02.14.02
The Washington Post
Washtech.com Columnist Leslie Walker
Soon the Best Thing Under The Sun?
PHOENIX — To hear cell-phone pioneer Martin Cooper talk, you'd think wireless technology was about to bring recess to the world of work, liberating us from desktop computers and office networks so we can roam outdoors like happy-go-lucky children. "Today the Internet is stuck indoors," Cooper said as he demonstrated a new wireless Internet network called i-Burst at a technology conference here this week. "People want to be free. They want to go mobile."
Indeed, half a dozen companies demonstrated ways future companies and individuals might manage a world in which everyone is untethered but still connected by various devices.
SpaceData Corp., meanwhile, is trying to enlist the National Weather Service in a campaign to improve cellular service in rural areas. The start-up wants to put its wireless antenna gear on weather balloons sent aloft daily to altitudes of 100,000 feet, creating a network with clear sight lines to remote customers. SpaceData hopes to deploy its network next January and sell access to other wireless carriers, rather than individual customers.
So far, the company has raised $13 million to carry out the plan.