* Fiberlink adds cellular one-stop shop
The trio of fiercely competitive remote and mobile service aggregators – Fiberlink Communications, GoRemote and iPass – is feverishly working to add mobile WAN data access to their portfolios of one-stop bundled services.
Late last month, for example, Fiberlink began provisioning CDMA-based 1xRTT mobile WAN services alongside the other access methods it provisions, supports and bills on behalf of remote enterprise users.
In the U.S., the company is offering a promotional package that combines a free Sierra Wireless 555 Aircard for CDMA 1xRTT network access; unlimited 1xRTT service usage (with speeds of about 144M bit/sec); public wireless LAN, or “Wi-Fi,” services; dial and ISDN services; and hotel broadband services for $99 per month under a two-year contract.
When you consider that flat-rate 1xRTT services alone usually run $80 a month, this seems like a decent deal. Other pricing models, including usage-based plans, are also available.
The Sierra Wireless 555 Aircard is the giveaway that Fiberlink is reselling Verizon’s 1xRTT data network services. Fiberlink says that the carrier’s entire network coverage and inherent service capabilities will be fully available to Fiberlink customers.
Fiberlink offers an identical 1xRTT service in China, as well as Personal Handyphone Service (PHS) mobile WAN access as part of its one-stop bundle in Japan, says Howard Pressman, mobile professional solutions manager. He expects to expand mobile WAN access options to other countries as well, including reselling EV-DO services (300K to 500K bit/sec) as part of the U.S. CDMA-based service set.
Fiberlink competitors GoRemote and iPass are in a similar mindset.
Joan Fazio, product marketing manager for mobile data at iPass, estimates that the company will be ready in the second quarter of 2005 to resell and provide a single bill for domestic and international cellular services. Exactly which services will be sold is still being considered, she says.
Abdel Missa, director of market research and strategic planning at GoRemote, says his company is “actively talking” to the cellular carriers, and predicts that it will provision a one-stop Generalized Packet Radio Service (GPRS) domestically and internationally within approximately six months.
Today, both GoRemote and iPass do enable users who have procured mobile WAN services on their own to access those services through their client software interfaces. And they will enforce the user’s corporate mobile security policy on the cellular connection.
In the case of GoRemote, this capability is limited to GPRS connections, while the iPass client interface supports the full range of GSM-, CDMA- and UMTS-based technologies.
