Like Casper the friendly ghost, wireless Internet service could be moving through walls and trees in as many as 100 Bermuda homes as soon as the middle of this month.

The service promised by local Internet service provider NorthRock Communications several months ago experienced delays as the equipment needed to effect the operations is still awaiting approval from US authorities.

"The Telecommunications Ministry require that all radio and cellular equipment brought into Bermuda must be FCC (Federal Communications Commission) approved,'' said Vicki Coelho, sales and marketing manager of NorthRock Communications.

"We are just waiting for the FCC approval for the radios and then we will be able to start our trials with about 100 households in Smith's and Devonshire,'' she said.

"It has slowed us down a bit but this product is brand new and so it will take a while to get to market,'' she added.

"We had a meeting yesterday morning and we are now aiming for the middle of December to have the equipment.'' The equipment needed is a computer modem quite different from the one installed in most computers.

According to Ms Coelho the units, purchased from manufacturer WaveRider, are state-of-the-art technology and are not being produced by any other company.

Although still awaiting safety approval in the US, the equivalent authority in Canada -- the Canadian Standards Association -- has already given the new Last Mile Solution equipment the green light.

"A pilot programme began several months ago in Alberta,'' said Ms Coelho.

NorthRock has already started testing the wireless service for business users with 20 buildings and 30 customers in Hamilton on board. The official launch of that programme is slated for the end of January.

But unlike the high speed business product (11 megabits per second), the residential product will operate in what the industry calls "non line of sight''. Simply put, this means that the signals will be able to move through dense materials like walls and trees.

While the cost of the home use service has still not been hammered out, Ms Coelho explained that it will have to be competitive with existing rates "or else there will be no incentive for people to switch over''.

One of the difficulties with trying to set a rate at the moment is that the cost of the units have not been finalised.

"We are looking at instituting a rent-to-own arrangement for the radio equipment,'' she said.

"We don't want any barrier of entry to the new service,'' she said, "and we will certainly help facilitate wide deployment of the service quickly.''