Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) Ricochet Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of TeraBeam, will use a scalable Wi-Fi mesh network to deliver wireless broadband services to the city and county of Denver, starting in the city’s Capitol Hill and Golden Triangle neighborhoods.

Sister company Proxim Wireless is providing mesh point-to-multipoint and wireless backhaul equipment to blanket the initial 2.5-square-mile downtown with a fee-based service. From that point, Ricochet plans to move Wi-Fi coverage throughout the rest of the county.

WiFi: A Natural Fit

Ricochet’s move into the Wi-Fi mesh space comes as Sprint Nextel plots the roll out of WiMAX into Denver as one of 19 metro areas nationwide. (see CTIA: Sprint Nextel Redefining Mobile Internet

While WiMAX is part of Ricochet’s future plans, “Wi-Fi is a natural when you look at a Ricochet as a municipal network service,” said Judi Evans, president of Ricochet Networks.

Wi-Fi is also a relatively new technology for Ricochet, which since 2002 has operated municipal services in Denver and San Diego using MicroCellular Data Network (MCDN) technology.

“There are a lot of different opinions about what’s the right technology, what’s the right approach and there as many answer to that as there are operator models,” she said. “Wi-Fi makes a lot of sense when you look at complementary services from the consumer standpoint, the availability of devices they have to access it today and the penetration of Wi-Fi inside the consumer and hotspot business.”

Commercial Market Focus

While the network will serve both residential and commercial customers, it will more likely be used initially by commercial users for portable broadband connectivity outside of office buildings. As the network expands, she said, the technology will be refined to fit the end user needs.

“There’s no one be-all-to-end-all network; there are a variety of technologies, a variety of applications and a variety of requirements when you get down to the end user,” she said. “WiMAX and whatever other broadband wireless develop down the road create a layering of technologies to be able to provide the right speeds and the right user connectivity in the right locations.”