Go2Mac talks to Ali Tabassi, chief technology and development officer ofMobileStar, the Airport/802.11b-based wireless Internet provider in publichot spots.
Go2Mac talks to Ali Tabassi, chief technology and development officer ofMobileStar, the Airport/802.11b-based wireless Internet provider in publichot spots.
Interview conducted Wednesday, September 19.
Kirn: Thanks for talking with me today. First off, I’m talkingto you from the New York City area, where needless to say communicationhas been tremendously difficult for the last week. Cell phones stillremain out of commission, ground lines don’t work, 800 numbers don’twork, modem-based Internet is out, many DSL and cable customers lackservice. We certainly appreciate the recent decision to provide servicefree of charge in this difficult time. Have you received feedbackfrom people in the NYC area affected by the tragedy? And can you speakto MobileStar’s reliability?
Tabassi: We did have some of the stores interrupted the first few days dueto one of our service providers’ point of presence being in the World TradeCenter; they basically lost their center. We were able to reroute our networkand provide service to the people of NY in this critical time of need.
The day of the tragic incident, we heard from several of our customers thatthe only way they could get word out to their loved ones was through MobileStar.One of our sales executives was in New York City. He stood outside of oneof the closed Starbucks stores and connected to the network and basicallysat out there and let people who needed some kind of
communication, send e-mails. We heard that through Starbucks and Microsoft. . . that some of their employees were able to send e-mail to their lovedones and corporate headquarters via our Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)network.
Kirn: I’ve certainly heard similar stories. I think we all are really thankful to have that option for communication. When I first planned todo this interview, of course, it was before all of this happened,so I’ll try to move on to some of those other questions!
The first thing you notice about MobileStar, aside from the fact thatyou’re up almost instantly with Airport on the Mac, is its speed.How fast is it — you have a T1 connection at each location, for 1.5MBps?
Tabassi: At the minimum, every MobileStar location has a T1 connection, andas traffic expands we add additional T1 lines, or faster.
Kirn: You chose 802.11b as the technology to make MobileStar work.Were
there other formats in the running? How was the concept born?
Tabassi: MobileStar was founded in 1996, literally in the Admirals’ Clubin Dallas as the executives were waiting for a flight . . . downloading a3 meg presentation. They came up with the idea that it would be nice to havewireless broadband connectivity. At that time they founded the company andstarted looking for a means to start the service. OpenAir (FH) by Proximwas our first product in 1997, in one of the hotels in the Dallas area .. . We have evaluated and tried different technologies to identify whatis the best means to provide a reliable Public Access Location(PAL). We signedcontracts with Hilton and American Airlines to provide coverage at all AmericanAirlines Admirals clubs and gates and over 100 corporate-owned and operated Hilton hotels. By 1999, we had all the AmericanAirlines’ Admirals Clubs in operation and about 65-70 hotels. By late 1999,when IEEE-802.11b [format used by Airport] became the standards, we decidedto be technology agnostic and offer both Wi-Fi and OpenAir in our network. Todaywe have about 120 hotels operational, and about 80 of them need to be retrofittedwith Wi-Fi. Everywhere else we have both Wi-Fi and FH or Wi-Fi only. AsWi-Fi became the standard of choice for enterprises and home networkingtoward late 2000, we discontinued deployment of OpenAir in our new PALs.
Kirn: Has Apple’s Airport, in terms of technology and marketing, affectedMobileStar?
Tabassi: Apple and other PC OEMs embracing of this technology has greatlyhelped MobileStar and WLAN Industry. In addition, large enterprises suchas Microsoft, IBM, and others, by implementing WLAN in their corporations,has helped the industry. Lastly, the cooperation of the Wi-Fi manufacturersin ensuring interoperability between their products through WECA’s interoperabilitycertification has also helped the industry. But definitely, Apple has beenthe leader in embedding the Wi-Fi or Apple Airport in the laptops themselves,so there is no need for additional PCMCIA cards. And to my knowledge, Apple’sAirport and its software utility has made it a lot simpler for Apple usersto identify and connect to the available WLAN in public hot spots.
Kirn: That’s certainly true. It’s terrific under OS X; I don’t even haveto open a network control panel — I open my PowerBook and it just works.
Tabassi: Right.
Kirn:How many customers does MobileStar have at this point? What kindsof customers are they?
Tabassi: We are a privately-owned company — we don’t disclose those numbers.
We have a number of sales channels to increase the awareness and to promotethe usage of our network: the direct sales channel which focuses on Fortune500 companies and creates corporate accounts, the PC OEM and Equipment manufacturer channels which have teamed up with Gateway, Dell,IBM, WinBook , D-Link, AmbiCom, Netgear, and more to come are bundling orselling MobileStar service with their products, and retailer and e-tailer
channels which currently have teamed up with CompUSA and MobilePlanet forreselling MobileStar service — we are working to add a few other largeresellers to this team.
In addition, interested parties can subscribe to our service(s) by eithercalling our customer care at 1-800-981-8563, or visiting our web site www.mobilestar.com, or any of MobileStar PAL location with their WLAN enabled laptop or PDA.
I can tell you that a majority of our existing customers are mobile professionalsthat have a need for connectivity while they’re on the road.
Kirn: And of course, a number of them are our readers! Have you foundthat most users are going to the pay-as-you-go, prepaid, or unlimited plans?Or some mix of the three?
Tabassi: What the trend has been since coverage is dynamic for the customer– they’re always needing more location to connect — as coverage footprintincreases, usage patterns increase. The customers start with metered access,Pay-as-you-go or prepaid first, and as they feel more comfortable with theservice and as we increase the number of locations for them to use the service,they convert to a monthly subscription plan or unlimited plan.
Kirn: Well, I can certainly vouch for that. I had a hard time imaginingusing the unlimited plan, until I tried the service, and got familiar withthe speed and convenience. We were all saddened by the failure of Ricochet,but obviously MobileStar takes a radically different approach. What is theprofitability picture like for MobileStar, now and in the future?
Tabassi: The main difference between the approach that we have taken versusothers is that, first of all, if you look at the management of MobileStar,you will find a lot of seasoned telecommunications managers. I personallyhave over 20 years of experience in cellular, PCS, paging, etc. So we’vegone through the development, deployment, expansion , and operation of wirelessnetworks for many years.
Kirn: Starbucks is an obvious location for this service, but what aboutthe future: anything you can reveal about future expansion plans? What kindsof additional features might we expect in the future?
Tabassi: Our goal is to providing our service in places where mobile professionalsneed them most. Today we have roughly 700 PALs operation
al. These PALs aremade up of nearly all of domestic American Airlines Admirals Clubs, over500 Starbucks stores in NY city, Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Dallas,Houston, and Austin, the entire gates of DFW, Austin, TX, Louisville, KY,Sioux Falls airports and very soon the entire San Jose airport. Our goalis to expand into over 8000 locations by 2003. For a most up to date listof available locations please visit http://www.mobilestar.net/locations/page5a.asp. We are aggressively looking to expand our presence in as many airportsas we can make agreements with, hotels — we are still very active on providingaccess in common areas of hotels at this time, and other venues such as meetingcenters. In the northeast corridor, train stations are other areas that mightmake sense to add coverage.
Kirn: Well, I’d certainly love to have it Grand Central or Penn Station!
Tabassi: Exactly!
Kirn: We certainly look forward to the growth of the service in thefuture. Thanks for talking to me today, Ali.
Peter Kirn doesn’t even like Starbucks coffee, but lately you can findhim in a metro NYC Starbucks location sucking up bandwidth and sipping ChaiLatte. E-mail us with your own experiences for our continuing Going Wireless feature.