The emergence of WiMAX is driving a lot of interest in the potential of metropolitan wireless data network services, but don't overlook existing fixed wireless ISPs that offer legitimate alternatives today.

These service providers tend to be regional in nature, although some are reaching out, rationalizing that no single player has established a national presence.

NextWeb, for example, was founded in 1999 to serve businesses in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area, and then started building out in other markets, sometimes acquiring assets and sometimes starting from scratch. The company, which competitive local exchange carrier Covad bought in February 2006 for $25 million, offers wireless data services in Los Angeles/Orange County; Santa Barbara/Ventura, Calif.; Las Vegas and the western and northwestern reaches of Chicago.

Director of Engineering Vikas Khanna says the company - which was renamed Covad Wireless - has 3,500 medium to large corporate customers and is profitable.

Its services include entry level 768Kbps and T-1 wireless links, T-1 multiples (speeds of 3M, 4.5M and 6Mbps) and high capacity services of 15M, 25M, 35M and 45Mbps, he says.

Covad Wireless can also offer landline T-1s through parent company Covad for customers that want to buy copper/wireless redundancy as a package from one supplier.

Other service advantages include: The ability to install wireless links in fewer than seven days; a price that is typically 15% to 20% lower than telco wireline offerings; a 30-day guarantee to mitigate the risk of trying out the wireless service; true path diversity, including support of the Border Gateway Protocol to enable customers to use a single set of IP addresses with multiple providers; and the ability to add more bandwidth when needed, even for short durations.

The latter is appealing to the hospitality industry, Khanna says, because a hotel can scale up network bandwidth to accommodate an event and then turn it back down.

Covad Wireless bills itself as a pre-WiMAX wireless ISP. Khanna says the company is testing WiMAX gear and will stage market trials later in the year. "The equipment isn't ready yet," he says. "It's great at lower speeds for consumer stuff, but when you push the speeds up and start to try to support 30, 40 or 50 customers, it isn't there."