Message #17 From:
NewsBot Date: October 2, 2006 02:23:00 PM
GGBM News GigaBeam Promotes Jay Lawrence to VP Sales
HERNDON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GigaBeam Corporation (NASDAQ:GGBM) announced today that it has promoted
Jay Lawrence to the position of Vice President of Sales for the Company.
Jay Lawrence will be assuming the responsibility for corporate wide
sales which was held by Tom Wetmore. Jay Lawrence was previously VP of
National Sales for the Company.
Tom Wetmore has resigned from the Company to lead MetroNext, Inc., a
Boston area based WiLEC wireless local exchange carrier he recently
founded. MetroNext is a next generation telecommunications carrier that
plans to deploy GigaBeam’s WiFiber®
wireless fiber in metropolitan areas. MetroNext plans to provide
resilient high speed Ethernet communications data and content services
to business enterprises, governments and multiple dwelling units,
initially throughout the Boston metropolitan area. MetroNext’s
business is similar to other WiLECs using GigaBeam WiFiber, including
the previously announced WiLEC in the western United States which
continues to successfully penetrate and grow within its metropolitan
market.
The Company also announced today certain actions it is taking to reduce
its operating and cash expenditures which will positively impact margin
and cash burn. These actions include salary cuts of management
personnel, deferral of outside Director fees and reduction in personnel
headcount (both employees and contract personnel). These actions are
timely given the Company has successfully transitioned from product
development into predominately product sales and service support of
those sales.
Lou Slaughter, GigaBeam’s Chairman and CEO,
said, “We are excited to have Jay Lawrence
step up to take over sales for the Company and for Tom Wetmore in his
new venture with MetroNext. Jay has proved to be an excellent executive
in sales for the Company and we believe he will bring significant
energy, ideas and leadership to our Company’s
sales efforts. Tom led GigaBeam Sales and Marketing from the Company’s
formation to its current world market leadership position in ultra
high-speed wireless communications. Tom’s
company, MetroNext, will benefit GigaBeam because it plans to build out
its infrastructure using GigaBeam’s WiFiber.
We expect that Tom’s extensive experience
with the advantages of WiFiber to result in significant future
deployment of GigaBeam WiFiber links by MetroNext. We wish both Jay and
Tom every success in their respective roles.”
Lou Slaughter further stated, “We have taken
steps to reduce expenditures and cash burn which are timely given the
current stage of the Company’s development.
To date, the primary focus of the Company has been on intensive
engineering resulting in rapid product development. We have completed
several generations of our 1.25 Gigabit-per-second series product and
are about to launch our 2.7 Gigabit-per-second series product. Whilst we
will continue ongoing product development, it is now timely to turn our
resources towards building sales and sales support and near term
profitability. Accordingly, we have taken appropriate actions consistent
with this strategy which include salary cuts of management personnel,
deferral of outside Director fees and reduction in personnel headcount
(both employees and contract personnel). I continue to be very confident
that our WiFiber product will have a significant impact on global
telecommunications. We expect to report growth in our national sales
levels this past quarter and with the large number of countries about to
approve spectrum and technical rules for our products, we are poised to
take advantage of significant new opportunities in international sales.”
GigaBeam WiFiber products operate in the 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz radio
spectrum bands. This portion of the radio frequency spectrum has been
authorized by the Federal Communications Commission for wireless
point-to-point commercial use. Use of these frequency bands for
commercial use was pioneered by GigaBeam’s
founders.
GigaBeam’s technology, utilizing these large
blocks of authorized contiguous spectrum, enables
multi-Gigabit-per-second communications through use of Gigabit Ethernet
and other standard protocols. The current speed achieved by GigaBeam’s
WiFiber G-1.25 product series is full duplex at one Gigabit-per-second
(equivalent to 647 T1 lines or 1,000 DSL connections) which supports
GigE protocol. GigaBeam recently announced its WiFiber G-2.7 series, to
be released in Q4, 2006, which will operate at 2.7 Gbps. The protocols
to be supported by the G-2.7 product series include 2 x GigE (2 x 1
Gbps); OC-48 / STM-16 (2.488 Gbps); SMPTE 292M (1.485 Gbps) and both 1
and 2 Gbps fiber channel. GigaBeam also plans deployment of future
products capable of 10 Gigabits-per-second utilizing either the 10
Gigabit Ethernet or OC-192 protocol standards.
GigaBeam’s WiFiber technology is similar to
terrestrial fiber in terms of speed and reliability for deployment in
Metropolitan Area Networks (MANS). However, WiFiber has a substantial
advantage over terrestrial fiber because WiFiber can be deployed in a
day and costs less to deploy than terrestrial fiber. Terrestrial fiber
can take months to deploy and also require significant regulatory and
environmental approvals prior to installation.
About GigaBeam Corporation
GigaBeam is a provider of high-performance wireless point-to-point
communications access solutions that operate in the licensed 71-76 GHz
and 81-86 GHz radio spectrum bands. GigaBeam equipment operates at
multi-gigabit-per-second speeds. GigaBeam Corporation headquarters is
located at 470 Springpark Place, Suite 900, Herndon, VA 20170. For more
information, visit www.gigabeam.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
Statements in this press release regarding GigaBeam's products,
services, capabilities, performance, opportunities, development and
business outlook that are forward-looking involve and are subject to
known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which
are beyond GigaBeam's control and difficult to predict, and could cause
actual results to differ materially from these anticipated, expressed or
forecasted in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and
uncertainties may include, but are not limited to: lack of operating
history, transitioning from a development company to an operating
company, difficulties in distinguishing GigaBeam's products and
services, ability to manufacture and deploy GigaBeam's products, lack of
or delay in market acceptance and fluctuations in customer demand,
dependence on a limited number of significant customers, reliance on
third party vendors and strategic partners, availability of raw
materials, subassemblies and components, ability to meet future capital
requirements on acceptable terms, continuing uncertainty in the
telecommunications industry and the global economy, intense competition
in the telecommunications equipment industry and resulting impact on
pricing and general financial performance, compliance with federal and
state regulatory requirements, timing, availability and success of new
technology and product introductions and the other factors discussed in
GigaBeam's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
