AT&T Wireless Drops Fixed Wireless

n8twj writes: "According to this story at Internetnews.com, AT&T has decided to graciously bow out of the Fixed Wireless arena. This is a move that strands 47,000 of its customers, displaces its entire fixed wireless division staff and costs the company more than $1 billion." Iridium, Ricochet, and Sprint's ION are now gone or all-but-gone, too -- it's been a bad year for unconventional Internet service customers.

Comments

At least the employees will be taken care of

[Rogerborg]

• Although some of its 1,000 employees will get laid off as a result of the shutdown, DiGioia expects most will find employment somewhere else with AT&T Wireless. Those that don't, he said, will get help finding a job externally

Given the current telecomms climate, I expect that they'll be given the industry standard mentoring and advisement program:

"The door's over there. Don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out."

Re:AT&T Broadband

[Brad Wilson]

How long before the broadband group gets scrapped too? First excite, then who knows?

AT&T just reported that they're replacing the head of AT&T Broadband, while simultaneously reporting a loss. I wouldn't be overly pleased if I was one of those people with broadband access right now. I guess Cringley doesn't seem like such an idiot any more...

not just high speed internet

[Jburkholder]

"Digital Broadband" (fixed wireless) was also deployed by AT&T as a local phone service. People switched over from their local telco to AT&T and now will have to switch back.

AT&T has similarly offered local phone service in my area over cable. I have cast a very skeptical eye towards this offering, not because of the potential for higher cost or lower quality, but because of AT&T's propensity to launch into new services, fail to make money and then cut their losses leaving the customer high and dry.

Why Wireless?

[dschuetz]

Many times on slashdot (or elsewhere, I hear the words "Just get a cable modem or DSL". Well, dammit, for many of us, that is not a possibility.

I live in one of the most well-connected areas of the country, and probably in the world. UUNET, AOL, MAE-EAST, and countless others are located out here. My county also has one of the oldest Cable-TV plants in the country. I live in one of the fastest growing sections of the county, and our CO is both overburdened and too far from my house for DSL.

In short, Fixed Wireless, had it even been available here, is the ONLY reasonable broadband option for me. (I'm not prepared to deal with satellite latencies).

People need to realize that losing these alternative systems is a phenomenally Bad Thing. I fully expect that in 2 years (just as the next-generation DSL that might have finally gotten me service comes online, maybe) DSL will be provided in my area by Verizon, and Verizon alone, and they won't bother upgrading, so I'll still have no DSL. And as for cable -- well, that *might* work, maybe, but I'll never get static IPs or a server-friendly AUP.

Sure, I might not have had that with Wireless, either, but with more competition, especially from different media, there'd be more service-level competition for DSL, and more urge to expand and improve service. With no competition, well, why bother?

It constantly depresses me, the state of technological affairs in this country. For pete's sake, we invented (more or less, perhaps) DSL, the Cell Phone, and countless other incredibly cool or useful technologies. But because "competition" and "the marketplace" is so vitally important to us (or at least to our well-funded politicians), we don't have any standards, we have incomplete rollouts, we have lousy service, and Microsoft.

And the worst of it is, most of the public at large doesn't realize that it doesn't have to be like this! We accept BSODs because, well, computers crash, don't they? We accept lousy DSL service because, well, we're running out of IPs, and we don't have any backbone fiber left, right? We accept reduced cell phone services because it's great that we have a choice between CDMA and TDMA and GSM, right? Geez.

Sorry for the rant. It's been a bad morning for me so far.

So, let's say, for the moment, that a bunch of smart geeks running a non-profit ISP were to get together and start an 802.11-based fixed wireless service. How much, really, would that cost? Where would we get startup money? If we're going to serve 50, 100, or 1000 subscribers over a 2-10 Mbps connection, is it really resonable to have only a single T-1 on the back side? How do we afford a fatter pipe, if the subscribers are willing to pay half the cost for fewer services over cable?

In short, we need these big businesses to build out these networks, to dip into their funds and live with losses for a couple years. We simply cannot do this ourselves.

If anyone knows how we can do it ourselves, please let me know, 'cause I know a bunch of smart geeks at a non-profit ISP who would love to do exactly this.

Re:Why Wireless?

[dschuetz]

How very idealistic of you. But, how, exactly, would a non-profit ISP do any better than all of the mom-and-pop ISPs who have gone under, and even the big ones that actually know what they're doing?

That's exactly the problem.

I'm not pushing "non-profit" for any idealistic reasons, I'm only saying that, as a non-profit, the ISP I'm on has very low overhead (most everything is done gratis by geeks), and can get at least some equipment via donations (which is how we got our big Bay dialup switch, I believe).

If you can't do any better, than shut your yap, please.

Um...well, I don't know whether we can do any better. Everyone here seems to talk about "just build your own WiFi network with your friends," but that's got serious problems with it, too. A low-cost, non-profit ISP is the next logical step up from a loose group of geeks with 802.11 equipment and a full-out, for-profit, telecomm-owned company. It gives us some degree of legal accountability (like, say, a way to collect fees), while keeping overhead low.

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I keep hearing people here either say "hell with wireless, get DSL" or "just set up your own wireless network." Well, I'm asking, "How do we set up our own wireless network, knowing that we need a decent back-end (T1 or better), that such a connection will cost money, and that we'll need some way to recoup those costs while also guaranteeing that when the founding geeks move on, something's left behind for everyone else."

If nobody can explain how to do that , then I'd like everyone here who says "Just build your own wireless network" to shut their traps, as you so eloquently put it.

Re:How much demand is there?

[stripes]

How much demand is there for fixed wireless? I've been considering starting a wireless ISP that would serve my local area, and I was thinking that no one would be willing to pay more money to switch from cable or DSL to wireless. This is what could have been the problem.

There is no real demand for fixed wireless over DSL or cable access. There is demand for high bandwidth, low latency, working service, fixed IP, no mandatory filters, easy set up, fast installs, and low price (clearly some of these things are more important to some people then others -- many don't care about fixed IP for example)

If you can offer a good set of those features people will be interested in it, whether it is DSL, fixed wireless, cable, or whatever. Very few people care what technology gives them what they want, most care that they get what they want!

Fixed wireless has an inherent advantage in "fast install" (you don't have to roll a truck and bury new wire), and maybe in more universal access (I'm just under 20K feet from my CO, and having trouble getting DSL now that Rhythms croaked).

Wireless is far from dead tho...

[1r1sh]

I work for a small ISP that just rolled out wireless broadband, and the response has been excellent. With the number of people who have signed up for service, the business offering will definitely not be a money losing venture. I can only imagine that a complete and utter breakdown in management skill is the plague that effects AT&T. Of course we're not going to try to take over local phone service or other extraneous services, because we're an Internet company...maybe AT&T should find a focus and stick to it, and stop trying to be everything to everyone...sounds like some other companies I know...

Is it economically viable?

[Captain Kirk]

I worked for a pure fixed wireless business on www.tele2.co.uk as a salesman and marketing manager. The problem is that there is so much fibre buried and phone lines already installed, that a new service struggles to cover even its operating costs. In most urban areas, the cheapest way to move data is to use existing infrastructure. Once you leave the city centre, trees obstruct fixed wireless so complaints rise every Spring of installations that were done in December-Febuary no longer being viable. This leads to a uninstalls along with a bad reputation. It destroys margin on sales.

Fixed wireless is a superb technology but the existing technologies make it very hard to deploy it econmoically.

Patrick

Re:Is it economically viable?

[CoreDump]

In the UK in the situation you describe, possibly not. However, in the US, it's becoming remarkably popular, for the following reasons:

• The (Bell) ILEC's suck at DSL and it's slow to roll out. It also requires equipment to be installed at your local CO, so it is easier to deploy wireless than outfit your CO with a DSLAM.
• Cable modems require upgrades to the physical plant, which is also slow in being rolled out by the cable companies in some areas.
• Wireless is very quick to deploy. There is a reason why wireless service was restored very quickly in NYC after Sept. 11. It's very nature makes it easy to deploy quickly.

To be fair however, there are some limitations/drawbacks to fixed wireless ( as pointed out above ):

• Line of Sight/Multipath - Just about every current system requires line of sight or near line of sight to work properly. If you can't get line of sight, then you're out of luck. Trees are also the bane of fixed wireless in the 2-5 Ghz range as they serve to block signals very good.
• Related to the first point, in order to saturate an area with coverage you'll need quite a few cells. You'll have to put up more cells to ensure good coverage, so while the cost of each cell is far less than equipping that CO with DSLAMs, you have to put up more of them.
• CPE cost. ( Customer Premise Equipment ) It's still a new market and the volume isn't as high, so the cost of CPE equipment for fixed wireless is more than for DSL or Cable.

It's all changing rapidly, and with recent advances in technology it's just getting better. The way dialup was back in the 28.8/33.6 days and has grown to what it is now is similar with fixed wireless. The early adopters will get a head start on everyone else.

ObDisclaimer: I work for a fixed wireless provider, so I am a bit biased, but we also have done DSL and continue to do dialup access.

• StarNet WX Fixed Wireless Access
• StarNet Dialup Access across North America

As for being economically viable, if you price it below your cost to deliver then it doesn't matter if it's DSL, Cable, Satellite, or Wireless. Good Technology != Good Business Model. If there is demand for high-speed access, then the market will determine what costs are acceptable. If it's not a commodity ( and I'd hazzard the supposition that fixed wireless is not yet a commodity ), then consumers will pay a premium for it. So yes, I will stake my claim and say that Fixed wireless can be economically viable, provided the business plan and pricing decisions are based in reality and derived from the actual "cost of goods" and not a made up number to attract VC or push an IPO.

Cost Feasibility of Wireless Nets

[kc0dby]

Just to check out the feasibility of something like this, after seeing all the cost speculation on here, I decided to give a call to the local Sprint office. Here's what I've found:

Full T1 line, terminating in my residence, I provide CSU/DSU and routing equipment:

Installation Fees waived with a 12 month contract, unlimited IP addresses assigned from Sprint pool. Total Monthly recurring cost is $300 for the local loop and $881 for the T1 port fee.

So, compare this with my cable modem at $50 a month, and I'd need 24 users to break even- if I don't provide equipment, beyond the AP and antennas I already own. But to get to 24 people, I'm going to need a few thousand dollars worth of investment to set up the infrastructure to provide for a wider service area.

Tower space can be expensive if you don't know where to look. In the small town I live in, people needed TV towers to get anything back in the pre-cable days. This included alot of businesses that felt the need for some type of communications. There are alot of bars, auto parts stores, empty buildings, etc. with some pretty hefty structures attatched. I have had success in negotiating near-free installation of equipment on those towers (I pay their electric bill one month out of 12.. In one case, I'm pretty sure they're losing money on the deal, because I'm using way more than 1/12 of the electricity to keep my boxen running)

Of course, as long as you only need a little lift - say under 200 feet - you can legally fly a balloon with a few tight moorings and any equipment you need. (If you live too close to an airport, the legal limit is lower than 200 feet.)
That could be a maintenance un-friendly installation though. It'd be a hell of alot of fun to try though.. Think Helium line running up alongside coax and power feeds. Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!

Iridium Is Not Gone

[zulux]

Iridium was bought out by a small company to service the large Department of Defence and US Governement contracts. The revenue from the US government is much larger that the cost to keep the Iridium constelation in orbit and in good repair. Becuase the 'new' Iridium dosen't have the debt burden of the old system - they can provide service at $1.50 a minuit. I use their service when I hike in the woods and need to keep in contact with my customers. The phones have been re-flashed and the voice quality is quite acceptable - it sounds like you're slighly muffeled, and now the phones can connect directly to the internet (unfortunatly only Windows is supported) in addition to connecting to an ISP. You can also send SMS messages to the phone.

Because the new service has almost no dept and plenty of revenue, I don't worry about them going bankrupt.

as if I didn't hate AT&T already

[MrResistor]

Isn't this the third time this year that AT&T has left a large number of customers high and dry? It's really irritating to me when companies do that, but it's especially bad when the company is as spontaneous and unappologetic as AT&T has been about it.

I have to say that it fits with all my other experiences with AT&T though. They are the cable TV provider in my area and they suck. The picture quality is even worse than the channel selection they "offer", and in fact is exceded in lack of quality only by their customer service. If I could get any reception with an antena at my house I would drop them entirely. Unfortunately I just can't justify the expense of DSS with as little TV as I watch.