Whistler Cable uses Wi-Fi as weapon in turf war against cable competitors

Whistler Cable says wireless Internet access is a key weapon in fighting off the encroachment of competitors in the hotel market. The British Columbia-based small cable operator has built out a wireless network in the resort town in a move to fend off a potential loss in market share to competitors looking to wire up local hotels for Internet access in exchange for the in-room cable entertainment business. Ron Saperstein, Whistler Cable’s president, tells Report on Wireless that the company wasn’t going to let outsiders come in and steal away some of its biggest clients. By deploying a wireless infrastructure, it helped guard against losing important hotel customers and also closed the city to competitors looking to set up similar systems, he adds. The company has now launched its Whooshnet wireless service offering customers pre-paid options of $5 for four hours, $10 for 24 hours or $25 for 72 hours. Consumers can also pay via credit card by visiting the Whooshnet web site. Whistler Cable also plans to sell bandwidth to third parties in the future as well, which could turn out to be a significant revenue stream for the small cable operator. The company didn’t, however, deploy the network in a conventional manner and chose to install access points outside of the hotel as opposed to outfitting the hotel with several, if not dozens, of internal hotspots. This allowed for quicker and less expensive deployment because there were fewer access points deployed, according to the project manager. Ian Andrew Bell, consulting program manager for the Whistler Cable wireless network deployment, says in traditional hotel deployments there can be approximately three hotspots per floor, which makes for an expensive proposition. Putting the access points outside of the hotel allows for substantial savings in deployment costs, he adds. Bell says that it costs approximately $5,000 per hotel to deploy the network in this manner and that the total price tag for a citywide network deployment will be in the $100,000 range, which is equivalent to the cost of setting up only two hotels using traditional methods. He estimates that the network deployment method will help the company turn a profit on the system within 18 months. "We’ve basically set up a wireless network in an entire community, something like the wireless network available at the University of British Columbia," Saperstein explains. The company has nearly completed the network having deployed 11 access points to date with plans for an additional 14 to bring wireless access to the entire village. Total cost of network deployment will be about $100,000, according to the project manager. Saperstein says the official launch of the service is slated for October 26. "The wireless network is on, but there are still some points that need to be put online. We only have to get three or four more sites before we have the original Village of Whistler totally up and running," he adds. Whistler Cable collaborated with four companies for the deployment of the wireless network. Cisco Systems Inc. provided the access points. Maxrad supplied the antennas. SolutionsInc Inc. built the subscriber management system and Intel is helping with service marketing initiatives. For more information on Whistler Cable’s wireless Internet offering, please refer to the Oct. 2/03 issue of Report on Wireless affiliate publication Canadian Communications Reports.

Whistler Cable uses Wi-Fi as weapon in turf war against cable competitors

News | 10/07/2003 4:00 am EDT

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