Enforta Expands Wi-Max Footprint In Russia

BV and ARTCommunications have announced that Enforta has acquired a 51 percent share in ARTCommunications Ltd.

ARTCommunications is a wireless broadband operators in Russia serving the countries two largest cities of Moscow and St Petersburg as well as Moscow Region.  Upon completing this investment, Enforta broadband services are now available in a total of 18 Russian regional capital cities as well as the growing Moscow Region market. 

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Both companies will have the ability to provide services to their customers within the expanded footprint. In fact, "The acquisition now gives us wireless broadband service capability in 18 cities," an Enforta official said. 

Enforta plans to further extend services to a total of 30 cities by the end of 2007. "Actually, we have found that the wireless broadband products match well with requirements of SME and enterprise customers," Lee Sparkman, President of Enforta, told this reporter. "And those customers are constantly pushing us to expand the footprint. So while we were planning 30 cities by end of 2007, we have already launched operations in 18.  [This is] faster than we had originally planned, but we have our investors' full support."

Enforta's initial strategy was to focus on Russia's underserved regional markets, but "to service our growing base of enterprise customers we needed to extend our service area to Moscow and St Petersburg earlier than originally planned," Sparkman explained.  "Due to the absence of additional radio spectrum, the only means to enter these two cities was through acquisition."

"It is clear that scale will be critical for success in the wireless broadband business and we wanted to affiliate with a company of like mind and objective", said Alexander Ohotnikov, co-founder and General Director of ARTCommunications.  "The joining of our two companies will clearly benefit both our current and future customers."

Enforta has experienced rapid growth this past year both building and acquiring broadband wireless operators.  In May Enforta announced the acquisition of "Netprovodov," the largest wireless broadband operator in Russia's Ural region.  This was followed by the acquisition of Sky Telecom in Rostov and Mir TV in Ufa during August. 

Simultaneously, the company has constructed its own operations in 12 cities, and company officials claim the inclusion of ARTCommunications gives Enforta" the largest wireless broadband footprint in Russia."   

Enforta was formed in October, 2003 with the objective to provide broadband services using Wi-Max and other advanced technologies in Russia.  Enforta is owned by Sumitomo Corporation, Baring Vostok Capital Partners, and its management team.

ArtCommunications Ltd was founded in 1995 and is in the Russian Internet and broadband access markets.  In 2002 ArtCommunications began operation of its wireless broadband network under the trade mark "5G," constructed using pre-Wi-Max equipment provided by InfiNet Wireless, and company officials say today 5G has "the largest wireless footprint in Moscow, St Petersburg, and Moscow region." 

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims’ columnist page.