Company to update status of new wireless broadband service.

With cable and telephone companies now rapidly signing up Internet users looking for high-speed access, their wireless competitors have been stuck in low gear. But that capital cost of laying, upgrading and maintaining all those wires to homes and offices. To understand why, a few more acronyms are in order. Cisco_s latest technology, known as VOFDM (Vector Orthogonal Frequency Division Mutiplexing), is an improved method of may soon change, thanks to new technology that some analysts think could be poised to shift high-speed wireless deployment into high gear. Network equipment maker Cisco Systems, which has made its fortunes making the routers and switches that built the wired Internet, is now placing bets on new technologies that it believes will soon be sending voice, data and video over the airwaves at speeds that are comparable to wired networks. The networking behemoth on Wednesday is expected to update analysts and investors on its latest effort to make this so-called fixed wireless broadband service available to anyone who wants it. “We believe it is very significant,” said wireless industry analyst Dale Pfau at CIBC World Markets. Pfau says that while the wireless industry lags its wired competitors in rolling out high-speed data service, it has a huge potential cost advantage. For starters, wireless providers don_t have to bear the tremendous sending two-way data signals over the airwaves. Using advanced ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) communications chips, the system can pack voice, data and video on a signal that operates at relatively low frequencies and does_t require direct, line-of-sight connection. Cisco_s plan is to tap a once-moribund portion of the communication spectrum known as MMDS (Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service) that has recently become a hot property. Touted as “wireless cable” in the early _90s, MMDS was intended to bring cable television service to locations like apartment buildings at a fraction of the cost of laying cable to all those individual users. But the technology gained only limited use. Now the race is on to convert the spectrum for two-way, high-spend Internet traffic. This spring, MCI WorldCom and Sprint began buying up MMDS companies, spending more than $1 billion to assemble a network of systems in 120 markets covering 60 percent of the US. All of this looks good on paper, say some analysts, but it remains to be seen whether the system will work on a large scale — or whether the wireless industry will buy into it.