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Pathak: blazing a trail in wireless tech

Ela Dutt
India Abroad Correspondent in Washington

Three years ago, when Soma Networks Inc, was established, founder Yatish Pathak, president and CEO, decided to move in a stealth mode until the technology to deliver telecommunication infrastructure for the 'last mile', was developed.

He believes wireless technology is the only real alternative to facilities-based competition against the incumbents, especially for start-ups like his.

"Secreted away in San Francisco and Toronto for the last three years, the Soma team of Yatish Pathak, Martin Snelgrove, and Michael Stumm has built a cellular multi-megabit wireless link with associated software that enables bypass of the briarpatch of Bell System local loops, lawyers, and lobbyists," says the Gilder Technology Report of March 2001.

Soma is ready for customer trials of its technology. George Gilder spent a week at the Toronto site to study the system in its complexity.

Founded in January 1998, Pathak and his cofounders admit, "We have operated in stealth mode since then, as we have been able to achieve our goals in recruiting, product development, fund-raising, and customer acquisition without the need to make a public announcement. At this juncture we have a substantial story to tell regarding our company's formation."

In 1996, Pathak left his responsibilities as a leader in the cellular infrastructure division of Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs to pursue the goal of developing wireless communications to its fullest potential.

He saw the potential of wireless as a higher performance and significantly lower cost alternative than any of the current or planned data and voice networks. In his 10 years in wireless communications, Yatish worked on the current generation of cellular systems that span the world (i.e. CDMA, GSM, IS-54 and AMPS).

With a Masters and Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, Pathak has built Soma into a 230-employee company that provides fully converged voice and broadband data services for the 'last mile'.

Using Soma Networks products, local exchange carriers, competitive local exchange carriers, wireless telephone companies and other service providers can provide telephony and data services to residential customers and small offices.

The company garnered $70 million from big names in and outside the IT industry and angel investors, including Jim Manzy, former CEO of Lotus, Ben Rosen, co-founder of Compaq Computers, as well as Signal Lake Partners and Top Tier Ventures. United States Senator Bill Bradley sits on the board.

The company has offices in San Francisco and Toronto.

Telecommunications service providers have historically relied on circuit switching, with revenue streams based on monolithic public switched telephone network switches.

"Today's traditional service providers are burdened by tens of millions of lines of legacy software and an underlying fabric that is both expensive and unsuitable for the new world of voice and data networking - a world based on packets, not circuits," Soma founders maintain. "Technologies based on the personal computer, the IP protocol and Internet networks are both more capable and less expensive. And advances in wireless technology make it progressively more compelling," they add.

Soma Networks says it has developed the first economically viable non-line-of-sight wireless system to meet the needs and address the challenges of the growing marketplace for integrated residential services.

Current fixed-wireless deployments don't have the bandwidth or the IP smarts to deliver the services that consumers and carriers are seeking today, the company emphasizes.

Soma enables ubiquitous voice and data services to be deployed without the lead time and expense associated with negotiating rights of way, digging trenches or laying copper or cable.

Rather than assembling a telecom system from a collection of boxes with interface definitions that limit innovation, Soma says it delivers a system that is not only "transport-agnostic," but also transport-savvy.

Using software that deals with the complexity of real-world transport systems, such as network failures, high costs, ownership, latency and constrained bandwidth, it says its system is built to be future-proof in the same way a computer is, so new problems can be solved with new applications.

Its "NetPort", a computer type device that can fit next to the regular PC, transmits digital information and passes data and phone traffic and connects with relatively small external base stations.

It is the size of a large book and contains a passively steered antenna, a WCDMA modem, power amplifiers, a microprocessor, and an innovative operating system.

No technicians needed, no waiting for cable guys, just a wall outlet and a PC is needed and if you are within five miles of the fridge size cell tower Soma has developed, you are up and going, surfing the Web at up to 5 megabits per second. You also have 4 Internet protocol phone lines.

Pathak is now visiting Japan, closing a deal on the manufacture of the NetPort, and was unavailable for an interview.

The cost of a wireless DSL service per customer comes to more than $1000, but Soma's system promises to be installed at just $395.

Its integrated approach, it says, brings the true potential of converged voice and data service to consumers, including individuals, telecommuters, or small business, as well as service providers, making it practically ubiquitous, high speed, secure, personalised, low-cost, with ease and speed of deployment for service providers so that new markets can be entered rapidly, and differentiated services, so that providers can compete based on the value they offer.

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