,,,,,,,WBSK .0052 Round 2 (NEWS) WebSky, Inc. and Argentinean Partner to Launch Initial Project in Buenos Aires Province This Month
Wednesday February 2, 9:01 am ET
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 2005--WebSky, Inc. (Pink Sheets:WBSK - News) announced today that its joint venture wireless broadband project in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina will begin revenue operations prior to the end of February, 2005. The necessary agreements and orders to assure that launch are being executed today in San Francisco and Buenos Aires. Under the terms of the frequency license agreement of its Argentine partner, commencement of revenue service is required to occur before March 5, 2005, and with today's announcement WebSky and its local partner confirm that the required time frame for deployment will be met.
Initially, wireless, broadband, non-line-of-sight services will be offered to business and residential customers in the city of La Plata, the capital of the Province of Buenos Aires, some 35 miles southeast of downtown Buenos Aires. Shortly after the launch of the initial service in La Plata, it will be expanded to cover all of that city using the most advanced wireless systems currently available. Thereafter, the joint venture will, over the next twenty-four months, expand its service area to cover the entire Province of Buenos Aires and beyond, covering more than 16 million people and the vast majority of Argentina's business, government, and educational sectors.
La Plata is a significant and an attractive market for wireless broadband service in its own right. It is the fifth largest metropolitan area in Argentina, with a population in excess of 675,000. The site of a major university and the nation's principal port and duty free zone, La Plata also has a large number of provincial governmental offices and is a prosperous, progressive, and modern city. The joint venture selected La Plata as the site of its initial operations because the city fit all the criteria WebSky has set up for its international expansion including: (1) it is a market underserved by pre-existing broadband providers, (2) the basic infrastructure to allow connectivity to the internet backbone is already in existence, and (3) there is significant pent up demand for broadband services together with positive demographics. As in all emerging markets in which WebSky is developing wireless broadband projects, Argentina's relatively underdeveloped wireline telecommunications system leaves the country with no other alternative for deploying a high speed broadband network than next generation wireless systems.
"We are very pleased to be able to confirm that the joint venture will be launching its initial operations in La Plata on schedule, later this month," noted Douglas Haffer, President and Chief Executive Officer of WebSky. "The potential for WebSky in the greater Buenos Aires market is enormous and it is appropriate that this market will be the first one commercially launched by WebSky," he concluded.
As previously reported, WebSky expects that within three years, and based upon current schedules for construction and deployment, annual revenue for the Buenos Aires market alone will exceed $US40 million.
About WebSky, Inc.
WebSky, Inc. is a San Francisco based company that currently controls licensed radio frequencies in the MMDS-band -- 2.5GHz to 2.7GHz -- in seven small and medium sized cities in the United States in Key West, Florida; Ukiah, California; La Crosse, Wisconsin; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Hilo, Hawaii; Aspen, Colorado; and Vail Colorado. The Company will be constructing high speed, wireless broadband Internet systems. In addition, WebSky has entered into agreements with local telecommunications companies in India, Thailand, and Indonesia, to developed wireless broadband systems in those countries.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Action of 1995: The statements contained in this release, which are not historical, are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Those risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, certain delays beyond the company's control with respect to market acceptance of new technologies and products, delays in testing and evaluation of products, and other risks associated with the industry in which the Company operates. |
