Press Releases
May 24, 2006
Alvarion Opens R&D Center in Spain
Facility Focusing on WiMAX Technology, Customer Support Services
TEL AVIV, Israel, May 24, 2006 — Alvarion Ltd. (NASDAQ:ALVR), the world’s leading provider of wireless broadband solutions and specialized mobile networks, today announced the opening of a Research and Development Center in the advanced Valladolid Technology Park in Boecillo, Spain. At the opening ceremony being held today, Tzvika Friedman, CEO and President of Alvarion, is hosting guests of honor D. Tomás Villanueva, Vice President of the government of Castilla y Leon and Carlos Morell, CEO of Iberbanda. Alvarion also is showing a live demonstration of streaming video over WiMAX using its BreezeMAX™ system.
Operating now for several months and located just outside Valladolid, the capital of the Castilla y Leon region, center employees are concentrating on the design and implementation of WIMAX technology and support services for customers in region. Last year, broadband carrier Iberbanda successfully expanded its BreezeMAX network into Castilla y Leon, Spain’s and Europe’s largest region, providing broadband high speed internet and VoIP services to three large technology parks and surrounding homes and businesses. To date, Iberbanda has installed Alvarion’s BreezeMAX networks in Andalusia, Catalonia, Navarra, and Castilla y Leon.
"We are excited to see Alvarion opening its own R&D Center in Spain, and soon it will be complemented by Iberbanda’s R&D center in Malaga focusing on network monitoring, applications development, and integration of the various broadband wireless technologies—WiMAX, Wi-Fi, 3G, UWB, and others," said Carlos Morell, CEO of Iberbanda. "Both of these projects are another step in strengthening our position as an advanced wireless service provider and greatly support our supplying broadband services to the less populated areas of the country, which is now a government priority. Over the past few years, Alvarion systems, with their easy installation, cost effectiveness, and standards-base, have enabled us to quickly and seamlessly grow our network throughout the country."
Apart from Valladolid's rich history as a royal city, including being the wedding site of monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, which marked the beginnings of modern Spain, Alvarion's selection of this location for its R&D center revolved around the region’s strong support of major technology parks and it being home to several telecommunications companies. Well situated in the middle of Spain, Castilla y Leon’s attractiveness to high tech companies is also on the rise with the soon-to-be-opened high speed commuter train to Madrid, which will reduce travel time to a mere 50 minutes.
"The opening of this R&D Center is another step in Alvarion's increasing commitment to this market by bringing a WiMAX engineering team close to one of our largest deployments, thereby shortening the cycle of implementing new, innovative services into our WiMAX platform," said Tzvika Friedman, CEO and president of Alvarion. "With a relatively long history working with innovative challenger carriers such as Iberbanda and in the market itself, we are proud to strengthen our local presence, while assisting local carriers' commitments to make broadband available to every business and residence in the country. I expect the R&D Center to contribute significantly to our overall WiMAX system design and engineering, while ensuring seamless deployment of WiMAX networks across Castilla y Leon and other regions of Spain."
BreezeMAX is Alvarion’s WiMAX platform designed from the ground up according to the IEEE 802.16 standards and uses OFDM technology for advanced non-line-of-sight (NLOS) functionality. Its carrier-class design supports broadband speeds and quality of service (QoS) to enable carriers to offer triple play broadband services to thousands of subscribers in a single base station. Since its launch in mid-2004, BreezeMAX has been successfully deployed in over 150 installations in more than 30 countries around the world.
About Iberbanda Iberbanda is a provider of advanced LMDS-based broadband services to companies throughout Spain. Using cutting edge wireless and fiber optic technologies, Iberbanda provides high-speed Internet access, data communications, voice, and other value-added IP-based services in Spain’s 72 largest cities. In addition, Iberbanda leases its advanced infrastructure to Application Service Providers (ASPs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and transport and access services throughout Spain. Iberbanda’s investors include major international telecommunications, retail, and financial groups, including the Prisa Group (26%), El Corte Ingles (26%), Sercotel (América Móvil) (18%), Omega Capital (9%), Caja Duero (7%), Ibercaja (4%), Caja San Fernando (4%), Caja de Huelva y Sevilla (El Monte) (4%) and Promecal (2%). For more information, visit www.iberbanda.es
About Alvarion With more than 2 million units deployed in 150 countries, Alvarion is the worldwide leader in wireless broadband, providing systems to carriers, ISPs and private network operators, and also in extending coverage of GSM and CDMA mobile networks to developing countries and other hard to serve areas.
Leading the WiMAX revolution, Alvarion has the most extensive deployments and proven product portfolio in the industry covering the full range of frequency bands with both fixed and mobile solutions. Alvarion’s products enable the delivery of business and residential broadband access, corporate VPNs, toll quality telephony, mobile base station feeding, hotspot coverage extension, community interconnection, public safety communications, and mobile voice and data. Alvarion works with several global OEM providers and more than 200 local partners to support its diverse global customer base in solving their last-mile challenges.
As a wireless broadband pioneer, Alvarion has been driving and delivering innovations for more than 10 years from core technology developments to creating and promoting industry standards. Leveraging its key roles in the IEEE and HiperMAN standards committees and experience in deploying OFDM-based systems, the Company's prominent work in the WiMAX Forum™ is focused on increasing the widespread adoption of standards-based products in the wireless broadband market and leading the entire industry to mobile WiMAX solutions.
For more information, visit Alvarion’s World Wide Web site at www.alvarion.com
This press release contains forward -looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on the current expectations or beliefs of Alvarion’s management and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward -looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: inability to further identify, develop and achieve success for new products, services and technologies; increased competition and its effect on pricing, spending, third-party relationships and revenues; as well as the in ability to establish and maintain relationships with commerce, advertising, marketing, and technology providers and other risks detailed from time to time in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Information set forth in this press release pertaining to third parties has not been independently verified by Alvarion and is based solely on publicly available information or on information provided to Alvarion by such third parties for inclusion in this press release. The web sites appearing in this press release are not and will not be included or incorporated by reference in any filing made by Alvarion with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which this press release will be a part of.
You may request Alvarion's future press releases or a complete Investor Kit by contacting Carmen Deville, Investor Relations: carmen.deville@alvarion.com or +1-650.314.2653.
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