DigitalBridge Communications

Surfing Roads Less Traveled
Ashburn Firm Makes WiMax a Reality in Small-Town America

By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2008; Page D01

In Sprint's multibillion-dollar vision, Washingtonians will soon be able to sit in a moving car (passenger seat, please) and take part in a video chat while downloading a movie and writing e-mails.

That is courtesy of a fast, new wireless technology called WiMax. But while Sprint has faced delays making WiMax a reality, a little-known Ashburn firm has been connecting residents in such unlikely places as Jackson, Wyo.; Appomattox, Va.; and Idaho Falls, Idaho, to the Internet.

What DigitalBridge Communications has done offers a preview of what the technology might mean for the rest of the country. DigitalBridge has brought broadband Web access to homes that had none, and now it's allowing people to access the Web on the road with their laptops at about the same speed they'd get at home or at work.

Mobile phone companies have unveiled all sorts of plans to allow people to browse the Web from laptops and smart phones, but none have offered the speeds rivaling what one gets at home. Sprint, in partnership with start-up Clearwire and giants Intel, Comcast and Time Warner, plans to roll out WiMax in Washington, Baltimore and Chicago this fall.

" It'll dramatically change the way they live nd the way they enjoy the Internet. [Users] won't have to go back to their individual house or business or hotspot for broadband. They'll be able to do it wherever they want," DigitalBridge Chairman William Wallace said.

Joe Kochan, DigitalBridge vice president of operations, said about his own experience in Jackson in the passenger seat of a moving car: "We were going 40 miles per hour. I had a laptop. I was making a Skype call. I was watching a YouTube video and browsing a Web site at the same time."

Sprint, which has been trying to stem the exodus of customers from its mobile phone service, sees WiMax as a lifeline. Intel is looking for a second coming in the technology, putting WiMax chips in everything from laptops to smart phones, cameras and as-of-yet unimagined mobile devices. DigitalBridge is simply looking to build a profitable business -- something it has yet to attain, though executives say their business model should make the company profitable within two years.
Formed by a trio of Verizon executives in 2005, DigitalBridge seeks to bring WiMax to cities with populations of up to 150,000. At first, the company focused on bringing broadband to where it wasn't. That included places like Appomattox, population 1,725, where cable and phone companies didn't want to invest in building expensive landlines to reach faraway customers.

When it selects a locality, DigitalBridge installs broadcast stations atop cellular towers and tall buildings, which are connected by fiber cable to a regional Internet provider. The stations send a signal as far as three miles. Customers rent a device that looks like a modem and plug it into an electric outlet and into their computer.

DigitalBridge markets its service as BridgeMaxx, starting at $25 per month. It first moved into Rexburg, Idaho, before spreading to other cities and states. DigitalBridge operates in 14 localities, marketing the product through newspapers, radio and sponsorships, including a rodeo in Twin Falls, Idaho. It has a network of 20,000 customers that is growing by about 2,000 a month.
" You can aim the base station radio directly toward the pockets of underserved communities," Wallace said.

DigitalBridge sees its long-term success as dependent on the multitude of devices that will allow people to get broadband on the road -- on a bus, in a park or by the lake.

A little-known Ashburn firm, DigitalBridge offers a preview of what WiMax technology might mean for the rest of the country. (Katherine Frey - The Washington Post)

DigitalBridge seeks to bring WiMax to cities with populations of up to 150,000. The company is led by, from left, Joe Kochan, P. Kelley Dunne, Scott Royster and William Wallace. (By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

DigitalBridge allows people to access the Web on the road at about the same speed they'd get at home or at work. (Photos By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

DigitalBridge's WiMax has meant big things for some local customers. Bruce Herker runs a Rexburg business calledEastern Idaho Sports Network, which broadcasts high school sports live online. In the beginning, he had to ensure he had access to a telephone line at a particular stadium to stream audio to people who couldn't make the game.

Now he plugs in a DigitalBridge modem, connects his video camera and streams live video to the Web.

In November, he broadcast a high school championship football game from the campus of Idaho State University in Pocatello. Later he learned that one player's father serving in the military watched from Turkey, another player's brother watched from Iraq and the daughter of the head coach watched from China.
" As an audio station, you're just like radio," Herker said. "With video, that's completely different."

WiMax technology is not the only one trying to speed up connections. The big mobile companies routinely unveil networks that promise to give consumers faster links to the Web. AT&T, Verizon and others have placed their bets on a competing technology called Long Term Evolution.

" There was a time when we viewed WiMax as the brave new world and the only player in the broadband mobile space," said Berge Ayvazian, an analyst at Yankee Group. As cellular companies such as Verizon unleash new technologies, he said, "there will be a full head-on competition between WiMax providers and cellular-based mobile operators."

DigitalBridge says it is unfazed.

" We think that is going to be for years away," Wallace said.
DigitalBridge, with about $10 million in annual sales, is one of the largest recipients of venture capital in the region, having received more than $30 million from Novak Biddle Venture partners, Paladin Capital Group and the venture arm of Clark Enterprises. It recently hired Scott Royster, a top executive at Lanham-based Radio One, as chief financial officer.

One risk is that the installation of WiMax base stations could run into the same technical problems that cellular towers did in the early years of mobile phones, such as frequent breakdowns. That's been a particular concern among some analysts for Sprint, which with its partners is making a huge financial commitment to building the service in expensive metropolitan areas.

Chief executive P. Kelley Dunne came up with the idea for DigitalBridge several years ago, while standing atop the tallest building in Grundy, Va., population 1,105.

He realized that rather than making the big financial commitment that a Sprint would in a big city, a company could build a network bit by bit.
" We can build networks around where there's existing demand," he said.