Direct Wireless’ technology to serve rural areas
Founded on April 6 by Direct Wireless Corporation, Direct Wireless Communications‘ mission is to license and market a low-cost, high-capacity voice and data, digital mobile wireless communications technology that may accelerate the build-out of generally non-competitive, under-serviced rural wireless telephone markets.
The company announced on Dec. 5 and again this morning that shares of its common stock have begun trading (DWCM.OB).
Direct Wireless Corporation received U.S. and European patent authority approvals about a year ago for the company’s proprietary wireless telephone handset and broadcast systems designed to provide seamless interconnectivity outside any existing voice and data carrier. Development of the handset and related infrastructures is in process by Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio, TX, working in conjunction with Jerry Petermann, Direct Wireless Communications’ systems co-inventor and vice president.
“This is disruptive technology intended to change the face of rural and remote telephone access anywhere in the world,” said Robert S. Braswell IV, president of Direct Wireless Communications. “The dream of delivering wireless voice and data communications to rural America, and beyond, by effectively reducing cost, increasing call capacities and ensuring system reliability is now closer to becoming a reality than at anytime in telecommunications history.”
Braswell explained that the technology features a new broadcasting and signal processing protocol called time-shared, full-duplex. By using low-cost “cell-like” towers and network extenders, TSFD will enable quality voice and variable rate high-speed data connection with other wireless carriers currently unable to get into rural areas.
“Our system is not dependent on traditionally expensive cell towers and support hardware,” Braswell said. “This is made possible because of revolutionary software contained primarily in [our] mobile handset. It is breakthrough technology, but at the same time, our telephone handset and network linking systems do not obsolete, but rather complement existing carrier infrastructures.”
The company’s phone can be fully integrated to accommodate current subscriber service carriers without them having to replace costly tower landscapes. TSFD would also make it possible for Direct Wireless Communications to make 9-1-1 emergency service work in rural areas, a feature that the company said is severely limited in all current wireless technology.
The prototype handset and protocol are scheduled for final testing by June 2002. Before the end of next year, the company expects its first system, deployed for final testing within a rural power company, in advance of final production. Braswell and Petermann said that the audio quality of the company’s wireless handset is superior to existing PCS.
“This superiority stems from its higher data rates and fewer number of times the signal is processed,” said Braswell.
Unlike PCS dependency on multiplexing and switching, the company’s handset is capable of data transfer rates as high as 128kbps.
“The time-shared, full-duplex protocol is a standard we created to operate in areas of extremely low population, economically and effectively,” Braswell continued. “It also efficiently links to any known wireless, or landline telephone system. That means that a user could bridge multiple systems traveling from TSFD to TDMA, CDMA, AMPS or GSM. The latter accommodation is particularly exciting because it is the international standard in Europe, Australia and much of Africa and Asia.”
Braswell said that Direct Wireless Communications expects to develop the rural U.S. market through agreements with rural electric cooperatives and wireless carriers that cannot now effectively serve these areas and would explore the Native American lands telecommunications initiative as suggested by the FCC and the U. S. Department of Agriculture.
He said that global expansion is part of the company’s plans.
“It remains true that half the world’s population has never made, or received a telephone call. Our technology has the potential to significantly reduce these telecommunications inequities,” Braswell said.
In addition to Braswell and Petermann, other corporate directors and officers include founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill G. Williams and W. Steven Walker, secretary-treasurer and legal counsel.
