(FORTUNE Magazine) – I'm on a first-name basis with the tech guys at FORTUNE. Printer on the fritz? I call tech. Can't open an e-mail attachment? Call tech. Accidentally delete important program? Fiddle around a while. Blame computer. Call tech. Large companies have always been able to afford a tech team to be at their employees' beck and call--and now small businesses will be able to also, says Sheldon Laube, the CEO of CenterBeam, in Santa Clara, Calif. Companies with ten to 100 employees can soon buy top-grade computer networks (PCs, printers, high-speed data connections, Websites, and system backup), along with 24-hour technical support, for $165 per month per employee.

This all-in-one service sounds like a no-brainer, but no one else offers such a package. That's because it's only now possible, thanks to a confluence of events: PCs can be bought for less than $1,000; digital subscriber line (DSL) service, which transforms ordinary copper phone lines into high-speed data conduits, is becoming widely available; and Lucent unveiled a local wireless network antenna that plays a key role in CenterBeam's strategy.

How does all this come together? First, CenterBeam will send a DSL company (yet to be named) to install the high-speed data connection. Then it will ship a server and a wireless antenna, which, when placed in a central location in the office, covers a 150-foot radius. Plug in the computers and printers, and your network is connected to CenterBeam's, explains Laube. "We can remotely control and manage your machine," he says. That means CenterBeam can back up your files in case of disaster.

If anyone can put this all together, it's Laube, who has been around the high-tech business since 1969, when he founded a startup, Consultants in Computer Technology, as a junior at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. ("I couldn't get a summer job, so I started a company," says the energetic Laube, who grew up in the Bronx.) Following stints at Price Waterhouse and Novell, Laube co-founded USWeb, an e-consulting firm, in 1995. He left his post there in August but is still tied to the company. In fact, newly merged USWeb/CKS, along with Microsoft and a couple of venture capital firms, gave Laube's startup $20 million in financing.

CenterBeam will begin offering its services this fall in California, then nationally next spring. Its biggest challenge will be marketing to the 1.5 million small businesses it has targeted, says Ray Boggs, a small-business research analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. "Others have tried doing this in pieces, selling parts of the network and parts of the service," Boggs says. "With this approach, if something goes wrong, there's only one throat to choke." Laube doesn't seem worried about its being his own.

--Julie Creswell