New Aaro Shoots to Serve ?Last Mile?

Companies racing to provide fiber-optic and wireless connectivity to Northwest Arkansas and the rest of the state have a formidable competitor in Aaro Broadband Wireless Communications Inc.

Aaro, traded over-the-counter as AARW.OB, is the result of a reverse merger last May between defunct Rogers poultry vendor Aarow Environmental Group Inc. and Global Wireless Technologies Inc. of Oklahoma City. The surviving entity, headquartered in Oklahoma City, is focused on providing wireless “last-mile” technology to small- to mid-sized businesses.

It uses MCI/Worldcom’s fiber backbone to distribute broad bandwidth connectivity to a series of transmitter antennas. From the antennas, microwave signals capable of 11MB connectivity — or 393 times faster than a 56K modem — may be bilaterally transmitted to create “virtual fiber rings.” Each ring could cover as much as a 25-mile area. (The technology actually has the capability for 155MB connectivity, but Aaro is initially operating in the 11MB range.)

The result is a carrier class network capable of many voice, data and video transmission applications. One example: A user might be a retail company with offices and stores scattered around the nation. Using Aaro’s pipeline, which operates within the Federal Communication Commission’s unlicensed 5.7 GHZ spectrum, the retailer’s employees could see and hear each other during online conferences no matter how distant and remote their facilities are located.

In short, it could eliminate the need for long distance telephone service and ISPs in one fail swoop. The trick is, both ends have to be on the network.

In-home connectivity is another obvious market, but Aaro is aiming at businesses and municipalities first. The average cost for a mid-sized city to put its offices, police stations, hospitals and other entities on Aaro wireless is $150,000.

That can run to $250,000 for large metropolitan areas.

Aaro already has an aggressive contract with the Oklahoma Municipal League to service 49 airports in 44 rural communities throughout that state. Stroud, Okla., is already online, and Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Norman will all be in Aaro service areas.

Aaro offers 60/40 percent revenue-sharing agreements for municipalities, with the cities getting the lion’s share. Revenue projections vary, but service costs about $50 per machine — or as CEO Ron Baker points out, an average of $20 less than what most people spend for combined phone and ISP service now.

Baker, an early employee of wireless trail blazer McCaw Cellular, has served on numerous U.S. Congressional and disaster preparedness advisory committees. He said what distinguishes Aaro from its competitors is “they’re talking about it, and we’re doing it.”

“We are the new world network,” Baker said. “We’re bringing connectivity to the masses without archaic copper wire, without laying expensive fiber, without trying to make data fit into an analog-based network. This is the only efficient, and probably the only effective way, to deploy these services.”

Williams Hog Wild About Aaro Initiative

Aaro Wireless Delta LLC, formed in February in Little Rock, is the publicly traded firm’s joint-venture partner for Arkansas. Along with Aaro Broadband, it plans to conquer the ballyhooed “digital divide” in rural areas like the Mississippi River Delta. But Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas’ urban centers are also targets for expansion.

Ricky Williams, the in-state outfit’s CEO and an Arkansas Razorbacks linebacker from 1984-88, said private funding to establish service in Paragould and Jonesboro has already been acquired. The cost of providing service to the entire state, Williams said, could run about $15 million.

Aaro Wireless Delta is seeking both grant assistance and venture funding to help economically distressed counties in the Arkansas Delta catch up on technology. He said in many places, it’s like rural counties are driving a Volkswagen “bug” while their urban counterparts get farther ahead in a Ferrari.

“Folks in the Delta are getting farther and farther behind, but this technology will help them catch up and improve education and the communities there,” Williams said.