Tele2 – a niche wireless solution for the corporate masses

2000-05-05

It was unfortunate that Patricia Hewitt, eCommerce minister and Member of Parliament for Leicester West, had to go into hospital at the end of last week for a knee operation. Otherwise she would have been available at the launch of Tele2’s innovative wireless Internet service, which she has been closely involved in for some time. So - what’s it all about?

Tele2 have developed a hybrid radio and microwave-based Solution which offers high-speed, always-on bandwidth. End-user customers install a “squarial” which connects to an Ethernet-based LAN device. The squarial communicates via radio to a local access node, which in turn is linked via microwave to a base station. A standard configuration for a small town is one base station and seven access nodes. Tele 2 are currently offering a service of between 128Kbps and 1Mbps, with users being charged for the amount of bandwidth they require and the amount of data they transfer in both directions.

What is interesting about Tele2’s offering is that it is relatively easy to deploy and offers a high level of communications quality. Tele2 are actively advertising on \link{http://www.tele2.co.uk,their Web site} for landlords and small institutions to permit an access node to be situated on their (preferably flat) roof. The node requires only a mains connection and is no more than a foot high. Given this, it sounds ideal for business parks and campuses, not to mention smaller, less accessible towns. The high bandwidth, relatively low cost and the always-on capability has resulted in a number of trials of the technology for security cameras in car parks and service stations. It is also of potential benefit for organisations that want to run Web sites in-house, rather than outsourcing them to external ISPs.

Because the service is packet switched and is purely aimed at data users, it does not need to be backwards compatible with voice communications facilities. The downside is that end users still need their existing voice or ISDN lines but this may change in the future when Voice over IP reaches maturity.

Prior to the launch, Tele2 has been running a Pilot service in the Reading area of the UK, which is currently supporting 500 connections. The launch involves Leicester, Leeds, Bradford and Nottingham, with a wider launch planned for September. Tele2 is focusing on the corporate space, but its target market is clearly the smaller organisations which cannot afford the equivalent bandwidth from land-based services.

It is in keeping with the present speed of technological change, that new, innovative ways of using technology should appear. Tele2’s technology and business model will broaden the reach of high-speed Internet and, if done right, will give the lumbering roll-out of land-based, broadband technologies a run for their money.

(First published 5 May 2000)