Nextel launches in-building coverage service

After testing RadioFrame’s microcell technology for more than a year--and a nine-month test with IBM--Nextel is ready to launch in-building coverage service, allowing business customers to pay for improved access in their offices.

There’s a bonus too. Nextel is getting into the Wireless LAN business as RadioFrame’s RadioBlade technology is configured to run a 802.11b network over its an indoor access points along with Nextel’s iDEN cellular technology. Both access technologies are managed off the same systems and backhaul to their respective switching centers and network servers over the same category 5 cable, giving Nextel customers an added incentive to deploy the new service. Nextel itself of course gets an additional revenue stream.

“The decision to launch this service was based off of two factors,” said Jon Pelson, Nextel senior director of custom network solutions. “Customers are receiving and making more calls indoors than ever before, and there’s a universal interest in adding wireless LAN to the network. We can offer them both with one service.”

RadioFrame designed the microcell architecture to conform to both cellular and Wi-Fi footprints so the placement of all access points would be the same for both networks. A customer opting only for macro wireless coverage can later install a Wireless LAN network by simply installing Wi-Fi RadioBlades into the existing access points. In addition Nextel is capable of monitoring and managing both networks remotely. While the cellular access points act as mini-cellsites on Nextel’s wide area network, Nextel is exploring “micro-switching,” allowing for in-building traffic to stay in-building instead of going through one of Nextel’s offsite switching centers.

The pricing for the new service will vary depending on the size of the buildings served, number of access points installed and the cost of designing and installing each network. Nextel, however, believes the service will be very attractive to many of its enterprise customers who are increasingly relying their handsets as their primary business communications device, Pelson said. As Nextel’s push-to-talk functionality works over the microcell network, customers could come to rely more and more on their handsets as a basic location and communication tool while in the office, Pelson said.