A fix on mobile broadband

IPWireless is either ahead of its time or overestimating broadband fixed-wireless' potential. The vendor is using 3G specifications intended for narrowband cellular networks to deliver multimegabit data rates to portable devices via broadband fixed-wireless networks.

“We felt there was a huge need for connecting computers to the Internet in a very fast way that was portable and that couldn't be done on a cellular phone,” said Peter Howley, one of IPWireless' co-founders and the company's chairman, CEO and president.

It can be done on a laptop — or even a personal digital assistant — both of which will attach to IPWireless' equipment via a universal serial bus (see figure).

“You can't drive through a cell phone the kinds of things that people use the Internet for that are visual,” Howley said. “If you jump out five years, this view is going to be the accepted common view — you can use your computer anywhere you want at very high power.”

IPWireless reuses existing cellular infrastructure such as towers to speed deployment. Because the 3G standard is designed for non line-of-sight transmission and works in the 1.9 GHz PCS range, it's not a stretch to carry those characteristics over to broadband fixed-wireless ranges of 2.5 GHz to 2.7 GHz, said chief technology officer Roger Quayle, another co-founder. The only drawback is that the higher bandwidth ranges go shorter distances.

“The 2.5 band has been associated with line-of-sight and external antennas because most of the technology used for two-way data has been relatively crude,” Quayle said.

IPWireless uses high system gain to overcome path loss and combines multipath signals, according to Quayle.

“To most technologies, multipath is a detriment that degrades the signal,” he said. “We actually combine the multipath signals and get more energy into the modem by combining them.”

Imran Khan, senior analyst for consumer market convergence issues for The Yankee Group, sees more potential for the technology's non line-of-sight characteristics than its portability.

“The key thing would be if some of the people who have fixed-wireless licenses in the U.S. — somebody like a WorldCom or a Sprint — are able to adopt this technology,” Khan said. “That's going to be a determining factor of whether this is a for-real solution.”

IPWireless says it's talking with operators under nondisclosure agreements. It's more willing to discuss a network beta trial at North Carolina A&T University, where students used modems on a campuswide wireless network.

“I basically used it for entertainment, surfing the Internet — and just a little bit of my schoolwork, doing research,” said Demetris White, a student user who has since graduated and is now working part time for IPWireless. For White, the speed “and the ability to take it different places has been a godsend for me.”

Howley said that's an indication of consumer appetite for high-speed portability. He hopes the modem retail price of $299 — including batteries for portability — and a migration to PCMCIA cards will fuel that appetite.

“There's a huge need,” he said. “We don't take it for granted today because we don't have it, but we will in a few years.”

By then, fixed-broadband wireless providers may be slipping into voice-over-IP services and “our system will carry voice over IP,” Quayle said.

But they won't be challenging the cell business any time soon. “This is broadband, and it's visual,” Howley said. “In the next 10 or 15 years, they're completely different businesses.”