The once hailed Wi-Fi company Cometa Networks Inc., originally backed by power players AT&T, IBM and Intel, has shut down its network due to lack of funding.
Since its founding, “the company has made some progress but the segment has evolved considerably” during that time, said Intel spokesperson Laura Anderson, who confirmed the company is shutting down its operations.
Anderson said Intel’s initial intent in investing in the company was to help grow consumer adoption and deployment of wireless local area networks and demonstrate the potential of that model to industry, and in that respect, “we believe Cometa’s launch was actually successful,” said Anderson.
Since the company formed in late 2002, Cometa inked partnerships with Sprint PCS and iPass and launched a trial Wi-Fi hot-spot network throughout Seattle. Its services are also offered in Barnes & Noble bookstores around the country.
Cometa, along with Toshiba Inc., was involved in pilots with McDonalds restaurants before the food service giant last month contracted Wayport to provide its high-speed wireless Internet access, which likely came as a blow to Cometa. Cometa recently re-aligned with Toshiba to incorporate some or all of Toshiba’s U.S. SurfHere hot-spot locations into Cometa’s hot-spot network.
Meanwhile, the Wi-Fi space has exploded with nearly all major wireless carriers announcing their own WLAN initiatives, metro-scale Wi-Fi networks popping up across the country and Wi-Fi-equipped laptops gaining popularity.
But Cometa has not lived up to its original business plan, which called for it to roll out access in the top 50 U.S. urban markets during 2003, with AT&T providing network infrastructure and management and IBM providing wireless site installations and back-office systems.
A nationwide network for broadband wireless Internet access was to be created through partnerships with service providers, including telecommunications companies, Internet service providers, cable operators and wireless carriers, as well as with enterprises and private businesses like retail chains, hotels and universities. The idea involved customers keeping existing sign-on procedures, e-mail addresses, IDs, passwords and payment methods regardless of where they accessed the Wi-Fi network.
