Company to operate in wireless Internet space

Company to operate in wireless Internet space

Madison, Wis. – If you subscribe to the theory that consumer need is what drives business formation, a newly formed company may provide you with some proof.
In this case, the need is created when local wireless Internet service or broadband access leave something to be desired, and the chief executive of a new business designed to solve the riddle has deciphered wireless and broadband problems before.
Albert Chiozzi, who plans to launch Broadband Infrastructures in Madison early in 2007, has spent much of his 30-year telecommunications career with the Amsterdam-based information and communications giant Getronics. In recent years, he has advised the likes of American Family Insurance, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Home Depot on their broadband or wireless communications systems.
Leaving the relative security of a $4 billion international company to start a business may strike some as overly ambitious, but Chiozzi has never been afraid to stray far from his comfort zone. The Massachusetts native has been based in Wisconsin for the past 15 years, and he plans to start his new business with much the same service he was providing to clients of Getronics, where he was in charge of the company’s American professional services group.
That means offering advice on Internet access options as part of what he calls his “WiWI” rollout. “I can tell you what’s wrong with your wireless system and what you need to fix it,” Chiozzi stated.
“Wi” indeed
Actually, he plans to offer a suite of both educational and technical services to consumers who have been struggling to realize all the benefits of high bandwidth and wireless on local networks. His business model calls for capturing both urban and rural markets, and he’s well aware of the unique problems facing rural areas that fall outside developed infrastructures.
He said wireless communications is an area of technology that is misunderstood and underutilized, and broadband deployment likely will always be a profit-driven, leaving segments of the business and residential communities out of the mix. Thanks to the associations he developed at Getronics, he knows where to find quality subcontractors, and he intends to dial them up for customers who want him to follow through with technical solutions.
The plan is to capture business in cities and towns throughout Dane County before expanding beyond metropolitan Madison.
Chiozzi intends to start each client contact with a feasibility study that takes into account customer need and resources, employee utilization experience, and broadband adoption, but he made it clear that the best way to gain their trust would be to focus on consumer education and leave technology deployment and installation decisions up to them.
Sizing up staff
Chiozzi has yet to hire staff of technicians, but subcontractors will provide him with a benchmark that will tell him when to start. When his contacts result in the hiring of subcontractors 50 percent of the time, Chiozzi believes he will be able to hire people without the fear of laying them off.
“My motive is to get your project done and also bring some young kids along,” he said.
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