MMDS in Memphis

Memphis, Tenn., has become WorldCom’s first fixed-wireless multichannel multipoint distribution service market. Just one day after Sprint launched two of its additional MMDS markets, WorldCom announced yesterday that Memphis had proven ideal for the technology.

“If you are looking to prove a technology you should do it in a market that is not exactly easy to serve,” said Joe Brooks, vice president of sales and marketing development for WorldCom’s broadband solutions. Besides being an area with a high density of foliage, the market has a number of DSL providers, making it highly competitive, Brooks said.

“There is competition so we can see how the technology competes and how it is complementary,” Brooks said.

Another reason Memphis was a good place to start is because the carrier already has a large presence there. WorldCom intends to target small- to medium-sized enterprise customers, but will have a limited residential offering for the MDU space as well.

“The reason we are focusing on building a business model is because we believe we can offer a business class of service unlike services that are based on best effort technology,” he said. “We will provision in order to offer quality assurance guarantees and other things business users look for from wireline service.” Perfecting its focus is the reason the carrier has been slower to market than some other providers.

Unlike Sprint, which offers broadband wireless service in Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Sprints, Colo.; Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz.; Houston, Texas; and San Jose and Oakland, Calif., WorldCom has taken its time.

Some challenges that led the carrier to take a closer look before launching any markets included the physical build out of the supercell architecture and issues with spectrum, Brooks said. “Once a market is launched we can turn up customers quickly,” he said. He estimated that it will take five days or less.

The carrier is offering the service purely as high-speed Internet access, but might decide to bundle it with other services in the future as technology evolves, he said. WorldCom plans to launch 30 markets nationwide by the end of 2001.