High-speed communications startup Conterra Ultra
Broadband on Wednesday said it obtained $41 million in funding that it plans to
use to upgrade its hybrid wireless/wireline network.
The six-year-old Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm is
the second privately-held firm that specializes in the wholesale transport of network
traffic between cellular base stations to be funded in recent weeks.
A month ago, Zayo Bandwidth, a startup that uses fiber-optic
technology to transport cellular traffic on behalf of mobile carriers, got $225
million from five VCs to expand its network.
At least one analyst sees some indication that the relatively
unexciting business of moving cellular traffic around in rural areas is finally
in growth mode and stirring some excitement among investors.
“Wireless traffic is undoubtedly growing and it behooves the
big carriers to find small wholesale carriers outside their regions to pick up
the slack for them,” said Brownlee Thomas, an analyst with Forrester Research.
“I think VCs are anticipating that growth in 3G services
and video on cell phones will open that market up,” she said.
Research firm GeoResults measures the market for the
wholesale transport of communications traffic, or “backhaul” as it is called, at
$2.8 billion in 2007, and projects the market to grow to $15.3 billion by 2011.
Conterra operates hybrid microwave/fiber-optic networks
in areas that the major commercial carriers deem to be too remote, unprofitable,
or difficult to develop.
The firm takes advantage of government subsidies such as the
Universal Service Fund and E-Rate -- subsidies designed to help citizens and schools
in remote areas obtain modern communications.
Conterra operates in 11 states mostly on the east coast
and the south and specializes in transporting cellular traffic for commercial
carriers and connecting schools and businesses to the Internet.
“There is a great need for broadband to the masses and we
are fulfilling that need,” said Jason Adkins, Conterra’s executive vice
president of sales and marketing. “We supply carriers with network facilities
in areas where they can’t do it themselves, for one reason or another.”
Conterra, which is funded in part by DukeNet
Communications, the telecommunications subsidiary of Duke Energy, did not
disclose the identity of its new investor.