Broadband One Networks plans to introduce a wireless data service in September that would give high-speed Internet access to laptop-toting businesspeople roaming miles away from the nearest antenna.

Broadband One, a San Diego startup, will introduce the service in Bozeman, Montana, a college town tucked away in the south-central part of the state. If the service does well there, the company plans to offer the service in other parts of the country.

The service, iBurst, is the brainchild of Marty Cooper, the inventor of the first cellular phone. It falls into a sweet spot that isn't covered well by existing offerings. IBurst is about 100 times faster than a cellular connection currently offered by cell-phone providers. And users can roam up to 5 miles away from a base station -- unlike Wi-Fi services, which tether users to a range of about 300 feet.

"Baloney about finding a hot spot somewhere," Cooper said. "Wi-Fi is great for the home and great for the enterprise, but it will not give you ubiquitous service."

In Sydney, Australia, where iBurst is conducting another test, consumers and businesses have embraced it with enthusiasm. Personal Broadband Australia, a wireless data company, plans to offer the service to the rest of the country by 2005. People are having fun with iBurst, surfing the Internet while riding the bus across town and checking e-mail in an elevator to show off the system's capability, according to anecdotes shared by Cooper's company, ArrayComm. ArrayComm supplied both Personal Broadband Australia and Broadband One with licenses to sell the iBurst service.

Continued at Wired News