Wireless Tech Chat

With all of the talk recently about citywide wireless network deployments, we sometimes have to take a step back and realize that in order for these networks to provide service to its users, the equipment has to function on a reliable and consistent basis.

This week’s MuniWireless New England Conference has had its fair share of company announcements and press releases, but this one, although maybe not terribly sexy, may end up being quite meaningful to municipalities and service providers who are in the process of planning the infrastructures necessary to keep things moving.

Claiming an industry first, Canada’s BelAir Networks has announced a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for broadband wireless equipment in citywide wireless networks. What this means is that cities seeking to deploy wireless networks will now have the ability to specify and attain certified performance levels, provided that they are built using BelAir’s Certified Network Design Program.

An example is the current deployment of a wireless network that will be covering the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which US Internet is building with BelAir’s mobile broadband mesh networking solution. BelAir says that as more muni WiFi networks are deployed, and as the industry itself matures, both cities and the service providers they choose to manage these networks need to be able to guarantee a sophisticated level of performance to their users, which includes offering high-level voice, video, and data services that require connections speeds up to 4 Mbps.

BelAir makes a good point, but it should already be understood that as the free wireless network access model begins to fade out and the paid-access model takes center stage, that users should have a reasonable expectation they will receive a consistent level of service for the daily/weekly/monthly access fees they will be shelling out. If it takes an announcement such as this to get cities and service providers to get them thinking along this track, then something good will come out of this in the end.

ESPN is getting into the cellphone game again. If you remember not that long ago, ESPN ventured into the cellphone arena by having their own line of phones manufactured and offering exclusive content to their subscribers. This was at a time (2005-2006) when it seemed that everyone was jumping into the cellphone/branded content game, and the sports network thought it could bring in a healthy revenue stream by going mobile. They thought wrong.

Suffice to say, ESPN Mobile was a spectacular failure. Subscriber projections never came close to expectations–the company thought that their many of their viewers would drop their existing cellphone plans and switch over to ESPN just to get sports-related content such as highlights, statistics, and so forth. Well, it didn’t happen, and ESPN Mobile shuttered its doors early in 2006, but they did say they would seek to offer their content to an existing cellular service provider as an add-on.

This week, ESPN and Verizon Wireless have inked a deal whereby subscribers to the VCast service will now have access to game highlights, up-to-the minute scores, and other related ESPN content. Will this create a fairly fluid and consistent revenue stream for ESPN? It’s too early to speculate at this point, but time will tell if Verizon Wireless subscribers who don’t already have the VCast service will plunk down the $15 a month to get it.

[Via Reuters]