Wireless broadband data battles intensify

Words flung about during the Wireless Web conference in Falls Church, Va., two weeks ago described an all-out war over broadband services. Many participants came from one side of the battlefront-the small operators and vendors. They discussed better ways to battle the Bell companies and big vendors for customers. One lively discussion revolved around the possibility of small operators rolling out expensive networks only to be undercut by incumbents.

But mostly the conversation centered on finding the most economical technology and building a business case to compete with the entrenched operators.

One theme that rang clear was that no single technology will win. The most successful broadband providers will use fiber and digital subscriber line (DSL), plus a slew of wireless technologies that operate on different frequencies, both licensed and unlicensed.

Concentric Networks, a broadband services provider, is a perfect example. Concentric started out using only DSL. When James Southworth, director of advanced network services and technologies for Concentric, approached his company with an idea for using multichannel multipoint distribution service (MMDS), his leaders first said no, explaining that Concentric was a DSL company.

However, he finally convinced them that wireless would pay off, and now Concentric uses WavePath radios and Hybrid modems in the 2.1 and 2.5 GHz frequencies. Since September 1998, Concentric has gained 500 customers on its wireless network and is increasing that number at a rate of 100 per month-even without marketingit. "It works when DSL doesn't," Southworth said. The MMDS system has a range of 35 miles.

Although the MMDS offering isn't a consumer product in most places, it is in Silicon Valley, where Concentric has two sites in operation. "We've got more geeks per square foot than anywhere else," Southworth said.

While this MMDS point-to-multipoint application seems to fit Concentric perfectly, some in the industry doubt the efficiency of the point-to-multipoint architecture. Bill Frezza, general partner of Adams Capital Management, believes point-to-multipoint is an inefficient technology created by vendors to reap the greatest profits. It's difficult to deploy, he said, because it relies on hub buildings, which can be both tough to find and expensive to procure. Also, the line of sight and short-haul characteristics of many wireless frequencies limit the architecture. And it happens to hinge on a very expensive hub base station.

So why are operators buying it? If the operator isn't convinced that it's the best solution, the vendors "essentially buy the customer with vendor financing," Frezza said.

A better solution than point-to-multipoint lies in an architecture supported by a company that Frezza, admittedly, has a vested interest in-Triton Network Systems. Triton suggests that rather than point-to-multipoint, operators would do better to create rings, based on the proven concept used with fiber and Sonet. Triton's idea places a lower-cost, small unit on a building and creates a ring that builds in redundancy and excludes few buildings.

With such a strategy there is no reason for operators to target only small and medium-sized businesses, said Brian Andrew, CEO and president of Triton. He suggested that broadband wireless operators chase large businesses, where the money is.

After an operator decides which technology to use, it still must determine exactly what to offer. "High-speed bandwidth is not our profit center," said Southworth. Concentric earns money from the value-added services it offers, not the pipe.

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