Where the Wi-Fi Money Is

No Opportunity on the Last Mile?

The other place that wi-fi is getting ready to grow with no discernable benefit to investors is in the last mile, or local loop. Today, if you want broadband access at home, you have to pray that either your regional Bell operating company, such as Qwest Communications(Q Quote) or Verizon Communications(VZ Quote), or cable company has deigned to string a specialized line to your neighborhood from a nearby central office. This typically means that if you live anywhere outside the dense urban or suburban core, you're out of luck. And even if you're among the lucky ones, prepare to pay upward of $40 a month for sometimes-spotty service at speeds of around 256k to 768k.

In an attempt to blowup this model, several well-financed start-up companies have already begun to sell advanced wi-fi transmitters, amplifiers and antennas that allow just about anyone to become a freelance telecom carrier by broadcasting a single broadband signal across a wide area.

The pioneer in this field is Glenn Wilson, president and founder of M33 Access in northern Michigan. Frustrated that none of the telecom carriers would bring high-speed Internet connections to the depressed countryside surrounding his hometown of Rose City, Wilson figured out how to buy a hodgepodge of parts from Florida-based online retailer HyperLink Technologies and rig up the country's first renegade high-speed wireless ISP.

He now operates the largest consecutive wireless broadband grid in the country -- about 100 square miles -- with no telecom carrier involved, by beaming the signal from one self-rigged 200-foot-tall tower to the next. He sells wireless broadband to farmers, homes, school districts and small-business owners for as little as $25 a month (if you have a child in school, he'll cut the price to $15). In a few weeks, Wilson plans to be able to add voice-over-Internet to his list of services, which will allow him to offer virtually free local and long-distance service at 4 cents a minute.

"Our company is about bringing Michigan out of Hooterville," he says, referring to the '60s-era TV show "Green Acres" in which communications was handled by tin can. "We're causing the regional Bells some problems. We have 6,000 customers and they love us -- no one is going to move in and take them away."