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Metricom weaving a wireless web
Friday, July 07, 2000 By Deborah Mendenhall, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
If Metricom has its way, the nation's telephone poles will soon sport small boxes that will give laptop luggers fast access to the Internet and their office computers no matter where they are.
Pittsburgh is in a third sweep of cities being approached by Los Gatos, Calif.-based Metricom for permission to place micro-cell radios on utility poles to provide subscribers with high-speed wireless Internet access.
The system is called Ricochet because that's how it works. The computer modem sends up a signal that zings from pole to pole in search of an antenna which relays the signal to a central, wired network. There, the signal connects with Internet providers.
With a laptop computer and a wireless modem the size of a television remote control, a business woman will be able to access the Web, the Net or office network from a backward hotel, an airport or traffic jam.
"It's a grid set up, so the signal ricochets around looking for the fastest way to get out," said Gregory Reynolds, Metricom's Pittsburgh market manager.
The new version of Ricochet operates at 128 kilobits per second, Reynolds said. By comparison, computers that use dial-up telephones typically access the Internet at speeds between 21.6 and 56 kilobits per second. Cellular hand-held phones operate at between 14.4 and 19.2 kilobits per second.
The company hopes to be up and running in Pittsburgh and 45 other cities by 2001. A slower version of Ricochet has operated in Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. since 1995.
Monroeville was among the first to sign in Greater Pittsburgh. Marshall Bond, municipal manager, said Ricochet would benefit Monroeville's conference trade and numerous motels which cater to transient business people. The service would also help people working from home, he said.
"We checked out the company and the technology," Bond said. "Everything came back positive, so why wouldn't we want to make this available?"
Getting permission from municipalities is an ambitious effort in Greater Pittsburgh. Allegheny County alone has about 130 municipalities.
"In the past month I have made presentations to 50 municipalities and have 20 more scheduled in July," Reynolds said. "Pennsbury Village with 750 people is just as important as the city of Pittsburgh. Everybody gets the same deal."
The deal the municipalities get is 5 percent of the gross wholesale fee that Metricom will receive from service providers, based on the number of subscribers who live in that community.
Metricom is hoping that all Pittsburgh communities will participate, but says it can work around any holdouts.
The company was founded in 1985 by Paul Baran, who in 1962, helped create the Internet. Its two largest shareholders are MCI WorldCom and Vulcan Ventures, owned by billionaire Paul Allen, who once talked high-school chum Bill Gates into dropping out of Harvard to begin a software company.
The first version of Ricochet operates at 28.8 kilobits per second. That service costs subscribers $29.95 per month. and was sold by Metricom through its Web site.
The faster system will be sold through a number of providers, such as MCI WorldCom, Juno, SkyTel and UUNet, and is expected to cost subscribers between $60 and $100 per month. Modems are expected to cost between $220 and $250.
The company said its faster version of Ricochet system will debut in San Diego and Atlanta later this month. The company hopes to make the service available to 100 million people by the end of 2001. Metricom representatives have been crisscrossing the country requesting right-of-way access from cities and, if necessary, utility companies.
The radios, called transceivers because they send as well as receive information, are installed by local contractors. Six to eight radios are needed per square mile. The total amount installed depends on the topography.
Pittsburgh's rolling hills will need an estimated 2,500 to 4,000 transceivers, much more than the flat lands of Phoenix would. The transceivers weigh about 10 pounds, need about one watt of electricity to operate, and will not interfere with any other signals, the company says. Ricochet is regulated by the FCC, but operates in a license-free portion of the radio frequency spectrum much like a baby monitor or garage door opener.
"We are not digging a trench, we are not hanging up wires, and we aren't digging holes that could blow up houses." Reynolds said. "All we are doing is hanging up radios, and that takes 15 minutes."
The city of Seattle, which has the slower Ricochet system, is also a Ricochet subscriber, said Bill Schrier, director of operations for the city's information technology department. The city's electric and water utilities have about 300 computers with modems used by field workers who check the warehouse for parts, or convey information back to the office.
The older system works well but sometimes cuts off when trucks are en route, and information must be entered again, a problem the faster Ricochet isn't expected to have. Seattle's system will be updated, but Schrier said he is having difficulty getting a commitment from Metricom on when.
The frequency-hopping mesh architecture technology behind Ricochet was developed by Utilinet, a company owned by Metricom, which created handheld meters for utility companies. After 15 years of experimentation, Metricom expanded the technology for computer application.
It was named "Best Internet Service" at the PC Expo Best of Show Awards in New York in June.
Metricom became a public company in 1992. In November 1999, its two largest shareholders, MCI WorldCom and Vulcan Ventures, each purchased shares of Metricom preferred stock for $300 million.
In 1997, the company had $13.4 million in revenue and 19,000 subscribers. That increased to $15.8 million in revenue and 26,000 subscribers in 1998 and $18.5 million in revenue and 30,000 subscribers in 1999. Metricom said it is targeting the mobile work force marketplace, which it estimates will reach more than 50 million people by 2002.
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