WaveRider expands business through development agreement with Wavesat

Toronto-based WaveRider Communications Inc. is expanding its broadband wireless equipment product line through an agreement with chipmaker Wavesat Wireless Inc. A representative for WaveRider says that not only does the agreement allow the company to expand the breadth of its gear, but it also opens the door to the lucrative Latin American and Asia Pacific markets. Under the terms of the deal, WaveRider will use Wavesat’s 802.16, referred to as WiMAX, chipsets as the basis for its WiMAX-certified equipment. The company, to date, has been primarily focused on building and selling 900 MHz non-line-of-sight wireless access gear. WaveRider has enjoyed considerable success in the service provider market, mostly in the United States, posting revenue of US$13 million last year, a jump of 45% over fiscal year 2002 revenue of US$9 million. Jim Chinnick, VP of engineering at WaveRider, tells Report on Wireless that if the company is to offer its customers the capabilities that WiMAX promises and break into new international markets, it has to look to equipment operating in other bands. The WiMAX Forum isn’t currently looking at adapting WiMAX for the 900 MHz band, and WaveRider will now develop its own line of 3.5 GHz and 5.8 GHz WiMAX certified equipment, which gives it that global selling capability. About 75% of the company’s revenue is generated from U.S. customers, and the company is eyeing the Latin American and Asia Pacific markets. "For us, one of the advantages of the WiMAX initiative is we see it providing stimulus to the licensed (3.5 GHz) and the 5.8 GHz unlicensed business - and that’s an international business. This helps us a lot in trying to build out market presence in other markets and in some of these markets we’ve been able to build a small presence with 900 MHz gear, but there’s so many restrictions on 900 MHz that we really haven’t been able to make it big. So these other opportunities that WiMAX will bring to the table should help us quite a bit," says Chinnick. But the company isn’t giving up on the 900 MHz band, and part of its relationship with Wavesat will be to find ways to offer WiMAX-like capabilities with its 900 MHz gear, says Chinnick. "The question is, how do we evolve our 900 MHz product for all of our current customers to give them at least a whole lot of advantages of the new technologies that WiMAX and 802.16 brings to the table even if we can’t really formally join the WiMAX certification effort because it won’t be available? "What we’re doing is basically developing 900 MHz products that are based on OFDM and high-level modulation and brings the enhanced services and all of those capabilities and hopefully takes advantage of integration and low cost." The company has decided to not divulge its product release schedule at this time, and Chinnick says WaveRider will only do so when it makes sense from marketing and competitive points of view. Chinnick says there are a number of reasons why WaveRider chose Wavesat over other larger higher profile players. First of all, the two companies have had an ongoing dialogue for more than two years and secondly "they fit our model of a supplier," he adds. But more importantly, Wavesat offers a development kit that allows WaveRider to test with its equipment. "We can look at how we’re going to interface with (Wavesat’s chip), what we have to do. We can test our interfaces to that development kit, while they continue to complete the integrated circuit," says Chinnick.

WaveRider expands business through development agreement with Wavesat

News | June 11, 2004

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