Unwired shareholders give the nod to Intel investment

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 13 October 2005 19:29

IT Industry - Deals

Unwired shareholders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of Intel's $37 million investment in the company, paving the way for Unwired's expansion into areas outside of Sydney in 2006.

Unwired CEO, David Spence, said that additional funding of not less than $23 million would be required to fund the full roll-out of the Unwired service to those areas where the company holds spectrum licences.

Unwired holds spectrum licences in the major population centres around Australia including Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra. It will announce details of which centres it will be rolling out to closer to launch date for those areas.

In return for its investment Intel will be issued with convertible notes which, if they are all converted, will give Intel 25 percent of Unwired's shares.

As part of the agreement, the companies will jointly promote the development of mobile wireless broadband capabilities using WiMAX networks in Australia. Unwired plans to adopt future Intel products that support the upcoming IEEE 802.16e (mobile WiMAX) standard for WiMAX solutions intended to be deployed in infrastructure equipment and notebooks.