No Wires In South Florida?
What is it about Florida and particularly south Florida? The place is
lousy with fixed wireless ISPs.
Yet another, ClearAccess Communications
Inc. of Bradenton, recently launched service in the southwest.
ClearAccess is targeting business users in “emerging markets” —
which it defines as a mid-sized U.S. cities with a population less than
500,000.
It offers a suite of services that include dedicated broadband wireless
Internet access and data transmission from 128 Kb to 10 Mb, and Web production,
hosting and filtering.
Customers who sign up right now for a year of broadband Internet access
get free installation, free wireless network equipment and a free network
server — supposedly worth $3,495 in total.
Monthly fees for wireless Internet access range from $199 a month for
128 Kb to $8,099 per month for 10 Mb (with a one-year contract).
The copmany is using both 2.4-GHz and 5.8-GHz radio equipment, from
Cisco and Western Multiplex among others. It has three of a planned 30
hubs in place now.
ClearAccess so far covers from Pasco County to Naples, and east to Polk
County. It intends to provide service to businesses throughout west central
and southwest Florida during the third quarter of 2000.
The company plans to expand to select regions throughout Florida in
early 2001 and in emerging markets throughout the Untied States in late
2001.
Fuzion and Adaptive Get Serious
Speaking of Florida wireless companies, Fuzion
Wireless Communications, a service provider we wrote about recently
because of its unusual strategy of using license-free UNII (5.8 GHz) radio
spectrum, is stepping up its roll-out in Latin America.
The company’s radio equipment supplier, Adaptive
Broadband Corp., announced recently that it had signed a $100 million
contract to supply Fuzion with additional AB-Access fixed wireless broadband
equipment.
It brings to more than $200 million the total Fuzion has committed to
spending on Adaptive gear. Adaptive was one of the first and is still
a leading supplier of UNII equipment.
“We invested a substantial amount of time looking at a wide array of
fixed wireless broadband solutions before selecting AB-Access for our
international expansion,” says Fuzion president and COO Dave L. Frank.
“High reliability is especially important in Latin America, an area
prone to heavy rainfall and extreme weather.”
“Our previous success deploying AB-Access in 10 markets, including South
Florida, is one of many attributes that makes Adaptive Broadband’s platform
a natural choice.”
The AB-Access platform combines a packet-on-demand technology and time
division duplexing and offers data transmission at rates up to 25 Mbps.
This means it can provide the capability for voice, real-time video
conferencing, transmission of full streaming video, Web surfing, and transmission
of data files — all simultaneously and over one connection.
Meanwhile Up North
Another new broadband wireless access provider recently launched service
in the former British colony of Upper Canada — whose citizens, by
an odd coincidence, swell the population of south Florida each winter.
FastViews Wireless Webservice Inc.
of Vaughan ON (just north of Toronto) “markets and deploys broadband fixed-wireless
Internet access solutions primarily to businesses in select, underserved
domestic and international markets.”
FastViews also announced recently it has chosen the LMS2000 (2.4 GHz)
wireless Internet access platform from WaveRider
Communications Inc. of Toronto.
FastViews will install two LMS2000 systems to provide high-speed Internet
services to customers in Cobourg, a small city just east of Toronto, and
Vaughan.
“We conducted a comprehensive review of available technologies to find
the best products to meet our customers’ existing and anticipated requirements,”
says FastViews president and CEO Guy Toksoy.
“WaveRider’s LMS2000 technology, combined with its commitment to service
and product support, will ensure the most reliable wireless connections
available.”
WaveRider, meanwhile, recently announced a much bigger coup in the land
of the Red Star.
China’s Radio Regulatory Department of the Ministry of Information Industry
has approved WaveRider’s NCL1135 wireless bridge and router for sale and
installation in China.
The approval lets WaveRider finalize sales agreements with existing
customers in China. The company has also filed with the Chinese agency
for approval of its LMS2000 product.
Not That There’s Any Doubt
Finally, not that there’s any doubt fixed wireless is taking off
like a rocket, but we note with interest that BreezeCOM, an Israeli-based
supplier of wireless networking equipment, was recently named by the influential
Red Herring magazine as one of the “Top 100 IPOs of 2000.”
Last year, BreezeCOM was one of the magazine’s “Top 50 Private Companies.”
It went public in March. The latest honour was bestowed in the magazine’s
annual “Top 100” issue.
