AirBand dusts off BWA expansion plans

Southwest broadband wireless access provider AirBand announced today it has acquired the fixed wireless assets of Baltimore ISP Accelacom, marking the company's return to the East Coast after scaling down its operations during the economic downturn.

AirBand officials said the acquisition was the beginning of an expansion drive where it would seek to build out its footprint from its current three markets in Phoenix, Dallas and Houston to a larger multi-regional footprint. AirBand Vice President of Marketing Lisa Kolczun said AirBand is currently negotiating a $15 to $20 million funding round, and its rate of expansion would be determined by the amount of capital it raises. Currently AirBand is projecting it can add two markets a year, Kolczun said.

"We're looking very closely at markets we want to move into," Kolczun said. "If there are strong wireless carriers in those markets, we would look into a possible acquisition like with Accelacom." If there are greenfield opportunities, AirBand may deploy its own infrastructure, Kolczun said. "We have a very aggressive strategy right now."

Since the broadband wireless industry tanked at the beginning of the decade, broadband wireless providers like AirBand, TowerStream and NextWeb have been slowly emerging from the rubble, offering much more conservative business plans and expansion strategies than their ambitious though failed predecessors Teligent and Winstar. In 2002, AirBand was deploying in 10 markets, but as the capital markets headed south, the carrier scaled back its plans to its original three southwestern markets. With those three markets profitable and renewed capital interest, the ISP is finally ready to look into expansion again, Kolczun said.

AirBand runs a combination of wireline and wireless services, using Axxcelera Broadband Wireless point-to-multipoint gear in the 5.8 GHz frequencies to deliver broadband data to customers and T-1s or fiber to provide VoIP. Both access technologies back up each other--VoIP routing over wireless if the T-1 fails and data routing over wireline if the wireless link fails. Currently AirBand has 1500 business and enterprise customers in its three-market footprint, making it one of the largest BWA providers still operating.

Accelacom runs a fixed wireless data network in Baltimore using Alvarion gear, but currently has no voice service. Kolczun said AirBand plans to introduce its wireline voice product into the Baltimore market, but will keep the Alvarion gear in place. "It's always good to have multiple vendors," she said. She added that AirBand will work with both Alvarion and Axxcelera in WiMax and expects to have trials of the gear launched in the fourth quarter with a possible commercial launch in the second or third quarter of 2006. AirBand is counting on WiMax to help it transition its voice service to wireless, cutting its dependence on the incumbent access network.

"VoIP is a huge market for application for us," Kolczun said. "It gives us a much bigger addressable market, but we can't deliver VoIP reliably on wireless yet. WiMax hopefully will have the quality of service necessary to deliver VoIP."