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Telecom Equipment - Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Telecom Transport Says Just Put The Money In The Bag. Raises $120M For Backhaul.

Seattle's Telecom Transport Management closed Series D equity at $120M led by new investors Columbia Capital and Battery Ventures. Telecom Transport had raised $72M in four earlier rounds.

The firm needs the funds to continue to build out its TDM and Ethernet backhaul networks for wireless carriers in Minneapolis and suburban. It currently provides its services in Richmond and Norfolk, VA, with the company claiming three of the top four U.S. wireless carriers as customers. Philadelphia, as well as two other U.S. markets that have yet to be identified.

You see a lot of drawings like this in the backhaul biz

Telecom Transport was founded by execs from McCaw Cellular in 2003. Their idea was to attach microwave fiber equipment to cellular towers so that carriers can transport phone calls or other wireless data to a central switching station. That has been done primarily by the local phone company through leased T-1 lines.

Telecom Transport competes with the likes of FiberTower, a public company that is providing back-haul services in 7 of Sprint Nextel's initial WiMax markets. However, there is so much backhaul work to be done in the US that these guys can pick markets for without bumping into each other for years to come.

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