NEW YORK-Leading industry players have teamed together to form a new company called Cometa Networks to provide wireless Internet access nationwide to telecom companies, Internet service providers, cable operators and wireless carriers using Wi-Fi technology, or 802.11.
Floated earlier this year as Project Rainbow, the main players involved include AT&T Corp., Intel Corp, IBM Corp. and investment concerns Apax Partners and 3i.
“The company will work with major national and regional retail chains, hotels, universities and real estate firms to deploy the broadband wireless access in “hot spots” throughout the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas,” said the companies in a press release.
According to the announcement AT&T will provide the network and IBM will provide wireless site installations and back-office systems.
“Cometa Networks plans to achieve critical economies of scale by building on the retail brands and customer reach of service providers,” said Theodore Schell, Cometa Networks chairman and general partner of Apax.
Intel spokesman Dan Francisco said the company is part of Intel Capital’s strategy to provide up to $150 million to accelerate the deployment high-speed networks among Wi-Fi companies.
