Company to test new cell service in Vermont
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By Peter Hirschfeld VERMONT PRESS BUREAU - Published: July 2, 2009
Vermont's infamously spotty cell-phone coverage might improve a few bars if a high-risk, high-dollar technology venture takes flight.
On Tuesday, in French Guiana, a Virginia-based telecommunications company launched a $300 million satellite 23 miles into outer space. The orbiting satellite, which aims to replace terrestrial cell towers, could one day offer cell service to remote outposts, and towns in the Northeast Kingdom will serve as a testing ground for the world's first fourth-generation cell-phone technology.
"We call it a creative sandbox for the company," says Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, who was on hand for the launch Wednesday. "If you can solve rural wireless capability issues in Vermont, you're really addressing them for much of the nation."
Dubie has been working with Terrestar Networks since 2007, when, as chairman of the Aerospace States Association, he learned of the company's pursuit of fourth-generation cell-phone technology.
Terrestar needed access to air frequency. Towns in the Northeast Kingdom needed cell phone coverage. Dubie helped the firm access frequency rights, and the NASDAQ-listed company agreed to pilot its groundbreaking service in Vermont.
"This project will allow people to communicate through a satellite, for the first time, with a handheld conventional cell phone device," Dubie said. "That's the part that's cutting edge and has never been done before."
Instead of the brick-sized phones now necessary for satellite signals, Terrestar would beam signals directly to conventional phones.
"This is hopefully going to result in people up in Newport having cell capability," Dubie said. "When there's no conventional cell tower to use, they've got a 23,000-mile-high cell tower."
The satellite's successful launch Wednesday, Dubie said, doesn't necessarily mean the technology has been realized.
"The bottom line is there's still technical risk at this point," Dubie said. "You've got analysts saying this thing is questionable from an engineering standpoint. But there's also $1 billion worth of investments from people who think this thing is going to work."
And Terrestar's success or failure will be determined in part in the remote hills of the Northeast Kingdom, where emergency personnel will be among the first to test the satellite signals. The company's pilot programs will focus exclusively on first responders, but Terrestar envisions commercial applications down the line.
"We hope the TerreStar service can be a contributor to achieving the 'e-State' vision by the end of 2010 as outlined by Gov. James Douglas, in which Vermont will have universal access to broadband Internet and cellular phone service," says Tom Murray, commissioner of the Department of Information and Innovation.
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