Businesses are realizing opportunities to switch to Broadband Wireless

A WiMax.com interview with key executives from US wireless service provider, Airband Communications

Founded in 2000, Airband Communications is a US wireless internet service provider with a clear focus on serving business broadband. Airband services are offered in 13 US markets today: Austin, Texas; Baltimore; Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas/Fort Worth; Houston; Los Angeles; Orange County, Calif.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Raleigh/Durham, N.C.; San Antonio and San Diego.. Dallas is the company's most mature market, consisting of 22 base stations serving 500-600 customers, followed by Phoenix with 350-400 customers. Recent venture capital funding has gone to "going deep" within these markets, explains Layne Levine, Airband's president of sales and marketing. Future growth is planned for Seattle, Chicago, Boston and New York.

Businesses that are showing interest in broadband wireless service include airlines, financial institutions, and healthcare along with internal enterprise applications, such as redundancy and backing up data centers. Airband finds itself primarily competing with regional and local telecommunications providers who offer leased copper. Advantages for the broadband wireless services include: speed to market, speed to turn up service and bandwidth-on-the-fly. In fact, the company needs only a matter of days to turn up or scale services compared to T1 or DS3 leased circuits from other providers.

Airband's broadband wireless access is currently powered Alvarion's BreezeAccess VL radios operating in multiple license-exempt 5 GHz bands. Capacity for a given base station radio is between 20-30 Mbps. Most markets start with a 90-degree sector antenna per base station radio. When a base station sector becomes saturated with traffic, it is migrated to two, 45-degree sectors. Most customers are within 3-4 miles of a base station. Customers requiring more than 12 Mbps are typically connected via a licensed point-to-point microwave link. Airband has not announced any specific plans for offerings in other frequency bands, such as: 700 MHz, 2.5 GHz, or 4.9 GHz. However, the network engineering group is preparing to trial 3.65 GHz light-licensed gear based on Alvarion's 3.5 GHz BreezeMAX platform.

The recent introduction of agent and reseller channel sales programs appears to be paying off. The company claims more than 3,500 business customers and the average revenue per user (ARPU) has increased from $745 per month under the old program to more than $2200 per month. "We couldn't be more pleased with the initial success of our channel program," said Zane Long, vice president of indirect channel sales.

Awareness of broadband wireless networks for reliable, high-speed access continues to grow. Business customers are not satisfied with current services and pricing. The challenge ahead for Airband and other US wireless service providers is flawless execution.

By Jeff Orr, ORR Technology

Thursday, February 07, 2008 in Business | Deployments  | Permalink |  Comments (0)