WiMAX base-station and subscriber unit developer Aperto Networks Inc. inked a deal to ship its WiMAX Forum-certified products to Alvacom, a leading systems integrator and equipment reseller in Russia. The contract underscores that regions outside the United States and Europe likely will be first to deploy WiMAX services.
Indeed, Alvacom has lined up several Russian service providers to take part in pilot projects and trials during the next three months aiming to cover different end-user and vertical market segments as well as differing geographic areas, such as dense metropolitan areas and places there is no cable or fiber infrastructure.
Infoseti, a Russian Internet service provider, plans to trial Aperto’s WiMAX Forum-certified PacketMAX solution in Moscow. Infoseti already has deployed Aperto’s PacketWAVE solution-the company’s proprietary precursor to its certified solution. Infoseti said it has amassed a business user base of more than 1,000 enterprises by delivering a variety of 5.8 GHz high-speed wireless data transmission services, Internet access, Wi-Fi networking, VPNs, videoconferencing and Voice over Internet Protocol features.
Aperto’s Manish Gupta, vice president of marketing and alliances, said Aperto has taken part in trials in several countries, including Brazil, India, Indonesia and Spain. Gupta said he believes privately held Aperto will fill a significant amount of orders for its WiMAX equipment in the next several months as service providers in emerging markets look to connect the unconnected. The world’s largest markets, China and India, won’t be among the first customers for WiMAX networks, Gupta noted, but said he thinks WiMAX will be mainstream in time for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. India also should see an incredible amount of WiMAX deployments once that country works out its spectrum allocation policies, he ventured.
Cost is a major factor impacting network development in emerging markets, as areas that need coverage tend to be either densely populated urban centers or vast, sparsely populated rural landscapes, both of which are expensive to cover with cellular service.
However, Gupta noted that certification of WiMAX equipment has brought prices down. “Until certification, the economics never made sense,” Gupta commented.
“We don’t believe that mobile WiMAX is the primary use of WiMAX in the marketplace,” Gupta said. “We see fixed WiMAX as an alternative to DSL, for which 802.16d technology is sufficient. We’ve gone to market with 802.16d, and when operators can decide to upgrade to 802.16e, they can do so by installing an 802.16e card, and they won’t have to replace any equipment.”
However, when service providers are ready to upgrade to mobile WiMAX, Gupta explained that Aperto’s base stations, equipped with Intel Corp. chips, can be outfitted with cards that upgrade the units to 802.16e functionality.
Gupta acknowledged that Aperto’s success with WiMAX contracts will undoubtedly bring about merger-and-acquisition chatter, but he also said that the startup firm could choose to go public. Aperto has raised more than $120 million in corporate and venture capital funds during multiple rounds of financing, which began in 1999. Though the company has yet to post a profit, Gupta said he expects the company to do so next year.
