GoAmerica Communications Corp., a wireless Internet and intranet service provider, hopes to enter the consumer market in the next couple of years and is preparing by beginning to build network partnerships with Global System for Mobile communications and Code Division Multiple Access carriers.
For now, though, GoAmerica is focusing on exploiting a business niche: providing access to information stored on corporate intranets to mobile work forces through laptops, ruggedized computers, wireless modems, personal digital assistants, Windows CE devices, PalmPilots, smart phones and other handheld devices. In the absence of this type of wireless access, many mobile workers rely on wireless phones to call company headquarters to access information on inventories or other mission-critical data, said Joseph Korb, executive vice president and director of GoAmerica.
The company, which also offers access to e-mail and Internet information, said its service is ideal for wireless carriers that are deeply entrenched in battling for voice customers and don’t have time to develop their own mobile data solutions.
The company last month launched its Wireless Data Service Center, which provides carriers with a single source for marketing wireless data solutions over their network and in markets outside their territory, said GoAmerica. The center’s Web@Hand wireless Internet and intranet data offerings are designed around Bellcore’s AirBoss family of advanced mobility solutions, Unwired Planet’s UP.Link server suite for smart phones and Fourelle Systems’ Venture Series of compression services.
Although GoAmerica touts its service bureau as a turnkey wireless intranet and Internet solution, carriers that outsource the functions to GoAmerica also can choose to retain parts of the process, including billing, said the company.
GoAmerica, which was founded in 1995, began providing service nearly one year ago. The key to success, said Korb, is the service’s simplicity to the end user.
The service is meant to be invisible to users, working off the same devices and desktop applications workers already use. The service operates on open protocols with standard software interfaces such as Netscape and Microsoft Browser, said the company.
The alliance with Fourelle allows GoAmerica’s service to send compressed data, making bandwidth more efficient, said the company. Graphics also are stripped out of documents to make them quicker and easier to download.
The service’s pricing plan was modeled after the cellular industry’s low-end, mid-level and high-end structure, said the company. GoAmerica offers a low-end plan priced at $15, a mid-level plan at $60 and a high-end plan at $100. Prices are based on the amount of data sent and received, rather than the amount of time spent connected to the network.
The company offers a two-month evaluation period in which customers pay $40 and receive unlimited usage in order to determine the right plan for them.
The company said it has hardware partnerships with Casio, L.M. Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard Co., Inet, Intronix, Melard, Motorola Inc., Novatel Wireless, Research in Motion, Sierra Wireless, US Robotics and Palm Computing. Network partnerships currently include RAM Mobile Data and Ardis, as well as AT&T Corp. and Bell Atlantic Mobile’s Cellular Digital Packet Data networks.
