Malibu surfing: Start-up to deliver wireless Internet access

Sitting on the shores of Malibu, Calif., Bill Baker, CEO of wireless IP upstart Malibu Networks, reminisced about growing up in landlocked Macedonia. At his previous company, Sourcecom, he developed the concept of mass-market, IP-centric, broadband access devices. Although the technology was viable, it did not materialize, and the company folded. Baker retained the technology but needed another company to market products.

As he watched surfers ride the Malibu beach waves, remembering that those in Macedonia could not access such waters, Baker decided to call his new company Malibu Networks, which debuted earlier this month.

"While watching those guys surfing, I thought, `What about those people without access to Web surfing?'" Baker asked. He wasn't inspired by the waves or the ocean, but by the image of Malibu surfers having access to them. Baker teamed with three executives who had backgrounds in broadband access, wireless and IP, and Malibu Networks was on its way.

Perhaps because the Pacific Ocean reaches Malibu just as it does Peru, Australia and Japan, "the name really does support our vision of universal broadband access on a global basis," Baker said.

Malibu began by looking at the problems of IP over wireless and discovered that the two technologies had some commonalties - both are unfriendly and error-prone. Moreover, IP was not designed with quality of service (QOS) functions. To combat this, Malibu created the Wireless IP Network Access Architecture, or WINAAR, to support IP over wireless.

"It seems there is an opportunity to bring together the best of both worlds, especially if [a company] can figure out the right combination," said Dave Passmore, an analyst with NetReference.

"Once we discussed the company's name, we looked at the solution and decided we did not want to be just another wireless player," Baker said.

Based on a patent-pending wireless IP technology, WINAAR is a point-to-multipoint wireless networking solution that interfaces with network transport connections. The WINAAR system includes a base station radio transceiver with IP switching capability and customer premises equipment such as radios and RF modems with networking capability.

Service providers can use WINAAR's integrated provisioning capabilities to support QOS policy administration and management, service level agreements and virtual private networking.

Unlike cable modems and DSL, which are transport-oriented and often consume enormous amounts of bandwidth to offer QOS, Malibu's system will provide policy-based QOS over wireless media. Radio transmissions and bandwidth allocation are optimized for the type and QOS of each user. WINAAR dynamically manages physical layer elements on an integrated, real-time basis to reflect the QOS requirements of the transmitted data.

Initially, Malibu plans to produce its own radios in the license-exempt bands. However, the architecture can operate with third-party radios in other frequencies.

Company sources maintain that WINAAR-based products can offer true end-to-end services without requiring other products at the network's edge.

"It is an excellent company, and Bill Baker has seen a real niche in the market," said Howard Anderson, president and managing director of The Yankee Group.

Malibu is in discussions with several national service providers that are pleased with the technology, Baker said. "They support our approach in dealing with QOS issues. We have a service provider perspective about how the solution should be," he said. "We said, `Let's not worry about wireless. Let's worry about what we need to do to map out what service providers' points of pain are going to be.' We talked to service providers, and they have been thinking the same thing we have."