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Technology Stocks : Wi-LAN Inc. (T.WIN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hx4 who wrote (835)	10/29/1999 7:54:00 AM
From: SurfForWealth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16863

From todays Globe & Mail. Cheers!!! Wi-Lan stock soars in first day on TSE Endorsement of technology by big players helped push shares to $16.70 high, analysts say TYLER HAMILTON Technology Reporter Friday, October 29, 1999 Wi-Lan Inc.'s stock soared 11 per cent yesterday on the wireless equipment maker's first day on the Toronto Stock Exchange, but analysts say its share price is getting an added boost from recent endorsements of its technology. The Calgary-based company's stock rose $1.70 to a record high of $16.70. The stock has tripled during the past four months on the Alberta Stock Exchange. Barry Richards, an analyst with Sprott Securities Ltd. in Toronto, said the long-awaited TSE listing is creating some excitement among investors -- particularly retail investors. But he added that institutional investors likely are paying more attention to recent and upcoming licencing contracts, as well as endorsements of Wi-Lan's wireless technology from big industry players such as Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., and Motorola Inc. of Schaumburg, Ill. "There are some things going on behind the scenes here, where if you're looking hard enough you're seeing all kinds of endorsements of this company's technology," Mr. Richards said. Wi-Lan has a U.S. patent on wide-band orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (W-OFDM) technology, which significantly increases the capacity and speed of wireless networks. Cisco, a dominant maker of equipment for data networks and the Internet, said on Tuesday that it has joined 10 leading high-tech firms -- including Motorola and Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc. -- to come up with a standard for high-capacity wireless Internet services. Cisco said the group will work to create a standard based on a variation of OFDM, a move that puts Wi-Lan in a good position, Mr. Richards said. Wi-Lan was even mentioned in an August white paper on broadband wireless technologies released by Dell Computer Corp. of Round Rock, Tex. "Six months ago, nobody had ever heard of OFDM," Mr. Richards said. "Now we see Wi-Lan quoted on Dell's Web site." He said it wouldn't be "unrealistic" to see Wi-Lan reach some sort of future licencing agreement with Cisco and Motorola, similar to the deal it struck in September with Netherlands-based Philips Electronic NV. Under the Philips deal, Wi-Lan's W-OFDM technology is expected to be built into a set-top box microchip that could transmit data wirelessly to a number of multimedia devices within a home. Wi-Lan is also hoping for a big contract from Tele2 U.K., a subsidiary of British cellphone giant Millicom International Cellular SA, which is building a high-speed wireless data network throughout Britain. The Calgary firm is up against an Israeli company for the lion's share of that $150-million, multiyear contract. Analyst Robert Millham of Research Capital Corp. in Vancouver said investors may have to wait a while for the Tele2 deal to come through. "Tele2 is rolling out its network a lot slower than anticipated," he said. Wi-Lan filed an intellectual property statement this month to the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is working to create a standard for the next generation of wireless communications, 3G. Wi-Lan claimed that the ITU's proposed standard would be based on the company's patented multicode direct sequence spread spectrum (MCDSSS) technology. It said it would consider licencing the technology to any interested party on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." If the ITU takes Wi-Lan's claim seriously, Mr. Millham said, the licence revenue potential would be huge.