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04/12/2007Denver to Get Wi-Fi: Q&A with Ricochet's Evans
Richochet Networks’s 900-MHz proprietary wireless network currently serves more than 6,000 users in the Denver metro area. Now Ricochet has approval from the City of Denver to incorporate Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and other broadband services into its right-of-way contract with the City. The new network will begin rolling out in the Capitol Hill and Golden Triangle downtown neighborhoods—a 2.5-square-mile area—with a goal of covering 154 square miles. W2i spoke with Judi Evans, Ricochet’s president, on April 5, shortly after the agreement between the company and the city was reached.
W2i: What is the agreement with Denver?
Evans: Ricochet has a right-of-way agreement with the city, put in place in 2002, to allow it to deliver wireless services in the city and county of Denver, and we have expanded that to include Wi-Fi and WiMAX.
W2i: That’s a fairly strong asset, because network providers can have difficulty securing those rights-of-way.
Evans: Relationships have been in place for several years with the local utility companies, and from a speed-to-market standpoint, those are the biggest hurdles.
W2i: What is the revenue model?
Evans: Ricochet will provide fee-based wireless-broadband services in Denver. As we grow out the infrastructure from the Wi-Fi standpoint, there’s an upward migration path for our users to go over to the Wi-Fi services from the Ricochet network. As we turn up the Wi-Fi network, we will turn down the Ricochet network in those areas.
W2i: Do you have any kind of anchor tenancy with the city?
Evans: Not at this time.
W2i: Any plans for free service in certain areas, or for Web-based advertising?
Evans: Ricochet is committed to working with the city on digital inclusion. There are no free services, nor do we subscribe to ad-driven networks. Nothing is free. I think the ad model is great additional revenue, but it’s not a core way to fund a network, when you talk about the core dollars.
W2i: Of your existing 6,000 subscribers, is it mostly mobile, or in-home use?
Evans: We’ve got a blend of users — municipal users for mobility applications, residential consumers using it in their home, and business users using it for a variety of applications.
W2i: Today, a users need a Ricochet modem, but as the network moves to Wi-Fi, they will need a standard access device. But Wi-Fi doesn’t penetrate indoors so they’ll need CPE.
Evans: Not necessarily. High-gain antennas extend coverage to existing clients, and the Proxim indoor access points support mesh and can extend the outdoor mesh coverage farther indoors without the need to replace your existing Wi-Fi clients.
W2i: If you characterize today those 6,000 users, why are you migrating to Wi-Fi?
Evans: If you look at the wireless community at large, Wi-Fi is not the only solution. There’s no one be-all-end-all wireless utopian world out there. We’re looking for a layering of technologies. There are 300 million Wi-Fi-enabled devices in the marketplace, and it makes a lot of community and business sense to enhance our network opportunities to the community. There’s Wi-MAX, Mesh MAX, point-to-point service, point-to-multipoint service. It’s about getting the right level of service that the user needs in the right place.
W2i: What is Ricochet’s relationship with Proxim?
Evans: We’re actually sister companies. Terabeam is the parent of both Proxim and Ricochet. We’re the only company that encompasses both a WISP and a leading equipment manufacturer, which puts us in a unique position in the marketplace. We can leverage Proxim’s mesh Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 4.9-GHz public-safety products in an end-to-end solution.
W2i: So Ricochet will build the new Denver network using Proxim equipment.
Evans: Yes. We’re excited about this, the first of many relationships that Ricochet is focused on to deliver broadband to the marketplace. We have years of experience operating revenue-generating municipal wireless networks in Denver and the San Diego metro market.
W2i: There was a competitor in a similar situation that sold off its NextNet sister company to Motorola. I’m trying to understand, how does this transform into a competitive advantage?
Evans: To deliver the end-to-end wireless solution is one competitive advantage. The relationship with Proxim allows Ricochet to leverage the developing infrastructure it has coming to market, as well as its channel partners, from an installation standpoint, and it comes back to our position in the space. That in itself sets us apart from some of the emerging companies in the marketplace.
W2i: There is a severe lack of capital for service providers. By our estimates, hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars that the US marketplace is short of. How is that going to play out, and how does Ricochet view that?
Evans: Wireless brings lots of benefits to a city or county. Some are reduced data infrastructure costs, additional sources of revenue, productivity enhancements and safer communities. So each of these benefit both the top line as well as the bottom line of a city or county’s income sheet. From the perspective of funding the network, part of our approach in Denver, on the infrastructure, is that we’re going to deliver the initial area as a proof-of-concept. But as we expand that out, it’s not just about Wi-Fi, it’s about architecting a network that can support multiple technologies. That’s the first stepping stone, if you will.
W2i: What do you think about the 10-city Colorado Wireless Communities initiative organizing around Boulder?
Evans: The CWC is a great initiative, to see the cities pulling together to try and create a larger footprint for wireless ISPs. I think the ultimate answer is, no matter what ISPs exist in a community, we’ll need to work together. RF doesn’t stop at the border.
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Related Items:
• WiMax Coming to Denver in 2008
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