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    Cometa Pulls the Plug on Wi-Fi

    Written by

    Carol Ellison
    Published May 20, 2004
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      Strapped for investment capital, Wi-Fi provider Cometa Networks announced on Wednesday that it plans to suspend operations after less than 18 months in business.

      AT&T, IBM, Intel and two venture capital firms launched the collaborative venture in December 2002 to aggregate and wholesale wireless hot spot services.

      In March of 2003, Cometa gained prominence as the provider of Wi-Fi service in McDonalds restaurants in the New York City area, offering customers one free hour of Internet access with a meal purchase. The service was eventually rolled out to 60 restaurants in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

      McDonalds selected two other commercial wireless service providers—Wayport and Toshiba—to provide Wi-Fi in its San Francisco Bay area and Chicago-area restaurants, respectively, as part of a pilot program. Last month, McDonalds awarded Wayport the Wi-Fi contracts for 6,000 U.S. locations, and began switching over the restaurants that Cometa had operated during the extended trial.

      /zimages/3/28571.gifBaseline Magazine found some problems with Cometas service when it evaluated McDonalds Wi-Fi trial. Click here to read more.

      The company released the following statement regarding its suspension: “While Cometa has demonstrated the attractiveness of the wholesale Wi-Fi model by securing relationships with premier brands in both the Service Provider and Retail Venue industries, Cometa is dependant on substantial external financial and strategic investor capital. The financial return for investors was not perceived to be sufficient to attract the necessary capital to achieve critical mass.”

      The loss of the McDonalds contract may have played a major factor in that decision by Cometas stakeholders. Apax Partners, one of the two venture capital firms funding Cometa, declined comment on the move, referring all inquiries to Cometas vice president of marketing, Kent Hellebust.

      The announcement took many customers by surprise, as Cometa had announced expansions in its network as recently as last week—inking agreements with Nordstrom and other retailers in Seattle on May 10. And just last month, the company took over Toshiba America Information Systems SurfHere network of 350 hot spots. Other existing hot spot providers in Cometas network included Barnes & Noble bookstores and the Tullys Coffee chain in the Seattle area.

      /zimages/3/28571.gifCheck out eWEEK.coms Mobile & Wireless Center at http://wireless.eweek.com for the latest news, reviews and analysis.

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      Carol Ellison
      Carol Ellison
      Carol Ellison is editor of eWEEK.com's Mobile & Wireless Topic Center. She has authored whitepapers on wireless computing (two on network security–,Securing Wi-Fi Wireless Networks with Today's Technologies, Wi-Fi Protected Access: Strong, Standards-based Interoperable Security for Today's Wi-Fi Networks, and Wi-Fi Public Access: Enabling the future with public wireless networks.Ms. Ellison served in senior and executive editorial positions for Ziff Davis Media and CMP Media. As an executive editor at Ziff Davis Media, she launched the networking track of The IT Insider Series, a newsletter/conference/Web site offering targeted to chief information officers and corporate directors of information technology. As senior editor at CMP Media's VARBusiness, she launched the Web site, VARBusiness University, an online professional resource center for value-added resellers of information technology.Ms. Ellison has chaired numerous industry panels and has been quoted as a networking and educational technology expert in The New York Times, Newsday, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio's All Things Considered, CNN Headline News, WNBC and CNN/FN, as well as local and regional Comcast and Cablevision reports. Her articles have appeared in most major hi-tech publications and numerous newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor.

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