ISP-Planet Wireless News Briefs
—March 7, 2001

• BIFS is Back
• BreezeCOM on a Roll
• Fuzion Enters Canada

by Gerry Blackwell [March 7, 2001]

BIFS is Back
BIFS Technologies Corp., a favorite whipping boy of online investor sites, is back with another innovative, wireless technology. Innovative or far-fetched, that is, depending on whether you see the company as wireless leading light or charlatan (the company's website was down at the time of publication).

This time it's TV+ Internet. The new system embeds Internet data packets within the television broadcast transmissions of local TV stations and uses this medium to facilitate the long distance delivery of Internet services to customers within local viewing areas.

It's actually an idea that was first suggested over 20 years ago.

BIFS' earlier technology bombshell, SWOMI, a high-speed wireless networking system that allows broadband access by mobile users, has been in commercial use in Myrtle Beach SC since December.

In the TV+ Internet announcement, the company said it has already begun marketing the service to local broadcasters as part of a national campaign.

"With the rush to cable," noted BIFS chairman Al Keyser, "many people have forgotten that these local television broadcasters have decades of experience at providing wireless services to their customers in the form of one-way TV programming and that they already maintain a highly skilled complement of technicians and engineers who understand wireless technology."

Added BIFS COO Frank Bridges, "We believe that our national marketing program will greatly increase competition for ISP market share by adding local TV broadcasters as a major new player in the industry."

But details of how this will be done are in short supply. In typically puzzling language, BIFS said TV+ Internet incorporates DTV (digital television) technologies, "along with a variety of up channel communications protocols to create a flexible communications environment that can be deployed to even the most remote regions of the country."

The bottom line is that the technology will supposedly let local television stations deliver high-speed wireless Internet access to any viewer by exploiting unused capacities of the frequencies they use for TV broadcasting.

But the technology apparently only permits high-speed down-channel connectivity (push delivery). It features "a mixture of up channel connection options," which the company conveniently fails to specify.

Early one-way satellite-based Internet access services simply used dial-up connections for subscriber-to-Web-site transmissions. This makes it difficult for users to ever upload multimedia content, and robs broadband access of one of its principal benefits of being "always on."

BreezeCOM on a Roll
BreezeCOM Inc., the market-leading supplier of sub-11-GHz high-speed wireless networking equipment, in January announced boffo financial results for the year 2000. Then the company launched a slick new website.

An Israeli firm with its North American headquarters in Carlsbad CA, BreezeCOM reported revenues of $101 million for 2000, up 127 per cent over the previous year's $44.8 million. Net operating income was $3 million, compared to a net operating loss of of $2.6 million in 1999.

Net income for 2000, meanwhile, was $10 million, compared with a net loss of $3.6 million for 1999.

"Year 2000 was exceptional for BreezeCOM," president and CEO Zvi Slonimsky said in announcing the results. "We became profitable, more than doubled our revenues, and demonstrated solid quarter-over-quarter growth."

"Furthermore, we exceeded all of our strategic targets. Our fourth quarter results reflect continued high demand from service providers and private networks."

The company says it made major inroads into the licensed 3.5 GHz carrier market internationally, and into the unlicensed service provider market in the United States.

In February, the company launched a new website designed to help customers and prospective customers not only find information about BreezeCOM, but about the industry and, especially, about the benefits of wireless networking. The site features an immediately-accessible section devoted to ISPs.

Slonimsky said the site reflects BreezeCOM's "commitment both to our customers and to the industry at large." It includes over 1,000 pages and 500 megabytes of information.

"We applaud BreezeCOM for its efforts to advance the understanding of the benefits of the fixed wireless broadband access platform through such means as its upgraded Web site," said Andrew Krieg, president of the Wireless Communications Alliance.

Fuzion Enters Canada
Fuzion Technologies Group Inc. of Boca Raton Fla., a company that designs, deploys and manages wireless and wireline broadband networks, is expanding its international operations.

The company announced recently that one of its subsidiaries, Fuzion Wireless Communications Inc., would begin offering ISPs, carriers and enterprises in North York, Ontario, Canada, a major business center north of Toronto, access to Fuzion's fixed wireless broadband solutions.

Earlier in the month, Fuzion announced it had entered into an agreement with Colosseum Online, a Toronto ISP. Under the deal, Colosseum will offer business customers first-mile broadband services using the Fuzion wireless technology.

Colosseum was the first ISP in Ontario to sign a distributor agreement with Fuzion. It will use the technology to offer wireless bi-directional broadband-on-demand Internet services at speeds from 0.5 to 25 Mbps.

"Fuzion's expansion into the surrounding North York area is a sign of our commitment to local businesses as well as the next step in our continued and aggressive growth in Canada," Fuzion Canada general manager Jeff Boyce said of the latest initiative.

Fuzion's AccessNOW point-to-multi-point wireless network uses license-free 5.8 GHz (U-NII) and 2.4 GHz RF bands to bypass the incumbent wireline infrastructure.

The company also connects multiple buildings with wireless point-to-point links utilizing licensed spectrum in the 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 18, and 23-gigahertz ranges.

—End