Wificom Technologies Announces the Establishment of a New North American Subsidiary, Wificom Networks North America, And Appoints WLAN Industry Executive
Expansion Fueled by North American Demand for World-Class WLAN OSS
HELSINKI, Finland & SANTA-MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 16, 2004-- Wificom Technologies, a leading vendor of carrier-class WLAN backend billing and service management solutions, today announced the establishment of a new US-based subsidiary, Wificom Networks North America, to better serve the USA and Canada markets.
Mr. R. Anthony Bell has been appointed CEO of Wificom Networks North America, LLC. Mr. Bell will lead Wificom Networks' office and will initially focus on expansion of license sales of Wificom's main OSS product SAB Server(TM) and then on extending the company's product range to cover the global roaming and managed service offerings.
Over the previous year, the North American region witnessed extraordinary growth of public WLAN deployments and the need for standards-based ubiquitous roaming has become self evident. Wificom Networks North America, with its state-of-the-art platform for authentication, billing and roaming, will be in a key position to address this market demand and deliver business-enabling solutions to American service providers.
"Wificom's growing success made this expansion a natural milestone. It puts us in a position to more aggressively target the rapidly growing North American public WLAN market," said Mikko Riepula, president and CEO of Wificom Technologies, "and given Anthony's extensive knowledge and expertise in the American technology industry, we are very pleased to welcome him to the Wificom team."
"Wireless LAN technologies offer tremendous value to end-users," commented Mr. Bell, "but they can create serious management and security concerns for the service providers and carriers charged with supporting these users. As corporations and service providers continue to roll out private and public WLAN networks for wireless connectivity, a myriad of service offerings from disparate wireless ISPs, multiple authentication requirements and inconsistent billing relationships will continue to grow. With its SAB Server(TM), Wificom addresses these concerns, offering everything from roaming to edge device provisioning to customer care and billing, enabling providers to efficiently manage thousands of hotspots. As former CEO of FirstSpot, Inc., I have personally evaluated several backend systems and witnessed Wificom's functional and technical superiority over other players in the field. I felt there was a huge opportunity to bring this outstanding system to the American market!"
Mr. Bell joins Wificom Technologies with more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry, particularly in marketing and sales strategy, business development and general management. Previously he served as CEO of FirstSpot, Inc., providing counsel on corporate strategy and international marketing services. Mr. Bell also held senior-level management positions for companies such as Bold Software, Skunk Technologies and the Arcadia Group.
About Wificom Technologies
Wificom is a premier supplier of backend, billing and service management products for the global broadband and wireless services industries. As a leader in roaming technology, Wificom is partnering with operators, service providers and clearinghouses to define roaming standards and bring them to market through the SAB Server(TM) product line. Wificom's SAB Server(TM) is an all-in-one solution that streamlines rollout of hotspot services and is used by regional telecom operators, IT integrators and wireless Internet service providers in more than 25 countries in Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Asia and now also North America. SAB Server(TM) integrates service self-creation, billing, rating, roaming, customer self-care, reporting, device independent content delivery and value-added location-based services. Wificom was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. In 2003, Wificom was selected by Tornado Insider as one of the 100 most innovative high-tech start-up companies in the world. Wificom is a privately held company, backed by Europe's leading venture capital firm, 3i Group. For more information, please visit www.wificom.com
Contacts
Wificom Technologies
Mr. Mikko Riepula, +33 4 93 00 12 52
mikko.riepula@wificom.com
or
Wificom Networks
Mr. Anthony Bell, +1 310 451 5500
anthony.bell@wificomnetworks.com
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