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In our latest report on wireless ISPs, we talk to Canadian firm FatPort: As a scrappy company with just 10 employees running 138 hotspots, FatPort has to stay a few steps ahead of the competition, which includes keeping a keen eye on the mobile operators. The small company isn't afraid to spur innovation, but president and CEO Sean O'Mahony just hopes his company can benefit when that happens. "We can change the course of events and force others to take action," he said. "The dangerous thing is when you open a niche and don't get to exploit the benefits."
FatPort is taking an industry lead on a number of fronts. It recently began offering its voice over Wi-Fi service (with pay-as-you-go operator Mobitus) in its hotspots as one way to help venues make use of their broadband backhaul pipes. O'Mahony found that in most cases Wi-Fi only uses up five percent of a DSL line in a hotspot. "We have to fill the pipe up and add more services," he said. At the same time, FatPort found that 85 percent of hotspot usage is by workers at the venue or vendors that may visit the venue to sell products. The voice over Wi-Fi service is aimed mainly at those users, more so than hotspot customers, because the FatPort network isn't extensive enough for the voice service to appeal broadly to customers, O'Mahony said.
FatPort has other innovative projects in the works. For the past year and a half, O'Mahony has unsuccessfully tried to strike a wholesale GPRS agreement with a mobile operator in order to offer FatPort customers a combined GPRS/Wi-Fi service. "I couldn’t get a deal. They wouldn't work with us," he said. But, O'Mahony says he's found a back door way to secure minutes on a GPRS network, though he wouldn't reveal details. While it's hard to predict when he might launch the offering, he's hoping to by this summer.
The hunt for a cellular data deal isn't the only instance where FatPort has been in negotiations with the cell operators. Recently, the four Canadian operators partnered to build hotspots around the country under a common brand. The deal isn't bad news for FatPort. O'Mahony is currently negotiating with the operators to offer them wholesale access to FatPort hotspots. In that case, the operators could keep their relationships with their customers but list the FatPort hotspots as part of their network. FatPort hotspots would display the brand of the partnership.
O'Mahony has some reservations about working with the big operators. "My main concern is that they don't go try to poach my locations," he said. "But at the moment I think it's positive until proven otherwise."
If only all deals with hotspot operators could be so easy. "It's easier for me to get a roaming deal in Europe than my own country," O'Mahony said. He doesn't see a downside to roaming deals but apparently some of his competitors do. One operator decided against a roaming deal with FatPort because it said the deal would benefit FatPort more than itself. "That's a completely dumb viewpoint. We benefit each other. Why compete against each other? The market is too small. We should build regional networks and leverage it one against the other," he said. FatPort's largest reciprocal, no-fee roaming arrangement is with Surf and Sip, which has US and European locations.
FatPort has met twice with Spotnik to discuss a roaming deal to no avail. FatPort had hoped to make a roaming deal to offer its customers hotspot access to Toronto but when no operator would partner, the company decided to build its own hotspots there. "We couldn't get a deal in Toronto so we opened up 12 hotspots," he said. "It's not something we planned originally."
FatPort is maintaining a steady growth rate, mainly by riding on the coattails of advertising from big companies like Intel and T-Mobile. "We have zero marketing money," O'Mahony admits. "What we have to do is leverage off the deep pockets." FatPort is racking up 26 new paying customers per day and is adding around seven new hotspots per month. It logs around 185 paid sessions per day, which works out to around 1.4 paid session per location per day.
Posted by Nancy Gohring at 10:10 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: wISP | No Comments | No TrackBacks
DC Access, an ISP in Washington, D.C., is targeting multi-tenant units for its Wi-Fi based Internet access service: The ISP is partnering with property managers to put antennas on the roofs of buildings in exchange for a discount on Internet access for residents. The offering delivers 800 Kbps and is aimed at competing with DSL service.
Posted by Nancy Gohring at 10:51 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: wISP | No Comments | No TrackBacks
A small southern town built its own broadband wireless network: The city of Adel, Georgia, decided to construct its own wireless network to offer broadband service to businesses and residents because the only other high-speed option was some spotty DSL.
This is a somewhat unusual deployment because the city will be the service provider. In other city-run deployments, like a handful in Washington State, the municipalities serve as wholesalers. They build the network but lease it to service providers who market services.
I wonder if these types of deployments catch the eye of the existing broadband operators. Clearly the cities are taking action because the big operators aren’t offering them service. But are the operators losing out by missing these opportunities? Or are cities like Adel really so small that it doesn’t make sense for the big operators to serve them?
Posted by Nancy Gohring at 12:22 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: wISP | No Comments | No TrackBacks
GSM Association's document IR 61 provides their guidelines for WLAN roaming [PDF format]: A European colleague wrote to point me to this download, which was created by the cell standard group GSMA, members of which run the world's GSM networks. The document describes the procedures for handling authentication in a uniform manner for interoperator roaming.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 1:38 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: wISP | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks
Local wISP installs antennas enough for huge areas: No mention in the article of having to more specifically target for point-to-point uses. $40 per month for service, but no bandwidth listed.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 6:46 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: wISP | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks
Motorola says 2,000 to 3,000 rural wISPs offer broadband: Motorola is selling its Canopy product into that market, and claims to have a solution coming up to help non-line-of-sight issues, like trees blocking the Fresnel zone. Mesh? High-powered cutting lasers? Lumberjacks?
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 12:40 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: wISP | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Linksys router powers Ricochet home/business wireless wide area network link: As Ricochet's network is revived market by market by Aerie -- now in San Diego and Denver, soon in Dallas and Ft. Worth -- this WWAN move makes a lot of sense. Although Ricochet offers a maximum of 176 Kbps, this router gives you a shared connection, one even authorized by the company, wherever you need a temporary LAN. The service is under $50 per month.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 3:22 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: wISP | No Comments | No TrackBacks