SAN JOSE, Calif.—Terabeam Inc. reported first-quarter net losses of $4.5 million from revenue of $18.5 million. The company’s revenues were up from the $6.6 million it posted in the year-ago quarter, but Terabeam’s net losses also widened from last year’s net loss of $970,000.Terabeam owns Proxim Wireless Corp., a WiMAX and Wi-Fi developer, along with Ricochet Networks Inc., a wireless Internet service provider with operations in Denver and San Diego.
“Our first quarter was a challenging quarter,” stated Robert Fitzgerald, chief executive officer of Terabeam. “We experienced a greater decline in revenue than we had anticipated while at the same time incurring expenses to launch our WiMAX and municipal access network products. We look for those new products to contribute to our sales in the rest of 2006.”
The earnings report arrived on the heels of Terabeam’s mid-April announcement that it has been exploring “possible alternatives” for its Ricochet business, including selling off the subsidiary’s assets, forming partnerships or seeking investors. The company hired Franklin Court Partners L.L.C., a consulting firm that helps struggling companies, to aid it in dealing with Ricochet.
While Terabeam acquired Denver-based Ricochet in June 2004, Ricochet has been bought and sold at least three other times since its inception as Metricom in the mid-1990s. Currently, Ricochet has approximately 20,000 users in Denver along with about 4,000 in San Diego.
Wall Street wasn’t impressed with Terabeam’s earnings as the company’s stock traded down 40 cents at $2.62 per share after the news.
