Boingo said it currently has 73 DAS venues and 11,200 DAS nodes in backlog
Revenue from the distributed antenna system (DAS) segment accounted for 38% of Boingo Wireless’ overall revenue in the third quarter of the year, slightly down from a contribution of 41% in the year ago period, CFO Peter Hovenier said during a conference call with investors.
DAS revenue totaled $24.4 million in Q3, up 12.2% compared to the third quarter of 2017. DAS revenue for the quarter was comprised of $18.2 million of build-out project revenue and $6.2 million of access fee revenue.
“We currently have 54 DAS venues live, an increase of 7 venues from Q2, with an average of 3.3 carriers for venues that have been live for at least 3 years. On the carrier contracts front, we closed 12 new Tier 1 carrier contracts during the quarter, which brings our total to 88 carrier contracts for the year,” said Boingo CEO David Hagan.
“We ended the third quarter with 27,400 DAS nodes live, which we believe makes us the largest provider [of] DAS networks in the world. We now have 73 DAS venues and 11,200 DAS nodes in backlog. This means that we have more DAS network deployments ahead of us than what we’ve deployed in our entire company history. So we believe we have a lot of growth runaway ahead of us,” Hagan said.
Boingo recorded revenues of $63.5 million for Q3, climbing 21.6%, compared to the same quarter in 2017. Boingo said revenue growth reflected strong performance in the military multifamily, wholesale WiFi, DAS and was partially offset by year-over-year declines in retail and advertising.
The company also posted a net loss of $500,000 in the period compared to a net loss of $ 3.5 million in the year-ago quarter.
Revenue from the military segment amounted to $21.7 million in the period, up 55.9% compared to the third quarter of 2017.
“Growth was driven primarily by $5.1 million of multifamily revenue from our acquisition of Elauwit Networks as well as increases in average monthly revenue per subscriber and total military subscribers,” Hovenier said.
Boingo provides a range of services including Wi-Fi and TV for service men and women living in military barracks throughout the U.S. and in South Korea and Japan. The company’s military subscriber base totaled 142,000 subscribers at the end of the third quarter, up 6.8% versus the prior year period and down 2.1% compared to the second quarter of 2018.
“We’re currently testing several new 5G technologies, including a trial of 3.5 CBRS spectrum at Dallas Love Field, which was the first known CBRS deployment at a major U.S. airport. For this deployment, the SEC granted Boingo Special Temporary Authority, or an STA, in order to launch the deployment,” Hagan added.
