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Tantivy
Privately held company develops portable wireless broadband technology

by Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal

Chris Snyder of Melbourne, who works for Tantivy Communication, Inc. as a Tantivy Antenna Design Engineer, is testing a wireless Internet Tantivy's portable broadband technologies in the company's Antenna test facility. Photo by Craig Rubadoux, © 2002.

When Randy Roberson looks around for companies comparable to his, he finds the field rather lean.

"There's not a lot of people who have believed what we're doing is possible," said Roberson, president and chief executive of Tantivy Communications Inc. in Melbourne.

The company is developing a system it says would give customers access to the wireless Internet at high speeds and affordable prices. The technology allows phone companies to use their existing cell phone towers to offer a fast, content-rich connection. That means a business traveler could do research without hunting down a connection. A project manager could send drawings directly from a remote construction site, or a parent could snap a shot of a winning soccer goal and email it immediately to doting grandparents.

Other companies have technologies that can offer wireless data. The difference, in Roberson's eyes, is in the dollars. "They can't offer the same business equation," he said.

The company's end-to-end system allows phone companies to upgrade to data transmission cheaply enough to see a return on their investment in less than half the typical time, Tantivy claims. That means providers would be able to keep prices down, an important advantage in an industry in which customers continually demand better capabilities at lower costs.

"The trend on voice is going the wrong way," said Roberson, noting cellular customers' reluctance to pay more for technological advances, such as short messages on cell phones. "Are you going to pay $30 extra a month (for extra services)? You're not. You're probably going to pay a penny and you're going to demand it," he said.

Tantivy uses I-CDMA technology in its end-to-end system, called TANlink. Its advantages, according to the company:

• Speed. Users can receive data at peak speeds of 365 kilobits per second and send data at peak speeds of 222 kilobits per second. That reverse link is key: Where other technologies have focused on receiving data, TANlink offers high speed in both directions. Sending is the important direction when using a digital camera, for example, Roberson said. The user could snap a shot and immediately email it to friends or a workplace.

• Capacity. Service providers can offer high-speed access to more people per cell site because of TANlink technology that uses the provider's resources efficiently.

• Coverage. Users enjoy the same quality of service no matter how far they are from the center of a cell site -- where the tower is -- to the edge. That's because TANlink's "smart" antenna can adjust to find the strongest signal. The antenna is imbedded in a chip in the wireless device, such as a cell phone.

The system doesn't work when the user is in a car moving a high speeds. But Roberson says that application is less important to customers than the ability to take a laptop computer to a meeting at a restaurant at the edge of a cell site and have high-speed access.

Selling cellular companies on the technology is going to be challenging, but not impossible, said Phil Marshall, an analyst for The Yankee Group in Boston. Operators have voice networks with incumbent vendors, and those vendors now are providing data networks as easy migrations of their existing systems. That market could be tough for Tantivy to penetrate.

"They're not coming in and saying, 'We're Tantivy and we have a component that will make your system work better. They're saying, 'We're Tantivy and we have a different network,'" he said.

Randy Roberson of Indian Harbor Beach, President and CEO of Tantivy Communication, Inc. Tantivy technologies cut the cord to enable portable wireless broadband internet access. Photo by Craig Rubadoux, © 2002.

One strategy could be to create a niche as a provider of higher quality service in areas that have more intense demand, such as a university campus or high-tech research center, Marshall suggested. That way, the operator is taking a much smaller risk by overlaying Tantivy technology for just part of its market.

Still, Tantivy could succeed in marketing TANlink as the superior technology for a wider market. "I wouldn't write it off," he said.

The market certainly is big enough for a number of contenders. Broadband, fixed wireless services sales are expected to hit $3 billion worldwide by 2005. Such demand is forcing all carriers to look at adding data capability to their voice systems, said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association.

"You have so many parts in such a complicated system," he said. "You really have room for a lot of players."

Tantivy has some successes under its belt. The company completed technical field trials in South Korea last year with SK Telecom. The technology met or exceeded expectations in various conditions, including the dense radio frequency environment of downtown Seoul.

Earlier this year, semiconductor maker Atmel Corp. agreed to license the company's technology for use in products for the mobile computing market, such as cellular phones and laptop computers. The San Jose, Calif., manufacturer will pay Tantivy a royalty on the sale of chips made with Tantivy technology.

Roberson said Tantivy is talking to other partners about licensing agreements, as well. He projects the earliest commercial rollout of the Tantivy system would be the end of this year.