Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Wireless Technologies, I will fear no red ink.

That could be the favourite prayer — with apologies to Psalm 23 — whispered by some of Calgary’s wireless players. The city enjoys a growing reputation as “Wireless Valley.”

Yet the landscape is tinged with financial losses by some key startups, including Wi-LAN Inc. and Cell-Loc Inc. There’s more to that red ink — and to the new moniker — than a quick headline in the daily newspapers, analysts and local wireless executives say.

For starters, how important is Calgary compared with other places, as a centre for research, development and commercialization of wireless technologies? On the North American stage, the city’s wireless community doesn’t yet have the profile of the wireless hotbed in Dallas, Tex., says Joe Greene, vice-president of Internet and telecom research at IDC Canada Ltd., a Toronto-based technology research firm.

But in Canada, “more and more when you think of wireless, you think of the Calgary area.”

Nortel Networks Corp. operates an expansive, 2,000-employee global manufacturing plant in northeast Calgary. The company recently announced a $54-million expansion of its Westwinds campus, adding a 200,000-square-foot facility to provide more room for wireless research and development.

In terms of market influence, “what else do you have to say?” Greene notes. “It’s Nortel.”

Telus Corp., which relocated to Burnaby, B.C. when it merged with BC Tel, maintains its Telus Mobility headquarters in Calgary.

Wi-LAN Inc. is a Calgary-based innovator in high-speed wireless data communications.

Other important players here include Novatel Wireless Technologies Ltd., Telecommunications Research Labs, and Harris Canada Inc.’s wireless access division.

Wireless has deep roots in Western Canada — particularly Alberta — where one in three people use mobile phones, compared with one in four for the rest of Canada.

The oil and gas industry used wireless SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) technology to monitor oilfield facilities long before cellphones debuted.


Globally, wireless is one the biggest growth areas in telecommunications. Analysts estimate that by 2003, the wireless market in the U.S. alone will be $60 billion. They also forecast there’ll be more than one billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, up from 237 million in 1999.

Any city that wants to figure prominently in worldwide telecommunications had better have a substantial wireless component, says Ian Angus, president of Angus Telemanagement Group Inc. of Ajax, Ont. “Calgary is certainly a significant player in wireless.”

Cell-Loc Inc., headquartered here, researches and develops patented wireless-location technology and equipment. Cell-Loc’s wholly owned subsidiary, TimesThree Inc., is based in Dallas.

Through agreements with companies that own wireless towers, TimesThree has begun deploying Cell-Loc’s cellphone location equipment in towers in Calgary, Austin and Dallas. The deployment plan for the next 18 months includes 42 cities in the U.S.

Wi-LAN’s reach extends to strategic partners including Ericsson Canada, a leading communications supplier and the country’s sixth-largest R&D investor, and giant Philips Semiconductors.

Calgary’s wireless community includes companies such as WaveRider Communications, that supply SCADA to the energy and other sectors. The community also encompasses contracted engineering resources and services, provided by such companies as Microlynx Systems Ltd., as well as firms that deliver wireless applications to businesses through PDAs (personal digital assistants) and other extensions.

Bill Hews, president and chief operating officer of Wi-LAN, says that among Calgary’s wireless players, “the stage we’re at is growing critical mass . . . the sense is that we’re coming on fast.”

So why, in Wireless Valley, does red ink dot the horizon?

Wi-LAN, for example, increased its net loss by 173 per cent, to $9 million ($0.41 per share) for the nine months ended July 31, 2000, compared with $3.3 million for the nine months ended Oct. 31, 1999.

Cell-Loc reported a net loss of about $8.9 million ($0.49 per share) for the company’s year ended June 30, 1999. That compares with a net loss of about $2 million (0.14) for the previous year.

Hews, speaking for Wi-LAN only, said net losses are expected and planned for in a high-tech business that’s investing significantly during its early growth stages. In less than one year, Wi-Lan’s employee base has grown by nearly 300 per cent, adding sales forces in the Middle East, Africa and South America to a roster that already includes the U.S. and Europe.

The company employs more than 200 people, 144 in Calgary, and will move next year to a new 90,000-sq.-ft. facility.

Cell-Loc isn’t generating any revenue, but is financially healthy and expanding, judging by its workforce. It employed 40 people last year. Now, there are 135 employees, with 200 anticipated by Christmas.

In late 1999, Cell-Loc also had no trouble raising about $50 million on the basis of deploying its wireless-location equipment in Calgary, Austin and Dallas. The cost of deployment is coming in under budget and there’s still $30 million in the bank to finish the job and expand to other cities, management says.