Cometa Networks, formerly known as Project Rainbow, has just been announced. In a press release on their site, they proclaim:
NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2002 – Leading technology companies AT&T, Intel and IBM, and global investment concerns Apax Partners and 3i today announced they are utilizing their collective technologies and capabilities to create a new company, Cometa Networks, that will provide broadband, wholesale, wireless Internet access nationwide.A nationwide equipment provider and aggregator with the clout of AT&T, Intel, and IBM to back it up? Sounds like some big footsteps in the jungle.
Cometa Networks plans to provide this service to telecommunications companies, Internet Service providers (ISPs), cable operators and wireless carriers, who then can offer their customers wireless Internet access, using wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology, also called 802.11. Cometa will also offer wireless Internet access to enterprise customers through the participating carriers
The company will work with major national and regional retail chains, hotels, universities and real estate firms to deploy the broadband wireless access service in “hot spots” throughout the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas.
Cometa’s service will make it possible for users to keep existing sign-on procedures, email addresses, IDs, passwords and payment methods – regardless of whether they are accessing the Internet via an ISP, corporate virtual private network, telecommunications provider or cable operator.