On-Communications acquires RedKite fixed wireless access Infrastructure
Monday, December 10th, 2007On-Communications buys FWA infrastructure assets from CI-Net‘s RedKite FWA service in London and Oxford, and will provide wholesale FWA services.
On-Communications and CI-Net today announced that they had struck a new business relationship for the provision of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) high speed broadband in the UK.
On-Communications, the UK’s leading FWA service provider, has bought the RedKite network FWA assets from CI-Net, a leading UK wide area networking services provider. Moving forwards, On-Communications will provide CI-Net with wholesale FWA services, not only from the RedKite assets it has acquired, but also from the rest of its fast growing UK FWA network.
Ian Roberts, the Chief Executive, On-Communications, commented:
“The industry is reaching a tipping point. Demand for FWA broadband connectivity is growing fast and there are a number of developments running in parallel that are going to move FWA into mainstream consciousness. But building a successful, carrier class FWA service is non- trivial, both in terms of capital requirements and expertise. Fortunately, it is exactly what we do.
“We have the right team, the right partners, the right technology and the right model and are already talking to other FWA operators in the UK. From the outset, we planned to build capacity fast as FWA is a network infrastructure that rewards scale. CI-Net’s FWA assets further extend our market leading network, while providing revenues from delivering wholesale services. Expect more such announcements soon.
“We look forward to providing CI-Net and its customers access to the UK’s leading FWA network.”
Graham McLean, Managing Director, CI-NET, explained:
“When we launched RedKite 2 years ago we recognised that there is need in the Wide Area Network and Internet access markets for an alternative to fibre connectivity. Since the launch, RedKite has proved to be a very successful differentiator as it is competitively priced, fast to deploy and offers diverse routing when combined with traditional wired services to offer true resiliency. RedKite is now an integral part of our WAN solutions. CI-Net’s core competence is in providing secure, resilient networks and managed services to UK businesses. We recognised that in order to expand RedKite CI-Net needed a partner that was focussed on building a UK wide wholesale FWA network. On-Communications was the obvious choice of partner, both to buy the RedKite network assets and to provide wholesale network access moving forward.
“Our existing FWA customers will notice no change in their current arrangements. We will continue as before, providing all the customer facing elements, only in the background, the connectivity will be provided via our wholesale services agreement with On-Communications.
“We have worked with the company for some time on a reciprocal access basis, so it was an easy decision. On-Communications has the funding, specialist processes, dedicated engineering deployment and support capability to rapidly expand its network and to drive innovation in the sector.
”In addition to our core bespoke customised WAN services, we will continue to deliver FWA access in London and Oxford and will now add Manchester, Sheffield and the other major locations in which On-Communications is currently building out its network infrastructure.”