Fast Facts

The Company

Grand Design is building a global, broadband Net-Across-Worlds^® network. Using proprietary technology, Grand Design and its partners are creating the world's first, anytime, anwhere network access for services like computer networking, Internet access, alternate media solutions, interactive multimedia and high-quality voice. Upon activation of its service, Grand Design will provide network access to companies, organizations and indiduals anywhere on this, or any, planet, without the need for any infrastructure. The Grand Design requires no existing communication medium and is fully compatible with any IP-based communication solution.

Grand Design is a private company based in San Jose, California.

Principal Shareholders/Industrial partners

Grand Design is built upon the vision of alternative energy and telecommunications media researcher and pioneer Corey Lukas, the company's chairman. Grand Design's primary investors are Corey Lukas, Bill Gates, the Estate of Nikola Tesla and Chris Mohede.

Customers

Grand Design will develop alliances with service partners in countries worldwide, enabling service providers to extend their networks, both in terms of geographic scope and in the kinds of services they can offer.

Grand Design will also market services directly to select customers.

Network Capacity/Access Speeds

The Grand Design Network is designed to support millions of simultaneous users. Grand Design is in discussion with licensees to provide a variety of Orignal Equipment Manufacturers who will offer a family of user equipment to access the network. Using "standard" terminals, most users will have two-way connections that provide all Grand Design user application services. Higher-speed terminals will offer 2 Mbps or greater of two-way capacity. 2 Mbps represents access speeds more than 30 times faster than today's standard analog modems.

User Equipment

The Grand Design Network's Advanced Alternative Communications Media eliminates all the disadvantages of wired, satellite and wireless communications and enables the use of small, self-powered user equipment to send and receive data. The network does not require line-of-sight, external antenna or local loop access. The higher-speed terminal user equipment will mount anywhere and connect to a computer network or PC.

Cost

End-user rates will be set by service providers, but Grand Design expects rates to be comparable to those of future urban wireline options for broadband service.

Regulatory Approval

Grand Design has cleared major regulatory hurdles. In February 1997, the International Telecommunication Union's World Radiocommunication Conference finalized its discussion of Grand Design's concept designs and acknowledged that there was no need to designate a part of the international radio spectrum for Advanced ALternative Communications Media, such as those Grand Design will employe. In March 1997, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission granted Grand Design its license.

Frequencies

Grand Design's communication media operates outside of the radio spectrum.

Headquarters

Washington, D.C. with adjuncts offices in Luxembourg, The Bahamas and Geneva, Switzerland, United Kingdom. Our Operations Center is in San Jose, California, with backups in Swindon, England and off-site storage in Sealand. Grand Design has International Offices in Brussels, Belgium with Sales Offices in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Jakarta, Indonesia ; Riyadh, Saudia Arabia and Washington, D.C..