Towerstream

Towerstream to Wholesale Mobile WiMAX?

Posted by samc on August 15th, 2007

Towerstream may offer Mobile WiMax services in the second half of 2008, says Reuters.

Towerstream currently offers pre-WiMAX broadband to businesses in eight U.S. markets, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Miami, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Providence/Newport, R.I. Their Seattle network, which took over Speakeasy’s WiMAX operation, consists of five Alvarion BreezeAccess WiMAX base stations located throughout the city’s downtown area, including one atop the Space Needle.

But the company, which only connects customers’ office buildings, plans to test equipment for a mobile version of WiMax later this year, Chief Executive Jeff Thompson said in an interview with Reuters. If the tests succeeded, it could start building mobile capabilities into its network as early as the second half of 2008, opening its service to mobile workers or potentially to providers like Sprint that target consumers directly, he said.

According to Reuters, Towerstream has not had any discussions with Sprint or Clearwire, but it could start to offer wholesale services once it has mobile WiMax built into enough markets.

Last month Sprint and Clearwire said they would provide roaming between their networks and cut the cost of duplicated network services.

“The network literally goes dark at 6 p.m. at night, so we could use that,” Thompson said. Towerstream’s focus now is to expand its network to about 30 U.S. markets by early 2010, said Thompson.

Towerstream has raised $55 million in funding in the first half of 2007. “We have the capability to step on the gas a little faster,” said Thompson.

source : dailywireless.org