Wi-Fi gaining strength

Port Network News
By Jonathan B. Cox, Staff Writer
January 15, 2003

Look skyward, you Web surfers of little patience and slow connections. Salvation awaits.

Entrepreneurs are dotting communities across the state and nation with antennas that can transport you to your favorite cyberspace destinations as much as 50 times faster than traditional dial-up service.

Wi-Fi technology already has turned homes, offices and coffee shops into wireless playgrounds. Now, Wi-Fi is stretching across neighborhoods miles wide, giving consumers an alternative to cable ortelephone companies for high-speed broadband access.

"Wi-Fi is proving to be phenomenally more flexible as a technology than anybody expected a year or two ago," said Joe W. Laszlo, senior analyst with Jupiter Research in New York. "It's the most promising wireless broadband offering on the table today."

About 1,000 wireless Internet service providers have been launchednationwide, including more than a dozen in North Carolina, according to Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine, an online publication thattracks the industry. They function much like Earthlink or AOL, but link customers with antennas instead of wires.

With an investment of about $10,000 to $500,000, depending on the transmitters and receivers purchased, they're in business, serving 3- to 15-mile swaths.

The providers usually get started in rural areas where more popular high-speed technologies, namely DSL links from phone carriers and cable modem service from cable-TV companies, don't reach.

"The rollout of broadband wireless systems is much cheaper and cost-effective," said K. Robert Hoskins, editor and publisher of Broadband Wireless Exchange. "They're becoming more and more popular."

An antenna perched 220 feet above the intersection of Interstate 40 and N.C. 42 will begin blanketing the western Johnston County community known as Cleveland with fast Web signals this month. QRO Wireless, a startup, has invested about $40,000 and worked since early summer to make it happen.

That is to say, since "about the time IBM laid me off," said Jim G. McGrath, vice president of operations.

He and Ernie S. Nieradka, a friend of about six or seven years who used to work at First Citizens Bank, had kicked around the idea of starting a business -- "maybe a beer and bait shop by the lake," McGrath said -- for some time.

They, along with a Florida partner, settled on the Internet service after finding that many of their neighbors, including a population of Research Triangle Park workers, were frustrated by their Web connections.

Technical and capital constraints had prevented telephone and cable companies from expanding there, leaving residents to contend with dial-up delays.

"We put out a survey and started advertising a little bit, and we got a tremendous response," said Nieradka, QRO's president. "They said, 'Please, please put this in!' "Jim McGrath of QRO Wireless checks the wireless connection of a new flat-panel antenna at a client's house.

QRO expects to begin service within days and will cover a 4-mile circle around its transmission tower. Prices for residential customers will range from $39.95 to $49.95 per month, while businesses will pay between $69.95 and $129.95, on par with other broadband providers.

Those who subscribe will have a wireless receiver the size of a large book attached to their roofs. The antenna is linked inside using cable or separate wireless networking equipment.

The company has compiled a list of 260 potential customers and plans to expand throughout Johnston County this year, Nieradka said. It could be a lucrative market, given that Johnston was the fastest-growing county in the state during the past decade.

"I've got a real good feeling," he said. "There's a need for this all over Eastern North Carolina."

Although neighborhood Wi-Fi can give people a new way to reach online destinations, it does have drawbacks. First, the transmitter and receiver must be able to "see" each other at all times. If large trees or buildings get in the way, the connection won't work.

"Some trees are OK; a forest is not," Nieradka said.

Unlike satellite systems, you don't have to worry about inclement weather disturbing transmissions. But a neighbor's phone conversation might. The system relies on unregulated airwaves used by devices such as cordless phones and microwaves that can cause interference similar to radio static. And there can be security concerns. Informed hackers, forexample, potentially could tap into signals.

Companies such as QRO Wireless and Intechmedia Broadband, another community Wi-Fi service provider near Angier, try to mitigate such problems. They use encryption technology to thwart hackers, and visit homes and offices to assess service viability before hooking it up.

For people such as Rickie C. Lipscomb, the benefits outweigh the pitfalls. The 54-year-old golf course superintendent lives by an 80-acre tobacco farm in Willow Spring and "thought I was limited to dial-up forever.

"Sprint couldn't reach him with its DSL service, and Time Warner said it was not economical to extend its lines about 1,300feet to reach his and two other homes.

"I just stay on the Internet quite a bit and do a lot of downloading music and stuff and needed something faster," he said.

Lipscomb was "excited" when a friend told him about Intechmedia last year, realizing there was hope for turbocharged surfing. He has been a subscriber since July.

"I have no qualms with it at all," he said. "It's awesome."

Intechmedia plans to expand across Harnett County this year, possibly reaching as many as 90 percent of people there. Residents of Sanford, Fayetteville, Nags Head and Duck also can get wireless service, according to Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine.

So far, subscriptions to DSL and cable modems far outpace those to Wi-Fi services, which rely largely on word-of-mouth to expand. According to In-Stat/MDR, a market-research firm, fewer than 600,000 of the 18.9 million people with broadband connections used a Wi-Fi link in 2002.

"It's starting to gather a lot of steam," said Daryl H. Schoolar, senior analyst for In-Stat/MDR in Scottsdale, Ariz.

By 2005, his firm predicts 2.56 million people will use wireless connections at their homes and businesses.

And that's just one component of an even larger trend. Cities such as San Francisco are creating smaller Wi-Fi "hot spots" in downtown areas so people moving through with mobile computers can access the Internet for free.

Combine those efforts with the growing number of coffee shops, airports, hotels, homes and offices with small-scale Wi-Fi networks, and analysts see the start of a revolution.

"This business is really where the cell phone business was 20 years ago," Hoskins, the Wireless Exchange editor, said. "Eventually, there will be enough ... coverage that you can roam anywhere." That should worry at least one industry: mobile phone carriers. Companies such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless have invested billions of dollars in upgrades to let subscribers access the Internet faster. Wi-Fi, which is cheaper and popular, could make those expenditures obsolete.

It "may put a big dent in their future prospects," Laszlo said.

Click here for source article: