Data networking is a tiresome topic at best, but many staid analysts in the high-tech world perked up and took notice when Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen recently purchased US$17.5 million worth of stock in Metricom Inc. Based in Los Gatos, California, this networking company specializes in providing low-cost, high-speed networking services over unlicensed radio spectrum.
Analysts call Metricom "daring," "bold," and "innovative." Why? It's managed to build a high-bandwidth data service over the 900-MHz band of unlicensed radio spectrum. The cost: just US$9.95 a month for an unlimited, high-speed 14.4-Kbps connection or US$2.95 if all you need is a 2,400-baud connection so that you can keep track of, say, your network of Coke machines (don't laugh, this is a very real application). If you want an ultra-speedy 56-Kbps connectivity (the kind businesses currently pay hundreds of dollars a month for), it'll cost just US$19.95 a month. Please go back and read those prices again. They're not typos.
Developed for the utility industry, Metricom's technology has Paul Allen all aflutter because it works like the Net does: Hundreds of independent, intelligent, IP-addressable "nodes" - essentially radios linking Metricom's network together - are hung all over the place. Small and inexpensive, these devices can piggyback unobtrusively on lampposts and buildings, so there's no need to rent or buy real estate for huge radio towers (competitors like Ram Mobile Data or Ardis use licensed spectrum and large transmission towers). And Metricom's radio modems, which mimic regular modems so computers and applications can't tell the difference, sell for less than US$500 and will more likely than not be miniaturized from their current size, roughly the heft of a TV remote, to PCMCIA cards, ideal for those PDAs we're all waiting to buy.
Perfect for regional nets, Metricom initially plans to market its services to universities, campus-based businesses (Apple Computer served as its first beta site), and the like.
"It's neighborhood networking," says Paul Allan, an analyst for Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "This technology has a lot of potential."
Flush with Allen's cash, Metricom plans to extend its networking infrastructure from its base in Silicon Valley to the rest of Northern California, then throughout major cities in the United States. Metricom: +1 (408) 399 8200.
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