The Beam says wireless Internet service races at 350 times faster than many modems

By Doug Bedell / Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News
Published 09-08-1998

For three years now, Scott Mindemann and his minions have scurried across the rooftop of Preston Towers, loading parabolic dishes onto ever-higher scaffolds to peer across North Texas like a nest of high- tech hawks.

Mr. Mindemann and CS Wireless Communications are now ready to swoop down on your rooftop with The Beam, a supercharged Internet and entertainment signal that passes through a 10-inch-square antenna on your house and into your computer at speeds that would spook Marconi.

"Dallas is going to fall in love with this," predicts a proud Mr. Mindemann, the company's 34-year-old vice president for Internet and telecommunications technology. And there's a lot to love if you've got the bucks.

The multimillion-dollar local kickoff of the service, expected in the next few months, is part of the computer world's longstanding effort to shed its dependence on the hard wire. In Dallas, The Beam uses microwave towers connected to the Internet to soar, unfettered, to your eaves.

In some other locales, Internet service providers are adopting an old technology - spread spectrum radio - patented by 1940s film star Hedy Lamarr. Both technologies have their drawbacks and detractors.

For the moment, many consumers may find them too pricey or complicated. TCI and other potential competitors either did not return calls for comment or said they didn't know enough about The Beam. But these nascent applications of old broadcast technologies may prove to be answers to two serious problems with computer communications: Vast patches of the nation can't get wired and, even when they can, the images don't leap

to life - they crawl.

PacTel, BellSouth and PCTV have introduced their own versions of the microwave technology in San Jose, Calif., New Orleans and Phoenix, respectively. But The Beam in Dallas is the first to package Internet connection with microwave digital TV.

Residents near The Beam's North Dallas transmission site have been puzzled for two years about helicopters and cranes hoisting equipment to the roof of the condominium high-rise. Now they know. For $69.90 per month, The Beam is expected to provide subscribers with a wide range of music, video and part-time Internet service piped through its 50-watt digital pathway.

Home-office workers and others who require full-time Internet service will have to opt for a higher-cost service. Basic offerings permit Internet access on nights and weekends only.

To justify the higher basic fee and start-up costs, The Beam is marketing its Internet access with video and music service. The basic package includes most television broadcast features currently available to digital satellite dish users, but including local channels. Premium channels such as HBO, Showtime and Cinemax are available at additional monthly costs.

"If you've seen the DSS dish picture, it's very clear," says Mr. Mindemann. "We're actually clearer. And once you get the video hookup, you also get 40 channels of DJ-free music all day and night."

About 1,000 Dallas-Fort Worth trial, or "beta," locations - homes, apartment buildings and at least one local Internet service provider - currently track the Web on The Beam, which can deliver download speeds to your rooftop at rates 350 times faster than standard telephone- based 28.8 kilobits-per-second modems.

The microwave-based signal transmits information through the air to subscribers' homes at an incredible 10 Mbps, or 10 million bits per second. A 30-minute wait to download the newest version of Netscape, for instance, would be cut to seconds.

Unlike Ms. Lamarr's unique, two-way radio wave concept, The Beam is currently limited to one direction. Subscribers get the advantage of the signal's speed only when pulling down Net pages and files. They still must have a modem hooked up to a telephone line to send their data requests from keyboard to network.

"But it's still very attractive for the speed alone," says Mr. Mindemann. And if a home already is hooked into an ISDN line, the resulting package approaches perfection.

Mr. Mindemann said CS Wireless, an operator of wireless cable systems in 11 major metropolitan areas, has been marketing its Dallas-Fort Worth products on a limited basis since summer 1997. Much of CS Wireless' initial sales thrust has been aimed at Dallas-area Internet service providers and other"resellers."

Only one local ISP is hooked up so far, but officials of The Beam service say they have yet to begin any real marketing push. With a $400 million debenture issue behind them, they expect to begin a major marketing effort once their national call center and Plano warehouse shift into high gear.

Karen Cook-Hellberg of Plano, a 37-year-old North Texas telecommunications company employee, was one of numerous people who remained with The Beam after the free beta testing was completed.

"I've been playing around downloading things for quite a while, " says Mrs. Cook-Hellberg, an Internet denizen for three years. "I guess the speed is what hooked us. My husband, for example, can pull down five large gamer files simultaneously and immediately.

"That kind of thing used to take us half an hour."

Total bill for her and husband Ingemar Hellberg's Internet-only, 24-hour Beam service is about $70 per month, she said. The small dish atop the Hellberg home is virtually unnoticeable, protruding two feet up from the second-story chimney. And connections have been consistent and robust, she said.

"There were some hiccups when they were first getting hooked into things, but we never get a busy signal. We always get in. We really like that," Mrs. Cook-Hellberg said.

The service has outfitted the lobby of its North Dallas offices with a demonstration setup, which has been discovered by local office workers and the techno-curious from the nearby Telecom Corridor in Richardson. At lunch, they flock to watch The Beam download movies and huge graphics files with speeds up to 1.2 megabytes per second, far faster than most home computers can store them.

Strolling through stacks of palleted receivers, antenna structures and shiny galvanized pipe in back of the company's Summit Drive office building, Mr. Mindemann still seems amazed at his creation.

"Once these people get started on this technology, they say they can't do without it," he says."I understand that. This kind of connection is the Internet the way it's supposed to be."
PHOTO(S): (DMN: Ariane Kadoch) Scott Mindemann of SC
Wireless Communications stands atop the Preston Towers

Condominiums where his company has set up equipment for

broadcasting Internet signals. ILLUSTRATION(S): (DMN) How The

Beam Works.

© 1998 The Dallas Morning News All Rights Reserved

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