This article printed from
Broadband Week, located at
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It's A Done Deal: Aerie Buys Metricom Assets By Susan Rush Aerie Networks Inc. will fork over a mere $8.25 million to acquire the remaining assets of bankrupt Metricom's $1 billion high-speed wireless network. A U.S. bankruptcy court approved the cash deal late Friday. Through its newly formed subsidiary Ricochet Networks, Aerie plans to team with communities and local service providers to get the network up and running again. Aerie originally had bid $20 million for an all-assembled network, including leases, but after the Metricom equipment leases were cancelled, Aerie went back to the negotiating table with the bankrupt company. Now that Aerie has won approval to purchase the assets, the company must renew the equipment leases. "To restart the network, we will work with communities and local service providers to renegotiate the equipment leases," says Emilie Kelly, an Aerie spokeswoman. Since the Ricochet network operates in the public spectrum, Aerie does not need to worry about obtaining spectrum licenses to operate the network. The company's goal is to reactivate the 17 metropolitan networks the high-speed wireless Internet service was deployed in before Metricom filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors in July. Since Ricochet's inception, Metricom was hailed as a forerunner in the wireless broadband market, but the high cost of building out its network forced Metricom into bankruptcy. The asset sale is expected to be finalized this week.
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