Envision an all digital baseball stadium that allows its patrons to use their digital wireless phones to determine which parking lots are full, to order food and have it delivered to their seats or download player statistics.
That is only one vision Kailas J. Rao, chairman and president of Indus Inc., and his management team have for the company’s C-block personal communications license in Milwaukee.
Knowing it won’t be able to compete head on with the big competitors in the market, Indus plans to introduce Time Division Multiple Access service this summer and leverage its voice service by targeting several niche markets with vertical applications. Offerings like a digital stadium, digital theater, wireless office, remote meter reading for utility companies, home banking, wireless home and office security systems, wireless ATMs, vending machine management, bar code scanning and inventory control management and data communications are all on Indus’ plate. Indus said it is in discussions with the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club, which is in the midst of building a new stadium, to provide advanced wireless services.
Indus is in a enviable position as a C-block licensee. While many of the smaller players are desperately looking for financing, the company has been able to raise more than $20 million in an initial private placement.
“It’s not easy,” said Rao, who jokes that he had all of his hair before his company began seeking financing. “The overall C-block reputation is that we overpaid for our licenses, and we had to justify to others that we did not overpay.”
Indus has managed to draw money from Hughes Network Systems Inc., the company’s infrastructure vendor that also is providing up to $60 million in vendor financing; Kanematsu Corp., a worldwide Japanese trading firm based in Tokyo; Uniden Corp., the company’s dual-band, dual-mode handset supplier; G.M. Selby & Associates, a wireless communications engineering firm, and more than two dozen Wisconsin business leaders.
Plans call for Indus, whose license covers a seven-county area in southeastern Wisconsin, to heavily concentrate on the business market, employing an extensive direct sales force. The company plans to deploy a wireless office service shortly after launching voice service this summer. The system, which will be Hughes’ new AIReach Office system it unveiled last week, is an in-building system connected to an existing private branch exchange that allows a handset to act as a cordless unit and alphanumeric pager while in the office or factory and to operate seamlessly outside the network. Users also will have the ability to use personalized features such as four-number dialing to and from many parts of the world, said Rao.
Customers will have access to AT&T Wireless Services Inc.’s wireless networks across the country under a roaming agreement between the two. Indus entered into an agreement with AT&T Wireless more than a year ago for a consulting contract that covers the AT&T Wireless Advanced Network Services Provider Program, a series of enhancements aimed at business customers.
And the plans don’t stop there. Eventually, Rao wants to franchise Indus’ business model to wireless operators worldwide. Franchising is something he knows a lot about, having been involved with the computer store franchising business prior to entering the wireless business. Rao began building his computer store franchise in 1981, starting with one store in Milwaukee. By 1992, when he sold the franchise, he had built a network of 350 stores across the nation that raked in $500 million in revenues and were profitable every month for 12 years, he said.
“So many people in the U.S. C block are having a tough time. Management, customer care and billing all could be franchised,” said Rao, who envisions franchising packages of services to operators that could include Hughes providing infrastructure and Uniden supplying handsets. “We want to go and tell them how to do this.”
