North America
Airspan made deliveries to 10 new customers in the United States in 2002, bringing its customer base to 30 by the end of the year. The majority of deliveries were in the PCS (1.9 GHz) band, as the company continued to successfully exploit a growing demand for fixed wireless access solutions by PCS license holders, who were faced with an FCC-imposed requirement to use their spectrum within five years of acquisition.

Airspan was the fixed wireless vendor of choice for the largest number of PCS license save networks operators. The five-year limits continued to come due in through the middle of 2002. Customers such as Cellular South, Poplar PCS, Emery Telcom, SRT and Sierra Wireless made license save purchases. Commercial operators such as Western Central Wireless (WCW), a first time customer in 2002, deployed Airspan’s wireless DSL solution and were the first operator in the United States to begin deploying Airspan’s enhanced AS4020 solution.

Other operators saw wireless DSL as the most viable way to bring high-speed voice and data services to their customers particularly in the less-dense rural areas in the United States. These less dense areas are targeted by the US Department of Agriculture program aimed at improving connectivity in hard to reach areas through subsidies.

The acquisition of WipLL provides Airspan with a new set of products for the North American unlicensed operator segment. This means that conventional PCS operators and other types of ISP, Enterprise, and carrier customers can turn to Airspan for cutting edge products to tap the potential of underserved broadband access.

Europe, Middle East, and Africa
In Europe, Airspan’s purchase of WipLL enabled the company together with ABB to secure an important power utility customer, BKK/INO in Norway. The deployment of our WipLL product there to serve more than 1,000 high-speed Internet customers exemplified an important deployment application for WipLL.

The African region led all global business efforts for Airspan, where we experienced revenue growth of 9% over 2001 levels. In 2002, we sold equipment to 15 customers in the region, 5 of which were new. We were pleased to see the fruits our OEM relationship in Africa with Siemens produce the company’s largest-ever contract. Following on the 2001 agreement which led to a Siemens purchase of equipment for South Africa, Siemens awarded Airspan an unprecedented $8.2 million equipment contract in neighboring Lesotho and a $3 million award in Botswana.

The region also benefited from increased business in Russia, including the addition of three new carriers and several major expansion projects.

Asia Pacific
Despite the severe downturn in spending on telecommunications in the Asia Pacific region, during 2002, sixteen customers purchased equipment from Airspan, seven of whom were new.

Airspan’s biggest customer in the region was SpeedNet of Japan (a TEPCO Subsidiary), who is rolling out a high-speed data network in Tokyo. During 2002, SpeedNet launched the service aggressively throughout the Tokyo suburbs.

Airspan also made significant progress in China. While the 3.5GHz license process did not complete and hence equipment deployment by all vendors was limited, Airspan established key distributorships with Shanghai Post & Telecommunications Equipment Company, Ltd. (SPTE), one of the top 100 electronics enterprises in the country and Guangzhou Jinpeng Group Co., Ltd. (Jinpeng). Both are well positioned with numerous operators that have more recently received the new 3.5GHz licenses by the China Ministry of Information Industry (MII) to provide broadband fixed wireless servicesExisting Airspan customers in the region also expanded their networks in 2002. Airspan announced expansions with P.T. Lintasarta (Indonesia), a leading local data communications and value-added service provider, under which Lintasarta committed to extend its telecommunications networks with the purchase of the Airspan AS4000 wireless DSL system. Both Suntel and MTT of Sri Lanka also continued AS4000 deployment and added WipLL to their product portfolio for data access customers.

One of the most exciting developments in the region in 2002, was the announcement of a national deployment with Broadcast Communications Limited (BCL) of New Zealand. BCL will deploy Airspan’s AS4020 high-speed wireless DSL solution nationwide this year.

Latin America & The Caribbean
Significant contract wins, particularly in the Caribbean propelled Airspan’s business to record revenue levels in the Latin America and Caribbean region in 2002.

Airspan’s flagship AS4000 product was selected by United Telecommunications Services (UTS) of St. Maarten to provide its subscribers with high-speed data services. . The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) ordered AS4000 to provide its Family Island subscribers with both toll-quality voice and high-speed Internet access. Other operators in the region, such as Telefonica del Peru, Cable & Wireless West Indies, and the Mitsubishi-Teknos consortium in Chile, continued to take deliveries in the year to expand networks.

Airspan made its first direct WipLL sale in the Americas region in 2002 to ILLUMINAT of Trinidad and Tobago. The ILLUMINAT network began serving high-end business customers from Port of Spain to San Pedro with high-speed data connections. ILLUMINAT also continued to expand its existing AS4000 wireless DSL network in the country.