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

To: r.edwards who wrote (904)	11/2/1999 1:24:00 PM
From: ManKind	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16863

Here is an article I dug up on WI-LAN. Sorry if it was posted before. It is somewhat enlightening in that it takes away much of the techno-info. Hope this will help some of us to understand the technology. August 1998 Issue, copyright 1998, Canada Computer Paper Inc. Wi-Lan's future in spread spectrum By Geof Wheelwright Some things in life just make plain good sense together: apple pie and ice cream, steak and potatoes-or how about wireless communications and Internet access? One company that is enjoying real commercial success in bringing datacommunications and wireless technologies together is Calgary-based Wi-Lan Inc. Its goal is to use "spread spectrum" technology to enable a whole range of wireless data communications applications including high-speed wireless Internet access. The beauty of spread spectrum is that it allows a radio signal containing data to be spread over a frequency range greater than the minimum bandwidth used for radio-based data transfer applications. This minimizes interference that may exist at any specific frequency and increases the level of security of the data transmission (because the data is not tied to transmission at any single frequency). The company also claims staggering potential data transfer speeds of up to 20 Mbits per second in some applications, making it far faster than any land line-based Internet connection currently available. Wi-Lan was founded in 1991 by former Alberta Government Telephones (AGT, now known as Telus) Ltd. researcher Dr. Hatim Zaghloul and University of Calgary associate professor Dr. Michel Fattouche. So far, the company's technology has moved it into an intriguing number of areas, starting in 1995 with the release of its Hopper DS wireless modem. The Hopper allowed customers such as Saskatchewan-based oil and gas producer, Wascana Energy, to remotely monitor oil well sites in distant locations. Wi-Lan has used similar technology to provide wireless "Ethernet bridges" to connect networks without spending a lot of money on cabling infrastructure. This solution was used by the Medicine Hat school district in southeastern Alberta to create a wireless wide area network (WAN) that could be used to connect its 15 schools, a library, several administrative buildings and 1,500 computers-and give them all access to the Internet. And in June of this year, the company announced that it had signed a contract with Tele2 U.K. Ltd. (a subsidiary of the multinational Millicom International Cellular S.A.) to supply a "wireless local loop" system for a national wireless data network in the United Kingdom. The goal will be to offer high speed Internet access and intranet services to small- and medium-sized businesses and telecommuting employees, starting in the well-heeled Thames Valley area outside London. The companies have promised that the service will offer connection speeds at up to 2 Mbits per second (about 15 times faster than is currently possible over the ISDN high-speed land lines available from British Telecom) and will become available in limited areas starting next year, with the capacity to reach 60 percent of the United Kingdom by 2003. According to Zaghloul, who is currently president and chief executive officer of Wi-Lan, all of these opportunities began with a realization in the early 1990s that data transmission over phone lines was going to be a huge opportunity, whether those phone lines were wireless or land line-based. He says, for example, that while data traffic on land lines went from being negligible in 1970 to 10 percent of the market by 1991, it only took another six years-until 1997-for data traffic to exceed voice traffic on land lines. He suggests that within a few years, data traffic could be as high as 95 percent of the volume on land lines (although he agrees that some confusion is likely as Internet telephony could be classed as data traffic even though it is carrying voice digitally). Zaghloul says the contract in the U.K., plus other foreign deals in the United States and potentially in China, should ensure that Wi-Lan is not a "one-deal company" and that its technology is both popular enough and powerful enough to make a real long-term impact on the wireless data market. As part of its growth, the company recently went public, although Zaghloul says he does not worry about he and his co-founder losing control of it at this point since they still hold 30 percent of it. "It is a significant deterrent [to any potential hostile takeover] as we are not as widely held as being public suggests," Zaghloul says. "Having said that, everything is for sale at the right price." He says his main objectives are to build and diversify the company. WiLan runs several subsidiary operations, including Calgary-based Cell-loc, which produces cell location systems for mobile telephone companies that need to comply with recent U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that require them to be able to pinpoint a cell phone call to within 125 sq.m of its origin. In addition, Wi-Lan has a stake in California-based Wireless Inc., which develops and produces wireless telephony products using Wi-Lan's technology platforms. One other investment Wi-Lan made recently was in acquiring the original patent rights for spread spectrum technology. And the acquisition comes from an unexpected quarter-film legend Hedy Lamarr, who co-developed a technology in 1942 that became known in wartime as the "Secret Communications System" and for which Lamarr has received little credit. Zaghloul, who has been a fan of the screen legend since boyhood, announced in late June the deal to acquire her patent rights and promote her role as a telecommunications pioneer. It's a story that could have been made in Hollywood.