What went wrong at Ricochet

Ricochet, which offered mobile wireless Internet access at 128 kb/s, had its plug pulled in August 2001 after its owner, Metricom Inc., in San Jose, Calif., spent a US $1.1 billion investment pool building and upgrading the service in 21 U.S. metropolitan areas at a furious pace. The author discusses whether the high-speed mobile access service was ahead of its time, or merely ahead of its marketing?.