Due to the global credit crunch, public companies are having a tough time
raising money to fund ongoing product research and development. But
privately held Aperto recently closed another round of financing from existing
venture capital investors, providing them adequate growth capital for the year.
"It’s a great time to be a private company operating in the WiMAX space," says
Aperto Network’s CEO Brian Deutsch.
Operating in fixed and nomadic WiMAX configurations, using either 802.16d (2004)
or 802.16e (2005), the company is targeting 40% growth in annual revenues for
2009. Quite an impressive feat in this severe global recession.
WiMAX Market Position:
Aperto claims to be especially strong in Africa, the Middle East, and central
Asia. Countries in those regions have broadband infrastructure needs and
the money to spend on it – in many cases through direct government investments
in network operator projects.
The company has been successful in the 3.65MHz lightly licensed band in the
U.S., selling fixed WiMAX equipment to Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs)
and government agencies/ municipalities. They see a potential new market
in homeland security, but couldn’t comment because the information is
classified.
Aperto also briefed me on two interesting WiMAX multi-service applications with
the Ministry of Interior in Egypt and incumbent carrier OTE in Greece.
(Those success stories will be the subject of a later article.)
Aperto’s mission is to "build efficacious (carrier grade WiMAX) technology to
serve the connectivity needs of the masses in countries that do not have
broadband wireline infrastructure", says Deutsch.
WiMAX Competition:
Aperto competes with Redline, Airspan, and Alvarion as pure-play WiMAX equipment
companies. The larger "tier 1" equipment vendors, include Motorola,
Samsung. Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, and ZTE and tend to pursue larger telco
contracts. These companies also plan to develop LTE equipment as well.
Cisco, which entered the WiMAX business through the purchase of Navini, sells
WiMAX units as part of a system package sale to wireless carriers, so are not
included in these groups according to Deutsch.
Deutsch ticked off the following competitive advantages for Aperto Networks:
1. Spectrum flexibility: their WiMAX equipment operates at many
frequencies (802.16d gear at 3.3MHz, 3.5MHz, 5.8MHz; 802.16e gear in trials at
2.5GHz). They are selling 5.8MHz in India, Africa, U.K., Spain, Egypt, and
Poland. Mostly for access, but backhaul in some cases.
2. Extremely reliable carrier grade equipment along with an in house
developed Element Management System.
3. Great pre and post sales engineering support, which enables customers
to build and maintain successful WiMAX networks.
4. Cost effective, multi-band customer premises equipment (combination
modem/radio for outdoor use) and gateways.
Note: Aperto management and this author firmly believe that the largest
potential market for WiMAX is fixed and nomadic use (vs. true mobility) in
developing countries.
In coming weeks, we plan to bring you follow on articles on Aperto’s position in
the 3.65MHz Lightly Licensed Spectrum in the U.S. and the two applications
we referred to earlier (Egypt and Greece).
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