While major wireless carriers have been putting their energy into keeping the customers they have, network equipment provider Range Networks has been working on innovation in rural wireless services — where there are still new customers to be gained.
“Most of this 4G/LTE, small cell stuff going on isn’t about gaining new customers, it’s about not losing the customers you have,” said CEO David Burgess. “There are at least a billion people who don’t have regular access to phone services, and most of these people live in rural areas. It’s a huge, untapped market — sort of the last frontier, as far as finding new customers for carriers.”
The San Francisco-based company was started in 2007 and made its first public release of software in 2008. Range Networks uses commercially supported open-source software in its network architecture, as part of its strategy to maintain low network ownership costs for operators.
Range Networks already has networks in operation in Antarctica, Africa, South America and in the Asia-Pacific region. Burgess said the company also plans to take advantage of concerns about Chinese wireless equipment to bolster its business in the rural U.S.
The company supports 2G, 2.5G, and 3G GSM systems and is working on LTE, Burgess said. But in rural areas which may not have any wireless coverage at all, he added, previous generations of technology are still attractive to operators. Range Networks touts network costs that are 1/10 of equipment from other providers, with low power costs and less specialized knowledge required among employees who manage the network.
With so much attention on LTE and small cells, Burgess said, “No one is looking hard at providing solutions for rural areas, certainly not among the big equipment providers.”
With limited capital investment in rural wireless infrastructure, and network operators looking to decrease their ownership costs, Burgess said, stagnation has been setting in.
“If you come up with new opportunities in some way, to get out of that stagnation, there’s a huge opportunity,” he said.
For more insight on Range Networks, RCR’s Martha DeGrasse spoke with Burgess recently.
Follow me on Twitter: @khillrcr
