Trading house Sumitomo Corp. said Monday it has invested in a wireless broadband service in Russia through a capital tieup with Dutch firm Enforta B.V., which has a Russian unit licensed for such services.
Sumitomo said it has obtained a 50 percent stake in the Dutch firm through a third-party allocation of new shares and has sent a vice president and two senior officials to join its management.
Enforta has a wholly owned subsidiary in Moscow, Prestige Internet, which has a license to operate wireless broadband services in 29 major Russian cities, the trader said.
The partners now aim to have the Russian unit introduce at the end of this year broadband services for medium and small companies, home offices and individuals by employing the WiMAX specification -- an advanced system for broadband wireless access -- in 10 cities.
They aim to expand the service to 29 cities by the end of 2007, targeting sales in that year at about 8 billion yen, it said.
WiMAX, or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, provides fixed, nomadic, portable and, eventually, mobile wireless broadband connectivity without the need for direct line-of-sight with a base station, according to WiMAX Forum, an organization of communication companies.