OT- But interesting

[Jeff Perry]

KC's Wi-Fi action will warm up with hot spot additions

Charlie Anderson
Staff Writer
Kansas City doesn't have many hot spots. 

That is, the area is short on hot spots where people can get high-speed Internet access with 
Wireless Fidelity, or Wi-Fi, technology. 

That should change soon. 

Beginning next month, thinwires LLC plans to deploy 75 hot spots in Kansas City. This would make 
the startup based in Buffalo, N.Y., the pre-eminent operator of wireless hot spots in this market. 

"We've got an attack plan for an urban area," thinwires CEO Mike Kaspurzyk said. "We've got major 
plans." 

A hot spot, in Wi-Fi parlance, is the 350- to 500-foot coverage area created by transmitters in 
which users can have high-speed Internet access on laptops, personal digital assistants and 
wireless phones. 

Thinwires is focusing on Phoenix, Kansas City, and Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y., as its first 
markets. 

"Those are three spots that are all barren," Kaspurzyk said. 

The number of Wi-Fi hot spots in the United States -- about 4,000 at the end of 2002 -- is expected 
to grow tenfold during the next three years. Still, high-speed wireless Internet access remains an 
unproved technology and an unproved business. 

"Nobody is making any money on it yet," said Graeme Gibson, CEO of Independence-based Computers & 
Tele-Comm Inc. 

CTC is Kansas City's biggest Wi-Fi operator, with 23 wireless transmitters and 16 hot spots 
deployed at hotels throughout the city. 

By sometime in 2004, Gibson said he wants to have 50 wireless transmitters deployed on rooftops, 
providing full outdoor coverage of the metro area. CTC also plans to have 150 to 180 hot spots, 
which Gibson said are necessary for indoor Wi-Fi access. 

That differs from thinwires, which is aiming to offer access only in chosen locales, such as 
restaurants, bars and self-service laundries. 

Kaspurzyk said the company will offer the service through two Kansas City-based technology 
resellers, which he declined to name. Thinwires' service will sell for $4 a day, or $25.95 a month, 
for unlimited Internet access where there are hot spots. 

If a coffee shop is sponsoring the hot spot, the locale will get 20 percent of the revenue from 
sales. The reseller will get 30 percent to 40 percent of the revenue. 

Aside from CTC, there are few Wi-Fi efforts in Kansas City for thinwires to compete with. 

T-Mobile USA Inc. has put several hot spots into area hotels, such as The Fairmont Kansas City on 
the Plaza. The company, based in Bellevue, Wash., has plans to put transmitters in Starbucks 
locations but has not hooked up any in Kansas City. 

"It's almost embarrassing that we're the largest Wi-Fi company in town," said Gibson, who is 
expected to receive an investment from CommuniTech.Net Inc. co-founder Gabriel Murphy's venture 
fund. 

Overland Park-based Sprint PCS has been quiet on Wi-Fi, electing to push its third-generation 
network, which offers Internet speeds comparable to dial-up service. 

Sprint PCS spokeswoman Amy Schiska said the company has no commercially available Wi-Fi hot spots. 

"We are in the process of trying to secure some agreements," she said. "At this time, we haven't 
announced anything." 

Kaspurzyk and Gibson said they expect that to change, with large wireless carriers trying to buy 
early hot-spot deployers. 

"In the next 18 months to two years, there are going to be an awful lot of players," said John 
Martinson, a Kansas City-based wireless consultant at Immedient Inc. "We don't know who the big 
players are going to be." 

Reach Charlie Anderson at 816-421-5900 or clanderson at bizjournals.com.

--- "Brian Densmore" <DensmoreB at ctbsonline.com> wrote:

not very interesting, unless maybe you can get to it without
registering.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Perry [mailto:siplewer at juno.com]
> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 8:57 AM
> To: kclug at kclug.org
> Subject: OT- But interesting
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.bizjournals.com/industries/high_tech/internet/2003/
> 06/09/kansascity_story5.html?f=et170
> 
> JRP
> 
> 
> majordomo at kclug.org
>