Mr. Shalvoy: Conductus was founded in 1987, the year after high- temperature superconductors were discovered and as you remember, this was a major scientific discovery that opened up many potential applications in a number of different industries. For the first five years of Conductus' life, we were an R&D company, basically taking this new technology from the laboratory and making the first working devices. The next four years were spent in what I would call, the 'applications development phase' or the search for the killer application. By 1997 we had narrowed that down to the wireless communications market. It looked like far and away the largest potential market and it also seemed that there were some real limitations that conventional technology would have in terms of keeping up with new generations of wireless. Since 1997, we've been totally focused on developing products for the wireless communications market.
TWST: That market is enormous.
Mr. Shalvoy: It's enormous and growing larger all the time. For example,
in the US there are now over 110 million wireless subscribers and that
is forecasted to grow to 220 million wireless subscribers by 2005. At
the same time, as the number of subscribers doubles during that period
of time, the traffic on these wireless networks will go up 4 to 5 times
because each subscriber is using their phone for more minutes of use
every day.
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