Posted: 26th Feb, 2008 By: MarkJ
MLL Telecom and Digiweb, which won several wireless broadband licenses from
Ofcom during last weeks spectrum auction (
original news), have now revealed the first details of their expansion plans. Dundalk-based Digiweb will initially rollout a metro wireless broadband service to Northern Ireland before expanding into the rest of the UK.
Services are planned to be live in all cities and main towns of Northern Ireland by October of this year, coordinated from new regional offices, and expanding throughout the UK over the next five years. Digiwebs flagship service, Metro, will provide a combined wireless service with regular phone and a broadband connection up to 12Mbps, without the customer needing a fixed landline or dsl-enabled local exchange.
Meanwhile Buckinghamshire-based MLL Telecom is being more coy with its plans but will use the spectrum to support its core business of providing carrier-grade wireless backhaul, point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connectivity:
Rick Hudson, CEO of MLL Telecom, said: "
This auction was very well organised by Ofcom. The calibre of companies participating was extremely high reflecting the importance of this spectrum to operators and service providers. Having our own spectrum will enable us to provide a guaranteed wireless service anywhere in the UK, and will serve to support the anticipated explosion of wireless backhaul requirements in line with 3G, 4G, LTE and WiMAX developments.
Moreover, we feel that the auction process resulted in a very meaningful distribution of licences to some very committed and active providers of UK-based wireless services. Given the prices paid for such attractive and versatile spectrum bands, we can look forward to an exciting period of innovation and expansion in the provision of both wide-area and first mile wireless services here in the UK."
It will be extremely interesting to see whether either provider is able to launch wireless broadband services capable of undercutting land-line based equivilants. However from the sounds of things they may be more interested in focusing on niche markets rather than go up against more established players.