Ricochet Wireless Rides Again

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 05:04:14 -0800
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Ricochet Wireless Rides Again


Ricochet Wireless Rides Again
By Randy Dotinga

Story location: <http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,57667,00.html>

02:00 AM Feb. 18, 2003 PT

SAN DIEGO, California -- The resurrection of a bankrupt wireless
Internet company isn't just a boon for editors dying to write
"Ricochet bounces back" in a headline. It's also a nod to the
vulnerability of Wi-Fi, which doesn't offer continuous coverage
between so-called hot spots.

If Ricochet's new owners have their way, laptop owners will forget
the company's billion-dollar belly-flop and embrace Internet access
that's comparatively pokey, but available both at home and on the
road. "You get a nice, wide area coverage in a market," said Ricochet
Vice President John Dee. "We're hot everywhere, not just in selected
spots."

He's exaggerating a bit. Right now, Ricochet mobile Internet service
is only available in San Diego, California, and Denver, Colorado, and
plenty of neighborhoods in those areas are dark. But the company
plans to gradually expand nationwide, and it's tapping into hundreds
of millions of dollars worth of leftover equipment from Ricochet I's
brief heyday.

The implosion of the company's first incarnation in August 2001 left
about 40,000 customers in 21 cities stranded with useless modems.
While it had developed a small but loyal base of customers, users
complained about spotty service, dead zones and high prices ($75 a
month).

"We actually were customers and bought a few of the units," recalled
Andy Taubman, chairman of NetHere, a San Diego company that recently
began distributing the new Ricochet service. "We became painfully
aware what a basket case the old network was. It was just a
nightmare."

Aerie Networks, a Denver company that specializes in "distressed
assets," bought Ricochet for $8.25 million and hopes to turn around
its battered reputation. The new owners are clearly more cautious.
They've only rolled out service in two cities since August, and Dee
said they hope to add just three to five more by the end of the year,
including one in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Part of the challenge lies in logistics. Ricochet technicians have to
systematically switch on the shoe box-sized repeaters that hang from
thousands of street lights -- some 3,200 in the San Diego area alone.
First, the company must broker agreements with the cities and towns
that own the light poles. Ricochet hopes cities will provide free
access in exchange for allowing police officers to have access to the
network wherever their patrol cars roam.

Ricochet relies on a cellular data network that requires customers to
be near one of the repeaters. The company claims connection rates of
about 176 Kbps, which leaves dialup (56 Kbps) in the dust, but seems
painfully slow compared to cable modems, which are many times faster.

Ricochet officials say the speed difference is barely noticeable. But
during tests on an Apple iBook laptop in San Diego, websites
downloaded noticeably slower over Ricochet than they did using a
Wi-Fi connection to a cable modem. The Ricochet modem handled 197
Kbps, compared to 1.1 million Kbps (about 1,000 Mbps) for the
Wi-Fi/cable hook-up. DSL connections typically offer rates of 1,000
Mbps as well.

The speed gap isn't the only factor that could make Ricochet fall
flat again, said Goli Ameri, president of wireless consulting firm
eTinium. She called Ricochet a "has-been technology" that is
vulnerable to inroads from so-called 2.5G service, which offers slow
wireless access through widely available telephone company networks.

Ricochet is counting on attracting businesspeople whose work keeps
them constantly in the field. People like Landry Blume, a 21-year-old
photographer in San Diego, are Ricochet's model customer. He signed
up for the service at $45 a month, partly because he moves
frequently. The monthly fee is cheaper than cable Internet service,
and he'll get a refund on the Ricochet modem after six months.

The speed difference doesn't bother him, and Apple's lightning-quick
Safari browser makes it less obvious, Blume said. "It just seemed
like a smart alternative."

If tens of thousands of other people agree, Ricochet may indeed bounce back.

Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>


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