Shares in WiMAX solutions company Alvarion (Nasdaq: ALVR; TASE: ALVR) fell 4.8% in heavier than normal trading on Wall Street yesterday after its rival Airspan Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: AIRN) announced that Airspan's partner Fujitsu won part of a large tender from a consortium led by Japanese telecommunications infrastructure company KDDI Corp (TSE: 9433). Airspan and its local partner Fujstu will provide WiMAX equipment provider to UQ Communications, a mobile WiMAX operator in Japan, jointly owned by KDDI, Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC), East Japan Railway Company, Kyocera Corporation, Daiwa Securities Group Inc. and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.
Interestingly, Airspan issued a notice congratulating Fujitsu on the win, rather than announcing its own success. It did not mention whether or not Airspan itself will take part in the deal.
Alvarion also bid for the tender together with Toshiba (TSE: 6502; LSE: TOS; XETRA, AEX, Paris: TSBA). KDDI is in the process of rolling out a nationwide network worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Yesterday, Alvarion announced that it had deployed its BreezeMAX with WiMAX carrier Iberbanda, a subsidiary of Telefonica SA (NYSE; IBEX:TEF; LSE:TDE) in Navarra, northeast Spain. The company said the expansion was expected to add thousands of subscribers to Iberbanda’s customer base.
Alvarion shares are down more than 1.6% in early afternoon trading on the TASE, after having fallen more than a combined 7.1% over Sunday and Monday.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 4, 2008
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