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Aerie Reviving Ricochet Network
lemmett writes: "It looks like Denver's Aerie Networks is stepping up to the plate and trying to make money with the Ricochet network. We'll see if their new business plan works any better than Metricom's did. From the article: 'Reducing both network and marketing costs and acquiring hundreds of millions of dollars in assets for a song means Aerie can offer cheaper service, which it plans to sell for $39 to $49 a month, according to Aaronson. If Metricom's strategy was to focus on high-end mobile users, Aerie's will be to provide commodity broadband to the many places DSL and cable modems don't tread.'"
actually it does make sense.
the company that went bust did so because of the enormous cost of settin the network up in the first place. Theese guys now have the same network without the billion dollar debt associated with setting it up.
It seems to be a common trend now, whoever sets up a large network like this goes bankrupt and whoever comes in behind em and takes over the fiber can clean up.
...before 3G is available in the US. I don't really care about Metricom or whatever if the service they offer is just as dull as it used to be. Just came back from Japan on a business trip. I was just amazed how many people are connected permanently overthere. I was hooked. I got one of these SONY models for the 2 weeks I was there. It's just plain amazing the feeling you get to carry this thing around all the time. Flip it open and anything I get at my desk right now is available in a small but very surprisingly readable screen. The interface for inputing chars is just not there. But most of the time, I was browsing with the mini joystick. When I took the plane back home I felt that I was returning to the middle age.
Where did the debt go? $1B doesn't appear from nowhere? Or does it? If it does, please tell me where. I'm poor
I'm not surprised to see something like this happen. It seemed there was all kinds of venture capital dollars in the 90's, some of it was bound to be put to something durable, like a network like this one.
A few people just had to take a bath on it. It wasn't a bad idea, it just couldn't work the first time around. At under $50 though, it should do really well.
I wonder if they're going to support the old modems?
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
I can imagine a room of 30-50 wealth guys.
"Hey, we could make a bundle if we didn't have to pay to build the infrastructure!"
"Ok, instead of playing politics, let's all pool some money together, convince a bunch of investors it will work, get 10x the money we put in, build it, then go broke, and take the loss as a write off."
"Great! Then we'll buy it out of Bankrupcty for less than we put in the first place! It's win-win!"
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
I'll be honest, if they can provide support for me, at my home, and work, and maybe where my nearby 2600 group meets, i would get it even though I have cable. It's also nice to have an internet connection when one is waiting to be towed for four hours.... If its below 40 bucks, I would see it as worth it. Maybe faster access would be nice.
OK.
I was a BIG fan of my Ricochet before they folded.
Did you know you can get 256k out of the Ricochet!?
That is right! If you have USB and big UART patch, you can get 256k in optimal conditions.
I would see 220-250kbps a LOT of the time.
Since the fell, I have been stuck using 802.11b.
There is starting to get *some* penetration in the market (mostly Starbucks) but 802.11 will not see the ubiquity that Ricochet saw.
That and the fact that 256k *with* ubiquity (in major cities) combined with 802.11 really make the two a killer combination.
So charge whatever you want! JUST GET IT WORKING AGAIN! I could seriously pay aroun $100 a month for this. Maybe more.
JUST GET IT WORKING!
Kevin
I was a field tester for Metricom a few months before they went belly up. The problem with it being used as an alternative to DSL or Cable is that the service footprint is only the metro area with a small amount going outside the city. I would be pretty surprised to see that much of any of their old coverage area doesnt at least have cable available. If Aerie wants to expand to cover a decent area which doesnt have cable already, it will require a major reinvestment on their part as well as a good bit of time. Neither of which I expect investors to be incredibly happy about in todays economic climate.