High-Speed Access Makes Its Way To Boston's Streets
<B>High-Speed Access Makes Its Way To Boston's Streets</B>
By Bob Curley
Want to check your e-mail from the corner of Boylston and Tremont, or sun yourself on the Common while preparing a presentation on your company's LAN? Thanks to a recent deal between city officials and Metricom Inc., high-speed wireless Internet access soon will be coming to the streets of Boston. The agreement signed in March allows Metricom to hang about 500 shoebox-size stations on streetlights and utility poles around the city to create its Ricochet wireless network.
"This is one more way that Boston is opening the door to new technology that will provide business people with new options for accessing the Internet," said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. "Services like those provided by Metricom help us establish the economic infrastructure to accommodate the needs of new and expanding businesses."
Tim Yankey, director of product marketing for Metricom, said Boston was chosen as one of 12 initial rollout sites for the Ricochet 128-kbps wireless network because the city is a major market for business travelers, as well as being one of the most tech-savvy communities in the country after Silicon Valley.
"We're primarily targeting mobile professionals who want the freedom to work where and when they want to," said Sarita Kincaid, Metricom's public relations manager.
Accessing the Ricochet network requires a special USB modem; an external model is available now for about $200 to $250, and company officials promise a PC-card version soon. Flat-rate access charges are expected to be in the range of $60 to $100 monthly, said Kincaid.
Ricochet users will be able to access the network both while outdoors and in their hotel rooms, said Yankey--assuming the room is within 20 feet of the exterior wall of the building, which is the network's effective range.
In addition to individual road warriors, companies looking to increase the productivity of their sales, engineering or other staff are expected to be prime customers for Ricochet, according to Yankey.
Metricom also plans to launch its high-speed service in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Washington, D.C., by the end of this summer. A total of 46 major markets are expected to be wired and operational by the summer of 2001.