Good timing

It isn't often that a technology format comes of age just as end customer demands and carrier preparedness make the market ripe. But it's happening now with broadband wireless access, and it's triggering some significant changes in the behavior of many industry players.

Consider the context: The fundamentals of the broadband wireless approach have been employed for years in the backhaul and interconnect portions of carrier networks. It matured there, and if it experienced growing pains, it was buried deep enough to go unnoticed.

Now, several factors have spurred the technology out of the background. Like so many other trends, data and the Internet are at the center of it all. Demand for higher speed data access has propelled maturity in many technology areas-DSL, cable modems, fiber-but none seem as well equipped to step up quickly and efficiently to answer the call as broadband wireless.

That Internet-driven customer need is climbing an ever-rising peak, and carrier competition is on a similar trajectory. Most important, the investment community is pouring venture capital into competitive carriers. These guys-both CLECs and ISPs-have money to spend, shorter sales cycles and the need for an affordable and incremental infrastructure.

That's not to mention the spectrum availability, which the dynamic nature of radio has broadened even further. We aren't just talking LMDS or the similar high-frequency bands; a business case can also be made for some carriers in unlicensed frequencies and in the intriguing MMDS range.

If you don't believe any of that, consider what is obviously a defensive reaction from many incumbents: Within the past several weeks, the four largest IXCs have plunked noticeable amounts of money into some kind of broadband wireless venture. Sprint and MCI WorldCom bought up large portions of MMDS spectrum. Qwest invested in Advanced Radio Telecom, a 38 GHz player that is aggressively building out its systems. And AT&T-which wins the award for protecting itself with as many corporate ownership layers as possible-used its Liberty Media subsidiary to buy Associated Group, the holding company for Teligent.

That alone validates the technology format in my mind, but it's just the beginning. CLECs have signaled their broadband wireless intentions, some by bidding on LMDS licenses themselves or, in the case of Nextlink Communications, by buying the companies that fared the best in that spectrum auction. Many regional or larger ISPs are fiddling with technologies at different frequencies. We might even see a Bell company-BellSouth and its MMDS video notwithstanding-wake up and get interested in this.

Does all that carrier interest mean the technology is without fail? On the contrary, while significant developments have been made by many vendors, some versions are not yet commercially ready and may not be for several months, during which time many factors could change vendors' chances to make the sale.

The variances in technology approach and the sheer number of suppliers angling for business in this market are already making carrier decisions difficult, and it is likely to get even more confusing. No solid standards have been created for some of these approaches, so making comparisons between vendor approaches can be mind-boggling. Only the trials will tell, and for some carriers the result will be hybrid networks made up of switching, transport, software and radio gear from countless vendors meshed together.

So why is this phenomenon different from any of the other technologies of the day that have captured so much attention? Because things are actually happening. The licenses have been issued. There are pieces of equipment that are ready to go now, next week or in six months. Carriers are putting the gear in their labs, testing it and getting it into their networks. Early entrants are tinkering with service offerings, becoming the models for how and how not to make it.

Everything's going along at a steady clip, unencumbered by sudden revelations that the technology is not ready or does not do as promised, that customers don't really need the services it allows, that it has no staying power or that the investment climate might quickly turn. In a culture often defined more by disappointments than successes, this could well be one of the best things going.