I have been getting a lot of questions about Cometa Networks and this update will provide some thoughts about last weeks announcement but I would like to first make some reflections to put things in context. The continued growth of WiFi seems so assured to me and I believe it will revolutionize the world much as the web has. WiFi reminds me of 1993. The Internet had already been around for a long time. It was the web that made the Internet vastly more useful, just like the spreadsheet made the PC vastly more useful.

The web was born in Europe at CERN, which is the European Organization for Nuclear Research based in Geneva, Switzerland. Thousands of scientists and researchers there are engaged in advanced work in physics; specifically the area of particle research. In the late 1980’s a systems programmer by the name of Tim Berners-Lee was working at CERN on software for real time data acquisition from physics experiments. That was his day job. At the same time he had a skunk works project going on to find a way to cope with the huge growth of documents from the many research projects. There was great interest in CERN’s work not only by the thousands of staff and researchers in Geneva but also by colleagues all over the world. The problem was that everyone had different kinds of computers; Unix, Apple, IBM, DOS, Windows, Linux, and many others. A highly centralized hierarchical approach was not meeting the needs of those who wanted to get connected with all the research that was going on. It would have been nice to find some way to make all the computers compatible but Tim had a much better idea; make the data compatible. The standards for content creation and server delivery of the content enabled the web to take off — and the evolution has continued.

Hundreds of millions of people know how to browse the web and utilize Internet resources today but in 1993 it was not so easy. Getting a Mosaic browser installed with all the right communications software components and connecting to an ISP was limited to serious hobbyists and technical aficionados. Some people back then said the Internet would not reach large numbers of people because it was too hard to use. Business leaders (including Bill Gates) said the Internet was a non-starter because of the lack of security security and limited speed. Brilliant computer scientists associated with proprietary communications protocols said the Internet would never be used for transactions. Then technology pundits said the Internet would collapse from all the traffic as people flocked to the web. Telephone company executives proclaimed that the Internet would never be practical for voice conversations. Financial services executives said the Internet would never be used for trading stocks or moving money. The list of problems with the Internet and the reasons it would never "grow up" was a long one.

Today, most major corporations in the world have to some degree bet their future on the Internet. It is here to stay and the evolution is accelerating. What is it that overcame the doubters? The Internet itself is largely responsible because it facilitated the sharing of knowledge and the continued development of standards. The Internet enabled the technical leaders at companies, universities, and government laboratories around the world to collaborate and knock down the inhibitors one by one. The same thing is happening with WiFi. The Internet was not invented to do the things it is doing and WiFi was not invented to do the things it is doing (and is going to do). The grass roots innovation and entrepreneurship will drive it.

Every week there are new WiFi developments and the big one last week was Cometa. There were many stories in the press about it. One good one to read is the Network World story, "Tech titans cast a new wireless net", by John Cox. Cometa is a new venture formed by IBM, AT&T and Intel. They plan to install wireless antennas and offer high-speed Internet access within 5 minutes driving time of customers anywhere in the 50 largest U.S. cities. It makes a lot of sense to me. It will be analyzed by the experts in great detail but my analysis is simple. Cometa is good for WiFi and good for the three companies.

For WiFi it will add momentum to an already exploding new area. More importantly it will add a lot of new hotspots and help put WiFi on the path to ubiquity. Dr. Larry Brilliant, CEO of Cometa says, "More than 100 million Internet users in the U.S. will be able to access their current Internet accounts, office systems and corporate networks via their current [service] provider, and their existing billing arrangements." One stop closer to "Always on".

Cometa will make WiFi more useful, leverage the individual strengths of the founding companies, and bring them good returns. For AT&T it will increase traffic on their wired infrastructure. Cometa will make use of the vast AT&T IP network and fiber capabilities for the back-haul portion of the Cometa service, and of AT&T’s sophisticated network management capabilities. For Intel it will mean more opportunity for chips — WiFi chips that they plan to put in everything possible. Their new Banias microprocessor archi8tecture is going to support not only today’s WiFi (802.11b) but also the much faster 802.11a in one package. The new chips will also use less power, generate less heat, and will simplify many of the steps needed to connect wirelessly and to move between various types of WiFi networks.

For IBM it allow the continued spread of their Internet infrastructure software and their systems integration and project management skills. It will also help IBM meet the needs of its major enterprise customers many of whom have thousands of "windshield warriors" — sales and services professionals on the road. In the past they used pay phones; now they use cell phones. Next they will pull into a "fast food" restaurant and use their laptop to enter orders, update records, do some customer or product research and check their email. They might also get hungry and go inside to purchase some food! The increased level of connectivity will mean that IBM’s customers will need more security services, more database integration, and more storage and server capacity.

In effect Cometa is outsourcing the design, installation and infrastructure to its investing partners. Additional partners Apax and 3i will bring the investment capital needed for the build out.The Cometa strategy will make it possible for many other companies to benefit too. New and existing networking companies of all kinds will potentially be able to partner with Cometa thereby outsourcing the WiFi infrastructure to Cometa and allowing them to focus on the unique needs of their customers including pricing, billing, and customer service. One interested company is CloudX which is already operating a WiFi network at Lake Tahoe, Nevada but with plans roll out around the country. There are many other places around the country like Lake Tahoe, where the large carriers have been reluctant to go. CloudX plans to meet their needs through WiFi. They may even get some help from the government. Economists at the Brookings Institution have estimated that widespread, high-speed broadband access would increase the national GDP by $500 billion annually by 2006. Two senators are pushing for it because they believe that emerging unlicensed wireless technologies (WiFi) can support the transmission of data at high speeds and at low cost and therefore benefit rural areas where distance is so frequently the enemy of wire-line networks and the primary reason for the high cost of rural broadband deployment.

There will also be a large opportunity for companies that build WiFi-unique networking infrastructure. They will be part of the evolution that will solve many of today’s WiFi limitations. For example, MeshNetworks, has developed technology which can instantly form large peer-to-peer broadband networks — no network infrastructure or towers needed. Another company, Vivato, has a patent-pending PacketSteering™ technology which they say uniquely integrates WiFi, smart antennas and gigabit Ethernet switching design. This could result in extensive WiFi range, coverage and capacity that cannot be achieved with existing WiFi solutions. AirRunner is focused on high speed long distance Networking technologies. Using advanced radio frequency design and special antennas they claim their products can achieve operation in a clear line of sight environment at up to 50 miles. The list goes on. Things that were only recently thought to be technically impossible are changing the physics and potential of WiFi.