Today, the Salt Lake City-based startup has emerged as a global leader in providing wired and wireless broadband service to corporate road warriors. The privately held STSN's fortunes have been electric, crackling from a paltry $51,000 in first-year revenues to a record $92 million for fiscal 2004 - up roughly 50 percent from 2003's $61 million.

The company, renamed in April to iBAHN, moved this week into new corporate headquarters, at 25,000 square feet finally large enough to house operations previously spread over four different buildings in the Salt Lake Valley.

"It's a wonderful time for our company, but also challenging," says Chief Operating Officer Gregg Hodges. "This will not only allow most of our people to be under one roof, but increase efficiency. . . .

"Sitting across the hallway gives more of a feeling of camaraderie than being in completely different buildings," he adds.

Wireless Internet access points, or "Wi-Fi hot spots" are increasingly common in public places. Book stores, coffee shops, fast food outlets - even some automobile repair shops - are setting up access to lure laptop- and PDA-toting customers.

But iBAHN's hot spots are aimed at hotel clientele, and marketed as offering security akin to corporate wired networks. That difference has rewritten, always higher, the company's bottom line: By the end of 2004, iBAHN topped 16.5 million connections on its own, dedicated network - a 135 percent increase over 2003.

Reflecting its financial and customer growth, iBAHN increased its global work force to 300 over the past year. More hiring is expected as the company's fortunes continue to climb.

"Our industry has changed so much," Hodges says. "Two and a half years ago, hotels were saying high-speed Internet access was nice to have. In today's world, they see it as a 'must have.' "

And iBAHN is finding new customers outside its original target business class clientele. Leisure travelers, expecting to emulate the quality of Internet services they have at home, and a new, growing segment of telecommuting customers are using iBAHN's products.

Hodges says demand for wireless Internet on the road has increased five-fold since January 2004. "We have more than 1 million secure connections every month now. That's a 500 percent hike in actual usage for our business," he says.

Analysts are high on the wireless Internet business model, too.

"Wi-Fi properties have become a lot more attractive in recent years and [iBAHN] is certainly one of the most successful 'hot spot' providers," says Craig Mathias, founder of the tech-consulting oriented Farpoint Group.

"On a global basis, there's really nothing that can stop" development and growth of high-speed wireless services, he adds. "I'm very bullish on the whole public access and hot spots thing in general."

iBAHN, with more than 2,100 hotels and conference centers worldwide connected to its services, intends to stay atop the crest of that wave.

"We've always had a concise, clear strategic mission to be the industry leader in the hospitality industry," Hodges says. "We will continue that, even as we look at other avenues for our business."

bmims@sltrib.com

Getting connected

iBAHN, until April known as STSN, provides high-speed Internet access to more than 270,000 guest rooms and hotel meeting rooms in more than 2,100 hotels worldwide.

Headquartered in South Jordan, iBAHN also maintains a European headquarters in Berkshire, Britain. The company also has numerous branch offices throughout North America and Europe.