With a second round of financing in hand along with a strategic purchase and a name change, Comspace Corp., formerly Unique Technologies International Inc., plans to jump-start the specialized mobile radio industry.
Irving, Texas-based Comspace has been working since 1994 to develop Dynamic Channel Multicarrier Architecture technology, which allows SMR analog operators to increase the capacity of their existing radio systems. The technology is designed to increase the capacity of one radio channel to six channels.
The company now has taken the technology from a working prototype to a real product and last year signed a memorandum of understanding with manufacturer Kenwood Communications Corp.
Kenwood plans to manufacture base station and subscriber products based on DCMA technology.
This month, Comspace secured its second round of financing led by Sevin Rosen Funds and Centerpoint Ventures.
Comspace will use the proceeds from the $8.5 million investment to fund ongoing operations, including continued product development and increased marketing and sales efforts for DCMA technology. The company also purchased all of its joint venture, Unique Wireless Developments L.L.C. That business was created in 1994 with Wireless Systems International Ltd. of Bristol, England, to develop DCMA technology.
Comspace also has various patents pending associated with the technology.
“We’re focusing on the two-way radio industry,” said Steven Fulford, Comspace’s president and chief executive officer. “The iDEN (integrated Digital Enhanced Network) approach is too large and expensive for medium-and small-sized firms [that need to increase their capacity]. The private industrial market also needs increased capacity and more channels.
DCMA can solve those problems.”
Capacity is an issue for the slow-growing two-way radio industry, and that problem has forced most SMR operators to offer only two-way dispatch voice service, said Fulford.
“When I talk to these SMR guys that are out there, they say they want to be the wildest provider out there.”
But they don’t have enough capacity to offer other services like messaging, paging and voice mail, and SMR manufacturers don’t make equipment with these capabilities because of the capacity issue, said Fulford.
“Motorola Inc. said in its fourth-quarter results that its most profitable division is its two-way radio division. A lot has to do with Nextel and its tremendous growth. It proves a point,” he said. “Look at what you can do if you can increase the capacity.”
Nextel Communications Inc. is a nationwide enhanced SMR operator that has become a serious competitor with cellular and personal communications services operators since deploying iDEN technology. It offers cellular, alphanumeric paging, voice mail and two-way radio dispatch features in one handset.
Fulford said DCMA technology, which is frequency independent and uses all digital signal processors, is cost effective for SMR operators because they can increase the capacity of one channel at a time.
The technology also is compatible with existing FM equipment.
Comspace is in discussions with other two-way radio manufacturers to license the technology.
It plans to provide the chipset and some base stations to manufacturers, which then could sell DCMA products nationwide and abroad.
“The United States is probably 40 percent of the worldwide radio market,” said Fulford.
“The rest of the world is nowhere near as developed as the United States. There is a huge potential for this product all over the world.”
