Bursting with data

Aeris.net's VBurst designed to extend data footprints, boost carrier revenue

Aeris.net wants to provide carriers with an extension to their wireless infrastructure while helping them increase the bottom line. Though it already has a nationwide telemetry network in place and agreements with most wireless carriers, Aeris.net now is positioned to provide more data capacity and low-cost wireless messaging with its VBurst service.

Aeris.net announced its VBurst service this month at the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association's Wireless IT 2000 show in Santa Clara, Calif. The service, which operates as an overlay on the company's MicroBurst network environment, is a full-duplex, kilobyte packet data messaging service that provides bi-directional communications via digital and analog service.

"Carriers see us as the portal to machine-to-machine applications," said Dick Gossen, president and CEO of Aeris.net. "We are the phone company for [machine-to-machine communications] and the next layer of utility for [telemetry] applications."

The company maintains that the VBurst service does not require new network infrastructure, which helps keep costs down. And although the service uses digital network solutions where available, it will fall back to Aeris.net's proprietary analog solution to provide a dual-mode, universal-roaming data solution, Gossen said.

"It is a fact that the ideal of a universal, contiguous footprint doesn't exist in North America," he said."It will not exist, so we play a unique role in the extension of the available mainstream wireless infrastructure."

Aeris.net's approach lets wireless carriers provide additional data coverage to their existing customers. Operators also can generate revenue from the relationships Aeris.net has with its other customers such as home alarm companies, which might prefer to use wireless instead of wireline networks for security reasons, said Barney Dewey, a consultant with The Andrew Seybold Group.

"[Carriers] can have someone else reselling their networks at a good profit margin," Dewey said."With VBurst, a data transmission can consume just 10 seconds of airtime." Carriers don't have to sacrifice much airtime to gain additional revenue, he said.

The 1 kb/s service provides encryption and error detection and correction with automatic retries, while allowing one-to-many machine-to-machine communications to work during off-peak hours.

Although 1 kb/s actually is slow,VBurst "is a great thing because it allows for more data than most telemetry systems do," Dewey said. "No one has had a reliable network with Aeris.net's kind of coverage. Now they have to match the applications that will work with a low-bandwidth network."

Rogers AT&T Wireless in Canada currently is testing VBurst. Ericsson also has integrated the technology into its DM-10 and DM-20 mobile radios.

In addition to telemetry, the VBurst service also could be used for meter reading, vending machine monitoring, point of sale functionality, supply-chain management and high-end alarm panels."We haven't even imagined the most important applications yet," Gossen said.

Aeris.net's technology could push into consumer devices, too, Dewey said. For example, the Palm 7 can only follow BellSouth's footprint, but the VBurst technology could give the device access to a nationwide network, Dewey said.

"As time goes on, all devices will end up having some kind of telemetry technology, and wireless will be the way to go," he said. "The idea is that there will be more machines than people connected to the network."

Until that happens, carriers could reap a significant amount of revenue from telematic services today. "If carriers do not [get involved in telemetry], they run the risk of losing business to satellite and two-way paging companies," Gossen said.

While wireless carriers already are looking to profit from machine-to-machine communications, they also await applications that will drive volume up.

"Carriers see telemetry as a way to get extra money," Dewey said. "In the long term, there is huge potential, and network operators see that. Telemetry will be one of many things in their arsenal."