ART Goes Chapter 11
By Broadband Week staff
from the April 16, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
Wireless data service provider Advanced Radio Telecom Corp. may be calling it quits after failing in its ambitious plan to build a national broadband wireless network.
The Bellevue, Wash.-based company, which only a year ago was flush with $450 million of new financing for the 100 Mbps, Internet Protocol-based network, is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors and cutting most of its 200 employees after failing to get more funding.
The company, which operated networks at 39 GHz, had a partnership with Qwest Communications International to provide last-mile links to enterprise and multi-tenant buildings in competition with the likes of Teligent and Winstar Communications. Qwest also bought a 19 percent stake in ART, which also landed $250 million in vendor financing from Cisco Systems Inc.
But the plan, which represented a corporate makeover of ART's original strategy of operating as a "carrier's carrier," apparently ran into the same obstacles encountered by Teligent and Winstar: high costs and tough competition.
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