http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/content_syndication/local_news/5946610.htm
Posted on Mon, May. 26, 2003 THE MONDAY PROFILE Tech wizard bringing wireless to mainstream By Ellen Lee CONTRA COSTA TIMES The teenager standing before Rick Ehrlinspiel wore braces, didn't have his driver's license and had graduated from high school barely a year ago, a member of the class of 2000. But that didn't deter Ehrlinspiel, founder and CEO of Surf and Sip, a wireless Internet startup in San Francisco. He hired the kid on the spot. "You know he knows his stuff," Ehrlinspiel said. "Literally within five minutes of talking with him, I said, 'Let's do it.'" Matt Peterson, then just 19, became the technical wizard behind Surf and Sip. He designed and built the technology that allows the company to create "hot spots" in coffee houses, setting up wireless high-speed Internet service so that customers can surf the Internet from their laptops while sipping a latte without having to worry about a rat's nest of cords. If this sounds familiar, it's because T-Mobile started a major push last year to do the same thing at Starbucks coffee shops across the United States. Backed by high-tech powerhouses such as Intel Corp., the wireless high-speed Internet industry has begun to move into the mainstream in recent months and is said to be one of few flourishing areas in the otherwise drab high-tech industry. And Peterson, who turned 21 last month, has emerged as one of the new movers and shakers in the industry, a self-taught, self-described geek who is helping to shape the technology and the way it is used. Besides his role with Surf and Sip, Peterson, who grew up in Hayward and now lives in Oakland, is the founder of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group, an association of wireless networking enthusiasts, newbies, high-tech executives, venture capitalists and analysts that has grown from less than a dozen members at its start three years ago to more than 2,100. The group, one of the earliest in the nation, gathers bimonthly to hear speakers discuss new developing technology; one was a Microsoft employee who outlined the company's work in setting security standards for connecting computer systems wirelessly, details that most people didn't learn until a year later. With Tim Pozar, a broadcast engineer who is also considered one of the industry's pioneers, Peterson is also helping to create a wireless network connecting the laptops and computer systems of Bay Area public safety agencies. Under this setup, police officers in one county could take a digital photograph or video at the scene of a natural disaster or crime and instantaneously send it to their counterparts in another county, without having to return to the office. "It hits home with the 1989 earthquake and the Oakland fire," Peterson said about the project, the Bay Area Research Wireless Network. "If you had a wireless network that was connected to other city (or state or county) governments, you could send them an e-mail on the spot. You could send images and not have to wait." The duo is slowly making progress: They have presented their proposal before San Francisco city officials and demonstrated the technology to San Francisco police officers. They hope eventually to meet with government officials and private individuals throughout the Bay Area's nine counties and get permission to place antennas on their property, which would be used to connect the region wirelessly, from mountaintop to mountaintop. Already, they have set up an experimental antenna on a hilltop in South San Francisco using technology that Peterson, who has never attended college or taken a community college computer class, rigged for less than $2,000. The system is attached to a high-speed Internet connection, meaning that someone with the right gear can point an antenna toward the hill top and jump on the World Wide Web for free. Peterson said that providing free Internet service to the Bay Area masses isn't necessarily the ultimate goal. But he and Pozar do hope that they can create a means through wireless technology to connect the region's computer systems so that that they can share and exchange data in the free-spirited ways of the early Internet days. "It's technology that rocks the boat," Peterson said. "It's a very empowering technology." In essence, Peterson straddles the commercial side of wireless networking technology and the growing free side, made up of communities of techies, from New York City to Houston to Seattle, building clusters of free networks. He moves between one and the other with an ease and maturity that belies his age. "He's much more mature than his age," Pozar said. "He's very astute and very good about processing data and coming up with interesting ideas. He's going to be amazing to watch in the next 20 to 40 years." Peterson's first brush with computers began in the sixth grade. That year, the school decided there wouldn't be a yearbook, so Peterson created his own and distributed it among his classmates. By the time he was a freshman at Hayward High School, he was teaching adults how to build Web pages and working at a small independent Internet service provider, Prado Internet Access. Still in high school, he landed a job at Acorn Product Development, a mechanical design and engineering analysis company in Fremont, where he was the company's sole information technology consultant with the task of revamping its computer systems. Before he graduated from high school, he had already entered the dotcom bubble, working the graveyard shift as a systems monitor at Critical Path, now one of the casualties of the dotcom bust. "I always thought of school as a joke," Peterson said one afternoon at a coffee shop that bears the technology he designed. His appearance now, with crew-cut hair and clean-cut, casual clothes, is that of a "20-something techie." He carries in his backpack a laptop plastered with stickers, which he immediately boots up and uses to illustrate his work. "I had the mentality not that 'I hate school,' but 'I know something that appears to make money.'" One summer while he was in high school, he accompanied his coworkers to Burning Man, a weeklong gathering in the Nevada desert. It was there that he built his first wireless network, the result of a need for the thousands of participants to communicate with each other in a place that doesn't have cell phone or pager access. Peterson, with the help of Tristan Horn and Chris Petrell, created a wireless network called PlayaNET, which they've since put together annually, allowing participants to connect to each other from their laptops or at computer booths located at different points in the desert community. It was a turning point for Peterson. Because of the interest that came out of PlayaNET, he decided to start the Bay Area Wireless Users Group. His work on PlayaNET caught the attention of Ehrlinspiel, who was looking for people to help launch Surf and Sip. The whirlwind of activity has sent him to speaking engagements across the globe, feeding his love of travel, but leaving little time or resources for pursuing a college degree, which he admits somewhat unnerves his mother, a vice principal in the Hayward school district. "At one point, I want to go to college," he said. "I don't know when and if it's going to happen. I'm just so busy with this wireless stuff. I don't know how long this industry will last. Will I be sucked into something else? I don't know. But it's really fun right now." NAME: Matt Peterson AGE: 21 RESIDENCE: Oakland OCCUPATION: Chief Architect, Surf and Sip; Founder, Bay Area Wireless Users Group EDUCATION: Hayward High School, Class of 2000 HOBBIES: Traveling, photography, documentary, multimedia WEB SITE: http://matt.peterson.org -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
