Fast, cheap and in control

Rio Rancho, which sits 11miles north of Albuquerque, is the fastest-growing community in New Mexico — the self-appointed “City of Vision.” Its outlook for the future has long included a citywide Wi-Fi network, and despite several setbacks, that vision is finally coming into focus. On Jan. 5, Wi-Fi service provider Azulstar Networks turned on its first Rio Rancho subscriber. Hundreds of other pre-orders are waiting as the network continues its expansion across the city's 103 square miles.

Azulstar's business model is simple: Attack the competition by offering faster service at a cheaper price.

“Our competition is the traditional guys — CableOne, Qwest DSL and dial-up players,” said Azulstar founder Tyler van Houwelingen. “There's also some impact from the mobile data side, but what we're going after is getting people off dial-up. We're targeting kind of a low-end broadband — that's our sweet spot right now.”

Azulstar offers subscribers unlimited 256 kb/s Internet access starting at $19.95 per month, with enterprise connections up to 1 Mb/s also available. Voice over Wi-Fi service will be commercially available in March, promising unlimited residential calling across the U.S. and Canada for $24.95 per month.

“We've taken our product and segmented it so you can choose where you want to be price-wise,” van Houwelingen said. “You can get a broadband connection with us at 256 [kb/s] for four bucks cheaper a month than you get AOL. Also, if you have a laptop, you can take it anywhere in Rio Rancho and turn it on. And I really mean anywhere — we have full-blanket coverage here. If you buy a Centrino laptop, you can turn on your broadband instantly.”

Getting to this point, however, was anything but smooth.

When Rio Rancho city leaders first resolved in November 2003 to develop the network, receiving technical assistance and vendor evaluation from Intel (whose Fab 11X computer chip facility calls Rio Rancho home), Azulstar was not the first choice to provide Wi-Fi coverage. Officials instead selected broadband services provider Usurf, which agreed to cover the projected $2 million buildout cost. But after a much-publicized launch in June 2004, the project began to crumble. Usurf had a management turnover, and last August, Rio Rancho officials terminated the company's license claiming Usurf's revised business strategy no longer complemented the kind of network the city wanted.

Last fall the Rio Rancho City Council voted unanimously to approve a new agreement with Azulstar, which had experience on its side: In July 2004, the company announced the completion of a Wi-Fi deployment spanning the 5.8 square mile entirety of its native Grand Haven, Mich. Comprising about 300 access points and point-to-point radios, with fiber backhaul, the Grand Haven network (operated by Azulstar under the name Ottawa Wireless) has been so well-received that Grand Haven officials want to extend the service across the county.

Rio Rancho officials and Intel also were sold on a network designed to seamlessly evolve from Wi-Fi to the emerging WiMAX standard, of which Intel is one of the biggest backers.

“We wanted to make sure Rio Rancho finds companies that are stable and capable and using technology that is extendable, so in the future as you migrate to WiMAX, it will be a natural migration and not a total overhaul of the technology,” said Intel's Bruce Sohn, factory manager for Fab 11X.

While Azulstar will continue to court the residential market, it's looking to expand and plans to pursue partnerships with public-safety bureaus and other government agencies.

“Wireless networks have great potential as a public utility,” van Houwelingen said. “We think the new electricity has arrived, and that's what we're looking to profit from.”