MCI WorldCom wired for wireless

MCI WorldCom is continuing its headlong plunge into the hot wireless business.

Last week, MCI WorldCom invested $300 million in Metricom, a small outfit in Los Gatos, Calif., that offers 28.8K bit/sec wireless Internet access services in three metropolitan areas. This is the fourth wireless announcement from MCI WorldCom in the last three months. The company is also buying SkyTel, and has already picked up CAI Wireless and PrimeOne, both of which are fixed wireless service pro-viders.

In addition to the massive MCI WorldCom investment, Metricom nabbed another $300 million from Vulcan Ventures, which had already invested in the wireless company. Once the deal is approved by Metricom shareholders, Vulcan Ventures will own 49% of the company and MCI WorldCom will own 38%. The remainder of the company is held by other shareholders.

But MCI WorldCom's arrangement with Metricom goes beyond simply giving it cash to build out its network. Metricom is returning the favor by giving MCI WorldCom $350 million over five years to use MCI WorldCom's various data networks to expand Metricom's service footprint.

Metricom's deal with MCI WorldCom is nonexclusive, so the wireless company is free to strike deals with other network service providers.

As part of the deal, MCI WorldCom next year will sell Metricom's Ricochet wireless Internet access services to businesses and ISPs through UUNET, MCI WorldCom's wholly owned subsidiary, a spokesman says.

By adding a Ricochet PC Card modem to their laptop computers, users can dial in to the Internet from a car, train or hotel. The service does not need any special software and uses a standard Microsoft dialer.

While Ricochet is currently only available in Washington, D.C., Seattle and the San Francisco Bay area, Metricom is expected to make a faster Ricochet service available to customers in 12 metropolitan areas by mid-2000. The faster version of Ricochet is expected to support transmission speeds up to 128K bit/sec; MCI WorldCom will roll out this service to its customers in mid-2000.

Ricochet is based on a Metricom-developed radio frequency technology that uses the 902-MHz and 923-MHz bands to send traffic from its customers to Metricom radios deployed on light poles.

From the radios to Metricom's wired access points, the service will use the 2.4-GHz and 2.3-GHz spectrums, says Roger Nolan, a vice president at Metricom.