Article Excerpt:
TWST: What is GigaBeam?Mr. Slaughter: GigaBeam is a point-to-point wireless company. We sell hardware that facilitates point-to-point communications. I was personally involved in pioneering new spectrum in the E-band frequencies, opening up 71 to 76 and 81 to 86 and 92 to 95 GHz. I petitioned the FCC for rule making in the 70 and 80 GHz blocks, and the FCC subsequently granted rules for all three blocks within this E-band spectrum. These blocks of spectrum collectively represent 13 gigahertz, which is 13,000 megahertz for point-to-point communications. To date, point-to-point wireless communications have only had access to limited blocks of spectrum - some 30 megahertz of spectrum - for communications. Because the spectrum was limited, it was not possible to communicate at very high speeds with licensed spectrum. By opening up 13,000 megahertz as opposed to 30 megahertz, we now enable communications at multi-gigabit speeds. In fact, our first product, which we launched last year, communicates at a gigabit per second (full duplex), which is equivalent to 647 T1 lines or 1,000 DSL lines. In this current quarter, we are launching a product that operates at twice that speed - 2.5 gigabits per second. This same product will also accommodate 2 x GigE, one gig fiber channel, two gig fiber channel, and SMPT 292 (streaming high-definition TV) protocols. Next year, we plan to launch 10 gigabits per second, which will be 10 GigE or OC-192 protocols. With our products we can now enable wireless communications, previously only possible with terrestrial fiber, now at the speed of fiber in the air, hence the name of our product - WiFiber.
TWST: Give us an idea of what the current customer base looks like. Who
have you targeted as the potential client? Where do you see your customer base
going at this point?
Mr. Slaughter: Our customer base is split between the international and
national markets. We believe the international market is 3 to 5 times bigger
than the US market. Within the US, our customer base currently includes cities,
universities, the government and enterprises. That's our target market, and we
sell through resellers, integrators, and carriers. We are going to market by
leveraging channels, which includes carriers. Internationally, we sell through
agents and distributors, and our customer base is essentially the same customer
base as we have here in the United States.
Tickers included in this excerpt: GGBM
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