Interview:
George P. Roberts, Founder, P-Com Inc.
archive.twst.com
P-COM CEO sees opportunities in the point to
multi-point market segment
GEORGE P. ROBERTS is CEO of P-COM, Inc.
"TWST: Could you provide us with a background or
historical summary of P-COM?
Mr. Roberts: I founded the company in late 1991, for the
express purpose of providing high-quality, digital, millimeter
wave radios for wireless carriers. Since that time we have expanded our basic
mission to include not only what we call point to point, but point to multi-point
products, as well as services that go along with providing that equipment to
customers. The company was successful very early and reached significant revenue
levels within two years. We went public about three years after founding, and we've
been continuing to build our business since. The Asian financial crisis in 1998
affected our market drastically. We were faced with a situation in which there was a
large inventory of equipment in our competitors' warehouses that was built for the
Asian market that had collapsed. Delays and pricing pressures were introduced into
our customer base by our competition attempting to reduce their inventories and
establish themselves outside Asia. The situation has now improved and today we
feel like we're in a very good market. The wireless market is big and is expanding in
Asia also. We're well positioned to address the needs of the customers that use this
type of equipment whether it be for mobile or fixed applications. Customers that
have either or both of these applications need our type of wireless equipment to
continue to expand their networks. The market is apparently coming back strong
after the problems that we experienced with the Asian crisis.
TWST: What's on the agenda for the next 12 to 24 months? What events in
that time frame make that period a success?
Mr. Roberts: A very exciting part of this business is the point to multi-point market
segment. This product opens up a whole new set of customers for P-COM. The
point to point product is a dedicated service to a customer that has large enough
traffic requirements to cost justify a dedicated link. The point to multi-point is a
shared service. A major node is built that we call a hub and, we have remote units
that are installed in many different customers locations. Each one of these remote
installations share the capacity of the main hub. The customers that we sell to can
provide services to their customers at a much lower price than they could if it was
dedicated service, since all customers share the hub capacity on a demand basis.
Many people have studied this market and given their conclusions as to how big
they think it is. According to these studies, the market size varies from something
like 4 billion to 14 billion over the next few years. The point to multi-point market is
very exciting and I believe that the wireless sector, in general, is just as exciting.
Everybody is touting the advantages of going wireless and our product line allows a
user to participate on a dedicated or shared basis. Wireless allows a service
provider to go into developing countries, where there is not a good wired
infrastructure and replace the wired infrastructure. They can go wireless much
quicker, with less capital. The network can be built as the customers come instead
of having a wired infrastructure, which is built in advance and hopefully, somebody
comes to use it. There are a lot of other advantages to wireless and that's what
makes this such an exciting business. P-COM is a wireless company and the point
to multi-point wireless is opening up a completely new set of customers for us. The
basic business, the point-to point business is still robust; still growing well, but point
to multi-point gives us an added dimension." |
