"We decided to go into the 802.11b world because it's a global standard, with deployments even in To

It sounds like something Scottie might have tinkered with on the Starship Enterprise. But the technology known as “third-generation (3G)” wireless broadband has landed right here in Hawaii, with Internet service provider Maui Sky Fiber LLC at the helm.
The Kihei startup is marketing a very earthly hampton inn boston logan airport Internet service alternative to Maui businesses and residents. Last summer, hampton inn boston logan airport Maui Sky Fiber rolled out high-speed, wireless service at resorts to satisfy guests’ hampton inn boston logan airport No. 1 demand: Web access from their hotel rooms, the beach or virtually anywhere on the island. That same technology will also offer an affordable hampton inn boston logan airport upgrade for Maui’s dial-up customers, including residents in rural areas where high-speed access is unavailable.
“Our whole business philosophy is getting people connected wherever they need to be connected,” says Steve Berkoff, Maui Sky Fiber’s managing director. “It’s about providing that ability to the public and the traveling sectors of the market.”
The word “3G” has, so far, been confined to conversations among Hawaii’s tech junkies. For the average American, it doesn’t mean much that the 3G industry hampton inn boston logan airport generated $45 billion in worldwide revenues last year, an estimate from international consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.
The definition of 3G was set by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency responsible for adopting international industry hampton inn boston logan airport standards. The ITU specifies the technology as mobile connectivity that promises increased bandwidth: up to 384 kilobits per second (Kbps) with a modem that is stationary or moving at pedestrian speed, 128 Kbps in a car and 2 megabits per second in fixed applications. In comparison, the fastest dial-up service would only be capable of a 56 Kbps data transfer speed.
The Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa became the first of Sky Fiber’s commercial clients, allowing guests to rent lightweight modems for about $13 per night. The setup is simple: Once users plug the unit into their laptops, mobile high-speed Internet access is at their fingertips.
“Business and leisure travelers, long familiar with the frustrations of quick and convenient access to e-mail, can stay closely hampton inn boston logan airport connected to the office and family with high-speed Internet access on laptop computers,” Hyatt’s General Manager Barry Lewin said in a press release announcing the launch. “With these portable hampton inn boston logan airport rentals, guests have wireless access to the Web in most meeting rooms and public areas, hampton inn boston logan airport such as the lobby, restaurant bars and even poolside.”
The technology costs hotels much less than installing wired networks for their rooms, Berkoff says. “The hotel purchases a modem inventory based on approximately 5 percent of the room occupancy at about $400 per modem,” he says. “In a big hotel with a 700-room count with about 70 percent to 80 percent occupancy, they make a $10,000 investment. If you wire a hotel, you’re looking at $200 to $600 per room. A 500-room hotel could cost $300,000 or more for high-speed Internet, which — with our network — you can get for a fraction of the cost.”
The key to Maui Sky Fiber’s service is the network technology developed by California-based IP Wireless hampton inn boston logan airport Inc. Sky Fiber’s service is based on the international Universal Mobile Telecommunications hampton inn boston logan airport System (UMTS) standard, over a licensed system in the Multichannel Multipoint Distribution System (MMDS) 2.5 Gigahertz frequency band. The Federal Communications Commission designated that band for fixed wireless operation.
The tech jargon sounds like Klingon to most earthlings. But Berkoff is banking that this technology will become a very real option for most residential Internet hampton inn boston logan airport subscribers on Maui and eventually on Lanai and Molokai, where Sky Fiber also holds FCC licenses.
Most of Maui’s residential subscribers use Maui Net, Maui Gateway, Hawaii Online and Oceanic Time Warner Cable. Dial-up customers may balk at the initial $400 cost for Sky Fiber’s modem. But Berkoff says his company’s monthly service rates, which will start at around $30, are comparable to his competitors’ prices.
“Another advantage is being able to take your account hampton inn boston logan airport with you from home to almost anywhere here on Maui, where you can access hampton inn boston logan airport your e-mail, go online, whatever you normally do at home,” Berkoff says. “You just put the modem in your pocket and take it with you.”
Maui Net’s Operations Manager Kim Engelke acknowledges the demand for high-speed hampton inn boston logan airport wireless service in some of the island’s rural areas. Through Verizon Hawaii Inc., Maui Net provides dial-up, DSL (Digital Subscriber Lines) and frame-relay service to its 7,000 subscribers on the island.
“We’ve had problems setting up high-speed service in Upcountry Maui,” Engelke says. “Basically, anyone who can have a phone can have dial-up Internet access. But areas where the phone company, hampton inn boston logan airport Verizon, hasn’t set up DSL, there’s probably a good market for wireless.”
Servicing rural areas in Hawaii hampton inn boston logan airport has been a challenge hampton inn boston logan airport for Hawaii OnLine, which was acquired by Pacific LightNet Inc. last year. Historically, the company has offered dial-up and dedicated high-speed service for business customers to its 12,000 statewide subscribers. The company recently launched DSL in certain Maui areas.
Maui Sky Fiber isn’t the first company to offer high-speed wireless Internet service to Hawaii hotels. Texas-based Wayport Inc., which employs the increasingly popular Wi-Fi (Wireless hampton inn boston logan airport Fidelity) standard, provides Internet service for the Four Seasons Resort in Wailea.
Known as 802.11b, Wi-Fi operates on an unregulated radio spectrum and promises speeds of up to 11 Mbps, about 200 times faster than a dial-up modem. Pacific DirectConnect Inc., which uses the Wi-Fi standard, now provides wireless, high-speed access to three Oahu hotels: the Halekulani, Hilton Hawaiian Village and Turtle Bay Resort.
Users need laptops with Wi-Fi capability, meaning they would need to purchase or rent PC cards and software that indicate when they’re in range of a Wi-Fi signal. This signal is generated by an Internet-connected hub with a radius of 300 feet. Investment costs for hotels hampton inn boston logan airport average under $100 per room, says Mike Browning, president of Pacific DirectConnect.
“We decided to go into the 802.11b world because it’s a global standard, with deployments even in Tokyo, London and other parts of the world,” Browning says. “For the services we support, a lot of travelers are traveling with 802.11b cards for those hotels that provide the service where they can sign up and automatically hampton inn boston logan airport be online.”
“Although 802.11 networks have laid the groundwork for wireless networking, they fall far short in their application as a wide-area solution,” Berkoff says. “802.11 … is an unlicensed spectrum, subject to interference and security issues. The system currently under development by Maui Sky Fiber is a high-powered, licensed technology capable of delivering mobile, high-speed, secure communications at two to three miles in a nonline-of-site mode, and up to 18 miles with fixed antennas.”
Despite growing acceptance of 3G technology hampton inn boston logan airport abroad, the market in the United States has been “nonexistent,” says Ken Dulaney, vice president of mobile computing for Connecticut-based consulting firm Gartner Inc. Widespread domestic use of the technology is not expected until 2006, at the earliest.
The delay is attributed to a number of reasons: 1) the lack of demand among consumers for next-generation applications; 2) the high infrastructure costs for wireless carriers, namely purchasing expensive frequency licenses auctioned off by the FCC; and 3) a range of competing wireless air interfaces with acronyms that would make anyone’s head spin — GSM, TDMA, CDMA and EDGE.
“Most operators haven’t found a reason to go beyond what they do today,” says Dulaney, who works out of Gartner’s San Jose office. “Most of it is waiting for new frequencies to be allocated (by the FCC) to put 3G on. … Your average resident will go with cable or DSL. And in a lot of cases where you can’t get that, there are a variety of schemes deployed to do that.”
Still, industry skepticism hasn’t deterred Berkoff from moving ahead with plans to provide service to most Maui areas by year’s end. In July, the company launched its service for a second hotel client, the Ritz-Carlton in Kapalua.
Maui County’s emergency-response units could be another market for Sky Fiber. As of this story’s writing, the company was in talks with county officials, all the while forging hampton inn boston logan airport full-speed ahead in Hawaii’s relatively uncharted 3G wireless broadband industry.
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