Cometa maps out strategy for national Wi-Fi network
By Ephraim Schwartz
December 6, 2002 5:17 pm PT
IN A STRATEGY that appears to be the mirror image of a grass roots effort, Cometa Networks will target household brand name consumer restaurant, hotel, and retail chains as its customer base to deploy its dream of a single, nationwide Wi-Fi network.
New York-based Cometa was officially launched on Thursday by its five founding partners: AT&T, IBM, Intel, plus two venture capital companies Apax Partners and 3i.
Notably missing from the mix of locations that would house Cometa's hoped-for 20,000 access points by 2004 are airports.
"We will not do airports. Our target market is the windshield warrior," said Dean Douglas, vice president of telecommunications at Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM.
Windshield warriors are those mobile workers such as pharmaceutical sales people or insurance claims adjusters who rarely step inside an airport. For those workers, Douglas said Cometa will pursue locations where there is a brand association that a "person would be comfortable with."
By partnering with the wire line carriers, such as AT&T, that already have existing relationships with an enterprise for dialup VPN, a mobile workforce could easily access his or her CRM and ERP systems during previously unproductive times of the day.
Cometa will also create a service mark, similar to the Visa symbol on the door of a restaurant for locations that house its network. However, Cometa will not invest a significant amount of capital to pursue a brand of its own, said Douglas. Rather it will sell is service as a wholesaler to ISPs, WISPs, and carriers.
Cometa, however, is not the only company with the same idea. Samba Wireless in Miami, a company that describes itself in "stealth mode," has already signed up Holiday Inn Express, Ritz Carlton, Days Inn, and Hampton Inn, according to Simon Brodie, vice president of sales and marketing.
"We have every major hotel chain talking to us," Brodie said.
And a great many other questions are still being asked about the financial viability of a national Wi-Fi network.
Lawrence Brilliant, Cometa CEO, admits that despite the fact that there are 2,000 Starbucks outfitted with Wi-Fi from T-Mobile and 24 airports as well, usage is low. Brilliant blames this on the lack of Wi-Fi-enabled devices.
Others, like Chris Bogdon, chief technical strategist at Padcom, a wireless infrastructure supplier to the emergency services sector in Bethlehem, Pa., believes Wi-Fi lacks compelling applications.
Whatever the cause, one industry analyst, Ken Dulaney at Gartner in San Jose, Calif., suggested that creating Cometa insulates the individual companies involved in case the idea fails.
The issue of how Cometa will work with locations that already have a Wi-Fi network is also raising questions. Although Cometa CEO Brilliant all but ruled out roaming agreements with other provider networks, IBM's Douglas seemed to modify the view by saying that it would consider roaming agreements among Wi-Fi providers.
"We would contemplate doing agreements with those companies that would build out an infrastructure that is compatible and has the same enterprise and carrier class quality metrics," said Douglas.
Partner they must, according to most people within the industry. Boingo currently aggregates 14 different hot spot providers in the United States, and executives at the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company do not see that changing any time soon.
"We are trying to make the patchwork of polyglot networks usable for the F1000 worker and the average traveler," said Christian Gunning, vice president of marketing at Boingo.
While Cometa pursues the windshield warrior, the fact is if it wants a complete end-to end enterprise strategy, it may have to expand beyond the front seat of a Saturn. And for that, it will need to partner with aggregators such as Boingo or Gric Communications.
"These are people at hotels and airports everywhere in the world. Unless they are able to control all of the networks in the world, [Cometa has] to partner with players like us eventually," said John Rasmus, vice president of corporate and business development at Gric in Milpitas, Calif.
Another company that remains skeptical about Cometa's ability to capture the major hotel and restaurant chains is SprectraSite Communications, a Morristown, N.J., company that manages cell towers, antennas atop buildings, and the communications infrastructure in malls and office buildings around the country.
Major chains will not deal directly with the infrastructure supplier.
"[Cometa] will go to Marriott and Marriott will go to us," said Brian Porter, vice president of national accounts at SprectraSite in Miami.
With many hurdles to surmount, why at the end of the day did AT&T, IBM, and Intel decide to form Cometa? Ken Dulaney at Gartner does not beat around the bush.
"This is primarily fueled by Intel's lust for dominance in wireless-enabled devices, AT&Ts fear that they are going to be left out [of wireless], and IBM's decision to make as much money as they can on whatever investments that they make," he said.
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