High-tech secrecy on system

CHRIS BARTON finds Freedom Vnet reluctant to reveal the wireless technology for a new network to communities.

Another fixed wireless network provider, Freedom Vnet, plans fast, low-cost internet and phone services for New Zealand communities and inner-city Auckland.

But the launch comes amid arguments and secrecy about the technology being used.

Freedom Vnet has bought Auckland wireless network Safetynet and will use the same licence frequencies as existing fixed wireless network providers Walker Wireless, Radionet and Southland-based SouthNet.

Chief technology officer David Nicholson said the main difference in the 802.11b-based technology used by Freedom Vnet was the antenna, which did not require line of sight and provided a "roaming, cellular-style internet protocol wireless network".

The antenna worked in a similar way to those on cellphone towers.

Mr Nicholson would not name the technology, but said it was originally developed for the US military.

Chairman Evan Read said Freedom Vnet was close to deciding which community would be first to use the new network and marketing approach.

He was talking to interested parties at Greymouth, Napier/Hastings, Warkworth/Wellsford and Waiheke Island.

The company was also negotiating with a big telco - which he also did not want to name - to provide interconnection to existing telephone networks and internet bandwidth.

Chief executive Glenn Johnstone said the Freedom community access network marketing concept involved communities owning and managing the network, and gaining a share of revenue for community-based initiatives.

Mr Read said the networks would be financed from monthly subscriber revenue, with no capital requirement to the community or subscriber.

Subscribers would receive an internet protocol phone and an "always on" wireless web access service starting at 64Kbps and up to 256Kbps.

He would not say how much subscribers would pay a month but said the equipment needed in homes and businesses to connect to the network would be included in the fee.

Safetynet, a small operator providing wireless access to about 50 Auckland businesses, was bought mainly to obtain networking equipment.

It would also help in providing an internet-based trading hub - HapuNet - to 25,000 Otimi Hapu Collective Society subscribers. The project was described as having "the potential to deliver Maori content and services and manage the e-koha transactions for hapu".

The service would be developed using the company's yoUtopia products - software designed to make the internet easier to use.

Freedom Vnet did not want to show the technology to the Herald but Mr Read said it had been tested in inner-city Auckland and the marketing concept had been tested in Scotland.

The trial in Auckland involved Krukziener Venture Capital, Nomad Wireless Technologies LLC and telecommunications company WorldxChange.

The Herald has been shown correspondence between legal firms KPMG Legal and Lowndes Associates indicating that there is a dispute between Krukziener and Wayby Investments - the company that holds the intellectual property to Freedom and yoUtopia - over confidentiality issues.

WorldxChange's Cecil Alexander confirmed that the telco had taken part in the pilot, but was no longer involved in the project.

Andrew Krukziener said Freedom Vnet was not involved in Krukziener Venture Capital's formal trials of wireless network technology. His company was not using Freedom's community access network marketing nor its yoUtopia products, but was pursuing its own development with Nomad Wireless.

Krukziener Venture Capital Holdings manager Martyn Levy said: "Our lawyers have analysed the facts and have given clear advice that there is no basis for a claim and that the claim is speculative."

Jeff Luck, the president of Nevada-based Nomad Wireless, said Mr Read had no rights to his company's technology.

"We were considering dealing with Mr Read for the commercialisation of the technology but found our dealings with Mr Read to be completely unsatisfactory and made a decision that we could not work with him," said Mr Luck.

"Mr Read was an observer only of the trialling of our technology in New Zealand."

An internet search for Nomad Wireless brought up information about a "proprietary circular-polarisation stub-helix antenna technology [that] was originally a joint project between Virginia Technical Institute and the US military".

Mr Read said the Freedom concept began in April 1998 when Wayby Telephone Company marketed a trial "community server" to Wellsford and Warkworth.

The service offered telephone services by repackaging leased space on Telecom's network. The trial ended in December that year.

The firm then formed Alternative Futures in conjunction with Business Internet Solutions, a wireless internet provider. In December 1999, Alternative Futures was sold to Liberty Technology, which was eventually absorbed by Walker Wireless.

Mr Read said that last year Wayby tested the community access network idea with multichannel multipoint distribution system (MMDS) wireless technology in Scotland, Poland and Australia.