will resell NextLink’s broadband wireless access service to enterprise customers as part of its branded service offering.

NextLink, the wireless subsidiary of XO Communications, operates networks in the LMDS band, or 28 GHz to 31 GHz in 75 markets. Covad will initially offering subscriber bandwidth up to 25 Mb/s in the Los Angeles market, with the opportunity to expand to 11 other markets in the future, including Chicago, Dallas, Miami, New York, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Covad already offers wireless services through its NextWeb subsidiary, but those are lower-speed offerings on unlicensed spectrum, said Alan Howe, vice president of strategic and wireless development at Covad.

“This agreement gives us greater coverage in the long run,” Howe said. “It allows us to service multiple customers with high-cap services and to scale our business much more cost-effectively. We can do T-1 and 3 to 4 Mb services for the SMB space with NextWeb, but as you move up into the food chain for bigger enterprises and higher and more complex applications, this is a better solution. It is more expensive solution but it comes with higher revenues, higher ARPUs, higher value, which is what we want.”

For NextLink, the Covad deal is a first.

“NextLink’s strategy is to be a carriers’ carrier--we have a wholesale market strategy,” said CEO Bob Beran. “We will sell direct to wireless carriers for backhaul but we intend to use channel partners to reach the enterprise. Covad is our first third-party sales channel partnership, in addition to XO Communications.”

XO has owned the LMDS spectrum since the late ‘90s, and at one point was going to spin off a wireless unit, and operate the CLEC separately, but changed that strategy earlier this year.

Beran believes service providers will look to wireless access for multiple reasons.

“One is to extend the reach to customers they otherwise couldn’t reach with fiber or at speeds faster than available through copper,” he said. “Point two would be, with wireless technology there is the opportunity to install and provision service in much shorter intervals. Third is growing demand and need for truly diverse and redundant facilities from what might be the incumbent carrier.”

Wireless technology has matured to be carrier-grade, he added, largely through deployments in Europe and elsewhere.

Covad plans to offer Ethernet-based service to enterprise customers, as well as small to mid-sized businesses using wireless access and other network options.