|
Amid the scramble to carve out a niche for fixed wireless broadband access networks, one outfit appears to have made a beachhead in New Hampshire.
Via a relatively small contract to deploy and operate a broadband wireless network for the Granite State's Army National Guard, Third Rail Ltd. hopes it has tapped into a potentially larger pool of government users as well as created a success it can market to other possible customers.
Third Rail, which built the first wireless broadband network in Africa, won a $655,456 contract to provide communications links for 22 National Guard sites across New Hampshire. State, federal and local agencies involved in emergency management, as well as schools and universities providing distributive education programs, will be able to share the network. The system also will be available to businesses that meet economic development criteria.
The Guard's 22 locations "don't make a business model" for a network that will cost several million dollars, concedes Steve Fitzgibbon, chief operating officer of Third Rail Americas Inc., the U.S. unit of Australia-based Third Rail. "Because of the unique state and federal relationship, there's a whole universe of qualified users that runs into the thousands."
New Hampshire is crying for bandwidth, Fitzgibbon says. Guard officials headquartered half a mile from the State Capitol in Concord sought to improve their communications capabilities by upgrading their 56 kbps dialup Internet access. After a six-month wait, ILEC Verizon Communications told them it would be another two years before phone circuits would be upgraded.
Third Rail is in the process of securing legal access to most of the communications towers that dot the hilltops across the mountainous state. Two DS3 lines to the company's operations center in Nashua should be installed this month, which will give Third Rail "more than enough bandwidth to supply the state," Fitzgibbon says. While the goal is to have an entirely wireless network, including the backbone, the company in the first year of operation will make use of some local fiber optics providers' facilities.
Third Rail is manufacturing its own microwave base stations and transceivers that will operate on National Guard-designated frequencies in the 1.5 GHz to 2.0 GHz range. The base stations will be able to receive line-of-sight transmissions within an 18-mile radius.
The system is to be completed within six months for use by the National Guard, which also views it for possible use in other mountainous states, Fitzgibbon says. Third Rail won the five-year contract that has a three-year option, in bidding that attracted the interest of 22 potential vendors.
Third Rail began in 1996 as a unit of wireless equipment manufacturer Spike Technologies, and became the first switch-based wireless CLEC in the United States. It also installed the world's first commercial deployment of a multi-sectored broadband fixed wireless telecommunications system in Merida, Venezuela.
In 1998, the company built a broadband wireless network in Ghana for large multi-national financial institutions and companies. Because of its relationship with major London banks like Barclays Plc., the company is moving into Zambia, Gambia and Nigeria, Fitzgibbon says.
Spun off by Spike as a private company in 1999, Third Rail was acquired last year by Australia's AMX Resources Ltd. It adopted the Third Rail name and has begun testing its technologies in that country.
|
