http://www.herring.com/index.asp?layout=story&channel=80000008&doc_id=1500018150
# Wireless buddy system
# By Rafe Needleman
# Red Herring
# March 8
#
#
# At our 1999 Venture Market South conference, I was introduced to a
# company I still carry a torch for: Alabama-based Time Domain. It
# makes super-efficient radio technology ('time-modulated
# ultra-wideband'), but its model isn't exactly FCC-friendly, and it's
# also too different to be incorporated into existing infrastructure
# or products.
#
# Weird radio must be a Southern thing. At this year's VMS, I met
# Masood Garahi, CEO of Florida's Mesh Networks, which has a
# fascinating concept for wireless networking: a military-derived
# technology that makes each end-user radio (cell phone, PDA, you name
# it) into a local wireless router/repeater. Mesh's marketable
# technology is the algorithms that handle routing, security, and
# power management.
#
# A mesh-based, self-building, self-healing wireless system, in which
# one or all of the handsets can act as a shared link to the Internet,
# has enormous ramifications. Like the Internet, it gets more robust
# as users are added, which is the opposite of traditional cellular.
# On the other hand, billing becomes problematic, and with cellular
# infrastructure getting better all the time (see ArrayComm and
# RadioFrame), one wonders if the economics of a mesh network will
# outweigh the development costs.
#
# Mesh Networks has raised $27.5 million. A key backer is Milcom,
# which specializes in military-to-commercial technology transfer.
#
# COMPANIES
#
# Milcom
# Mesh Networks
# Time Domain
# ArrayComm
# RadioFrame
# Rooftop Communications (bought by Nokia)
#
# RELATED STORIES
#
# Technology transfer (Uventures)
# Swords into startups (Milcom)
# Directory assistance (xDegrees)
# Arrayed for success (ArrayComm)
# Impolite society (RadioFrame)
# Aiming smart antennae at wireless
#
# 1997-2001 Red Herring Communications. All Rights Reserved.
#
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