Finding our way to wireless Internet

WHEREAS, a lack of an adequate infrastructure for telecommunications and a state-of-the-art telecommunications system will impede Vermont's capacity for economic growth and creation of jobs for Vermonters; and

WHEREAS, Vermont's broadband and wireless infrastructure deployment, technology-based

Last September, Governor James Douglas took note of the arrival of wireless data transfer, among other developments, by ordering the creation of a Telecommunications Advisory Council. Also, he directed all state agencies to work with the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, which would lead in the area, "to address expansion of Vermont infrastructure for wired and wireless voice and broadband communications."

It's in the air: wireless Internet access is on the way. Or, in some cases, it has arrived already. And in some instances, intranet communication, in a municipality or organization or factory, can take advantage of wireless as well.

As Jack Hoffman of the two-year-old, Vermont State College-affiliated Vermont Broadband Council said, "It's happening everywhere, and there's no reason it can't happen all over Vermont."

Three types of wireless access are possible, all of which to some degree have been deployed: general Internet service provider access, giving cell phone customers the ability to log on as well if they are in range of appropriate antennas; "last mile" wireless, which can link someone out of range of a land line broadband connection to a node with such access; and "hot spot" or "wi-fi" access, in which a business or institution sets up a zone within which people with wireless cards in their laptops or similar equipment in a personal digital assistant or multi-function phone can log on.

To start with the simplest, hot spots come in many flavors, and may in the end be instrumental in letting people test wireless Internet service without comnutting themselves to a paid plan. Here, demand within Vermont has several synergistic connections with demand out of state.

At Middlebury College, for instance, members of the Department of Library and Information Services had been looking into wireless for years, according to Associate Dean David Donahue. The faculty for the most part couldn't see how it would enhance their teaching, but the students were enthusiastic, he said - with students who had come from high schools with wireless intranets particularly convinced of its value. In many cases, he said, older schools faced tremendous costs if they wanted to retrofit their walls with. fiber optic cables, and buying into wireless proved to be a more workable alternative.

Thus social spaces in the student center, the arts center, a commons residence, and the international studies- oriented Rohatyn Center will have such connections. A campus email message from Barbara Doyle-Wilch, Dean of Library and Information Services, informed everyone in November that "A wireless network is being tested, not as a replacement for the wired network, but as an added convenience for those who may wish to read email or browse the internet without having to make a physical connection to the wired network."

She went on to say that the College will be studying four issues (which are indicative of what all of Vermont's wireless providers will face):

* What impact will high bandwidth applications have on the performance of the wireless network?

* What is the sufficient number of access points needed to support wireless learners in a particular area?

* Effect of building materials and human beings on the signal strength?

* Is there an issue with security and privacy of information in a wireless network?

There was general agreement among sources contacted for this article that wireless security/privacy issues exist, but are essentially no different than those for other types of Internet activity.

Across town in Middlebury, a new Courtyard Marriott hotel offers wireless access for the business travelers to which it heavily markets.

Nationally publicized wi-fi connection zones offered by airports, convention centers, hotels, restaurants, coffeehouses and convenience stores, suggest that the concept is likely to be driven forward by competition.

One of the most interesting developments is taking shape in Montpelier, where Hoffman said there is a system to provide broadband to businesses (each of which has an antenna) and an other phase will put a one block wi-fi site at downtown.

Eventually, the organizers would like to get the State House in the loop, which would allow such things as videoconferencing and calling up data from Web sites during deliberations.

Fortune magazine and Above the Crowd columnist J William Gurley wrote two years ago, "Wi-Fi has all the makings of a disruptive and explosive technology: huge growth, a strong value proposition, multiple and expanding uses, industry standardization, and global standardization. There are flaws, but none is insurmountable, and none is nearly large enough to be anything more than a speed bump with respect to the billions of dollars of research and development already pointed into this space ... This truly is the next big thing."

But so far, it's frontier territory for Vermont. Checking three Web sites that list hot spots nationally and internationally, two showed only Burlington having them, and the one that picked up Perkinsville and Springfield (two inns) also missed Middlebury. Burlington, with its waterfront/Battery Street area, Church Street, and the Radisson (now known as the Wyndham) enabled, appears once again to be leading the state.

A wireless solution that involves Vermont companies rather

than the big regional and national service providers uses wireless to extend land line broadband access. Joseph Hand-. Boniakowski, product development manager for Sovernet, said they have contracted with LastMileNet and Summit Technologies to reach areas that would otherwise be too rural for broadband access.

It's not a complete solution, he said, because it requires line-of-sight connection. Supposing someone has a mountaintop antenna that could aim at thousands of people, it could have interference problems with some other antenna up there, too, he said.

But for many, people, it works, Hand-Boniakowksi said. For instance, he has a neighbor too distant to get a DSL link who talked a neighbor into letting him install DSL and wireless equipment there - and now he has DSL.

For Sovernet, it works better than trying to set up a complete aerial system because tremendous repair and maintenance capabilities would be needed to deal with any breakdown before numerous users with vitally important links were affected, he said.

Wireless connections are facilitating all sorts of private and public operations, Hand-Boniakowski said. He knows of a factory owned by someone in Pawlet where walkie-talkies have been replaced and productivity-related communication is much better. In Grafton, three T1 broadband land lines could be reduced to one, with wireless linking the others. In Sovernet's home territory of Bellows Falls, a group of 8 or 9 businesses is on a wireless network at the center of the village.

The state of the available technology influences decisions. Hand-Boniakowski said, "Everybody is sitting back and waiting to see how the technology is shaking out. "The 802.11a standard has led to 802.11b for more advanced wireless, and now G3, already in use in many European countries, promises even more power and connectivity

The biggest telecom companies are already starting to stake out territory. Tom Murray, director of telecom information advancement at the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, said he knew from his former job with Unicel that they are interested in wireless Internet service. His agency has talked with Sprint and Nextel. AT&T is big nationwide.

And forward-thinking Vermont companies are aware of what's going on. PowerShift Online in Stowe is one of the players.

The larger-scale perspective might be exemplified by Verizon Wireless, which claims to be the nation's largest mobile phone service provider. They announced in January that they will spend $1 billion upgrading their network to make it competitive with telephone and cable lines - a day after Verizon, which owns 55 percent of the spinoff company, said it would put $2 billion into its terrestrial network by 2005. The New York Times quoted their CEO Ivan Seidenberg as saying, "This pushes us away from being voice-centric. We're moving away from the legacy business."

The intensifying competition at the national level has been paralleled on a smaller, rural scale by the rush to find antenna sites. Richard Enright, Verizon's director of engineering for New England, said there are 37 company sites now, using steeples, silos, trees, water towers and more. "A lot of towns have set aside town property for the purpose," he said, the rental revenues being a welcome contribution.

The urban areas and those along major roads have gotten service first, to the point where Enright said that in Burlington, the airwaves are getting "tight on spectrum." But Verizon is committed to building out from there to the less populated regions, according to regional spokesperson Marcia Simon.

Here, tourism helps Vermonters. Enright pointed out that many Verizon customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York don't want to lose their service while skiing or otherwise recreating in Vermont, so they, help justify expenses like the high zoning permit costs.

In a conference call, Simon and Verizon associate director of wireless data Howard Lerner pointed out that wireless NationalAccess service is already available to their cell phone customers. Using 1XRTT technology, it can tie in with a laptop computer's Sierra Wireless Aircard 555 or Airprime PC 3220 card, or a NationalAccess chipenabled cell phone, to get online at 40-60K - about what a dialup user with a 56K modem would get. That lets business travelers do things like open and send Excel spreadsheets, utilize PDF image files, access audio files, and connect with a home company's Intranet - as well as usual things like sending and receiving email. When out of broadband range, a customer will move seamlessly into NationalAccess mode rather than being shut out.

VerizonWireless BroadbandAccess, using third generation (3G) EV-DO (Evolution-Data Only), will add the ability to download mission-critical corporate data, keep contact through video messaging, work with large and complex files and in spare time, engage in multi-player online games. Already up and running in Washington, DC, and San Diego through Verizon Wireless, it will move into Significant portions of the company's markets this summer, and more in 2004-2005.

There was a time when connectivity meant advances like the Kings of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Essex, Sussex, East Anglia and Kent warring on each other to establish the United Kingdom. Now it take the form of companies merging and outbidding each other to buy wavelengths, or Governor James Douglas announcing the goal of having broadband Internet (global) access available to almost all Vermonters by 2007. In practice, it means things like being able to send relatives who couldn't attend the wedding pictures of it online, even before it's over, all the while multitasking by checking with the office to make sure nothing unusual is brewing.

It may not exactly be progress - that's a decision for the future - but a lot of people would say it's a lot more fun.