InfiNet Wireless, a global leader in wireless broadband solutions, has a lot to show for its 21 years in business: factories, an R&D center, a world-class testing lab, and hundreds of projects completed for telecom operators and other corporations worldwide. Now InfiNet is poised to claim as much as a third of the global market for wireless broadband solutions. Its CEO Dmitry OKOROKOV told The Standard’s Dmitry PETROVSKY about the company’s strategy, its new projects, and why its ambitious claims are justified.

Global competition in wireless solutions has never been more intense. Where is InfiNet at in the global marketplace?

InfiNet Wireless, headquartered in Malta, develops and manufactures operator-class wireless broadband systems for Internet access, corporate or industrial IT networks, voice telephony, and video streaming in IP video surveillance. We have to fight for our place in the sun, competing against such strong rivals as Cambium Networks, Alvarion, Radwin, Redline Communications, Proxim, Ubiquiti, and other world-renowned name-brands. According to our data as of January 2015, InfiNet Wireless systems were used in over a thousand projects, completed in more than 100 countries. So it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that InfiNet is one of the world’s top manufacturers of systems and equipment for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint fixed wireless lines.

InfiNet is a contributor to high-profile sports events. Networks were built with InfiNet Wireless equipment for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and 2012 London Olympics. Our systems and solutions were used at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Tell us about InfiNet’s international strategy.

For two decades, InfiNet Wireless has changed its plans and priorities in response to market needs. But our strategy has always been to produce world-class wireless equipment, combining the best productivity in our class, the best range, security, quality management, and affordable prices. In 2013, we put systems on the market which were twice more productive and economical than our competitors’: the new platforms for the InfiLINK 2х2 point-to-point and InfiMAN 2x2 point-to-multipoint solutions in the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands. Today, InfiNet Wireless offers the full range of reliable, cost-effective solutions to enable speedy wireless broadband rollout for customers in any region or industry. Our product range provides a universal solution for any industry, wherever we have clients who are accustomed to being thoughtful and reasonable about their expenses, for example, banks, retailers, and universities.

InfiNet will develop, manufacture and support not only the hardware platform, but also the operating system, network architecture, and a multitude of technical accessories. We design equipment for operators and industrial companies to use in extremely adverse climate. This equipment will last more than 15 years at temperatures between –55 °С and +60 °С, with strong winds. But we never rest on the laurels of what we have achieved, designing products for new frequency bands, offering ever more advanced, innovative solutions. InfiNet has a few nice surprises up its sleeve for 2015.

What new products has InfiNet Wireless unveiled to the world recently?

Our big new thing was InfiLINK XG, our flagship equipment line, which we put on the market at the end of 2014. It’s a wireless broadband system and product family with a record spectral efficiency meant for channels in bandwidths below 7 GHz. InfiLINK XG, the fastest point-to-point system on the global market, provides a real throughput of up to 480 mbps at 40 MHz channel width, and upwards of 120 mbps inside only 10 MHz of the spectrum. InfiLINK XG equipment will provide reliable connection at distances exceeding 100 km, with a throughput of up to 480 mbps. With its excellent computation power and good distance/productivity ratio, InfiLINK XG is poised to make a revolution in the global wireless broadband industry. Expectations for the productivity of wireless channels are these days a multiple of what they used to be only a few years ago. InfiLINK XG meets or exceeds our customers’ expectations. The arrival of the InfiLINK XG family will reconfigure the marketplace and strengthen InfiNet’s reputation as the global leader in operator-class wireless systems.

We had previously announced new solutions for the frequency bands of 3.1-3.4 GHz and 3.7-3.9 GHz, added to the InfiLINK 2х2 and InfiMAN 2х2 product ranges. They are suitable for diverse regions, particularly, Southeast Asia and Latin America, where the operators have allocated those bandwidths to social initiatives, like the global hookup of educational institutions, healthcare institutions, etc.

The serial manufacturing of equipment for the 3.9 GHz band, which we launched a year ago, marked another milestone in InfiNet Wireless’s European rollout. Before, the operators in Europe couldn’t use that frequency band fully for lack of equipment. Our first customer was UK’s UK Broadband, a subsidiary of the Hong-Kong-based global telecom giant PCCW. Armed with the InfiNet Wireless solution, UK Broadband is plotting a UK-wide fixed network and LTE expansion in the 3.5 and 3.6 GHz bands.

What are you bringing to MWC ‘2015?

It was our mission from the very beginning to design high-performance, world-class wireless solution with the broadest functionality possible. It is now a tradition that InfiNet wireless broadband systems provide a foundation for the wireless infrastructure of mobile networks, as well as the communication lines of operators, other corporate clients, and law enforcement agencies. The relevance of InfiNet solutions only increases as 3G/4G mobile networks expand and 5G networks arrive. We want to make a statement in Barcelona, signifying our readiness to supply solutions for the new generations of core cellular networks, alongside such majors as NEC or Ericsson. On the one hand, our new product - InfiLINK XG – is a logical segue to the range of solutions InfiNet Wireless had offered before; on the other hand, because of its advanced functionality, it’s ideal building material for the main and backup core channels of cellular base stations, particularly for the merging of small cells – the second coverage tier of an enhanced-capacity network. InfiLINK XG builds itself beautifully into an operator’s network ecosystem, even in the highly “polluted” metropolitan “air.” Outside the city, InfiLINK XG is a great alternative, say, to radio relay systems. Great in price and spectral efficiency, both.

What has InfiNet Wireless done to strengthen its clout internationally?

The year 2014 spelled a breakthrough for us: we opened a few new offices, in Russia and elsewhere, and we signed on distributors in many parts of the world: Mexico, Columbia, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Turkey, and Serbia. Now we do our business via more than 100 direct distributors and about a dozen rep offices worldwide. This way, InfiNet Wireless looks to fortify its position in the highly competitive global market of wireless solutions. It’s already happening: we’ve seen a significant increase in projects with our participation in many different industries, countries and regions.

What are some of InfiNet’s recent major projects?

Among those, of particular note are the telecom mainlines and high-speed wireless lines for the premier national operators: China Telecom, Mada (Kuwait), UNE, Telebucaramanga (Columbia), Dekal Wireless (Jamaica), MegaFon and Rostelecom (Russia), modern IT infrastructure for Saudi Arabia’s oldest universities: Najran and Abdulaziz, a video surveillance system for a major oilfield belonging to a Chinese oil and petrochemical corporation, a broadband network and attendant infrastructure for real-time video surveillance on a 120-km highway in the region of Ain Sokhna, Egypt, a telecom infrastructure upgrade for the Finance Ministry of Gabon in Central Africa, and a system of high-performance communication lines for coordinating the warehouses of Mondelēz International, Inc. in Saudi Arabia, to name a few.

Broadband, which used to be mainly the province of telecom operators, is now sought-after by all industries. What does InfiNet have to offer to those other, differently specialized industries?

Reliable and affordable wireless Internet is emerging, globally, as the key driver of the Internet of Things, of industrial solutions that reshape the traditional industries and dramatically increase their productivity. For example, power generating and distributing companies could benefit from those InfiNet Wireless solutions, which bind remote substations into a network. To oil and gas companies InfiNet offers solutions sturdy enough to withstand tropical heat or sub-Polar freezing, which will keep pumping stations, workers’ rotation communities, and other assets in touch. Our equipment is perfectly geared to the nuances of communication in mining. It is already in use at open pits, where it is frequently used for data transmissions on the move. There is hardly an industry where InfiNet Wireless products could not be used. UK’s celebrated car racing team, the LCR Honda MotoGP Team, uses our equipment to keep its management, mechanics and pilots online, and for telemetric data exchange.

Surveillance, traffic management, public security, vital support… these are all very high priorities in the whole world. Does InfiNet Wireless participate in these kinds of projects?

The infrastructure of surveillance networks is a crucial application for InfiNet Wireless equipment. We have contributed to the traffic control and management system for the national highway M1 in the UK. The system’s functionality includes control of driving conditions, smart management of traffic flows, detection of violations, and license plate recognition. We have built a few dozen metropolitan video surveillance and traffic management systems in different parts of the world: most notably, in the State of Georgia, US, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. InfiNet Wireless solutions are part of the video surveillance systems along Mexico’s major highways.

What your global growth plans?

According to independent assessments, InfiNet Wireless currently commands as much as 15% of the global market of wireless broadband solutions. In the medium term, by 2018, we plan to stake out at least 30 % of the global wireless broadband marketplace. Our prospects look good. For instance, it happens increasingly often that networks engineered with other vendors’ equipment get upgraded with InfiNet Wireless solutions. In our 21 years in business, we have earned our clients’ respect and cemented their confidence in the reliable operation of our systems. This also proves that InfiNet Wireless products meet very high standards for data safety.

We had our ISO 9001:2008 compliance certificate renewed last year for the design and manufacturing of fixed wireless broadband telecom equipment. We also started regular training webinars on innovative solutions, hardware and software for the engineering staff of all our partners, dealers and customers.

What are InfiNet’s plans for this year? What are your sales targets for 2015, which will be a crisis year for many countries? What are some new products and solutions you plan to inaugurate in the near future?

Our grosses have grown at an annual 15% to 30% year on year since the company was founded. We’ll be working to boost our sales about 20% this year. We know we can do it. Financially, 2014 was our best year ever, so we were able to reinvest a lot more in the business and R&D. InfiNet Wireless will be consolidating its presence in some of the world’s foremost markets in 2015, including Latin America, Central Asia, Trans-Caucasia, North Africa and Central Europe.

In the first quarter of 2015, we are looking to start shipments of our cross-sector syncing system, designed to upgrade the performance of the InfiMAN equipment family in an environment with a limited radio frequency spectrum. Our syncing equipment is currently near the end of its field testing, and we are already taking advance orders. We are also working on a more powerful version of the InfiLINK XG radio linkups, which will support speeds up to 1 gbps in the 5 and 6 GHz bands.

What are InfiNet Wireless’s plans for production? Any plans to enlarge it or take it places internationally?

We put out 100,000 product units a year. Our production facility will be moving to a new building in 2015, which is about 50% bigger. Being a full-cycle manufacturing company, we have always coddled our in-house R&D. About 1/3 of our total staff headcount are developers. We opened an R&D division of ours in Romania last year. Our research and development proceeds according to a road map we have planned out. Of late, InfiNet Wireless has increasingly stressed collaboration with the academic research community. We absorb and integrate the wireless communication knowledge, expertise and achievements of the leading scientists from all parts of the world.