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Wireless - Friday, December 7, 2007

Catcher Buys Outdoor WiFi's Vivato

We are here in Las Vegas where getting WiFi seems to be always on our minds. At the convention center people are forking over big dollars to get area coverage from some vendor that nobody has ever heard of. So it strikes us that outdoor WiFi might be a nice niche market, at least until city wide wireless systems come into view. But such plans have led networking hardware startups to the graveyard.

Spokane, WA-based Vivato says today that it has been bought by the Catcher Holdings (OTC Bulletin Board: CTHH). Catcher is paying 2.5M shares of Catcher's common stock (they are currently trading at around $0.75 per share). Vivato makes boxes that will provide you with WiFi base stations which provide up to 2.5 miles of coverage outdoors as well as Micro and Pico Cells used to fill coverage gaps.

Vivato has been a big disappointment. It has been one of the largest investment vehicles in the Wi-Fi space with well over $60M raised. In June 2006, investors bought out the assets for the former Vivato.

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