Airspan Networks is an American telecommunications company headquartered in

Boca Raton, Florida Boca Raton ( ; es, Boca Ratón, link=no, ) is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It was first incorporated on August 2, 1924, as "Bocaratone," and then incorporated as "Boca Raton" in 1925. The population was 97,422 in the ...

. The company develops Radio Access Network technology including the Sprint 'Magic Box' and cells (both small and macro) for the Rakuten virtualized network. Airspan was originally a product division of DSC Communications, a manufacturer of telephone switching equipment. Original products included a CDMA-based radio platform used for the fixed wireless market. In 1998, the company separated from DSC Communications and announced Eric Stonestrom as CEO and President. Airspan originally focused its product line on the small cell and mini-macro equipment market, used by mobile operators to extend wireless services. Through the acquisition of Mimosa Networks in 2018, the company entered the market for fixed wireless solutions which are used in commercial, enterprise and operator networks for wireless backhaul and access applications. Airspan's 5G NR development program is focused on mmWave, Sub 6GHz, Massive MIMO, and Open Virtual RAN architectures. The company also offers fixed wireless access and backhaul solutions for PTP (point-to-point) and PTMP (point-to-multi-point) applications through its Mimosa Products. In March, 2019, Airspan announced a partnership with Google in support of

CBRS Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) is a 150 MHz wide broadcast band of the 3.5 GHz band (3550 MHz to 3700 MHz) in the United States. In 2017, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) completed a process which began i ...

services. In August 2021
Airspan completed a business combination with New Beginnings Acquisition Corp
The newly-renamed "Airspan Networks Holdings Inc. then began trading on the NYSE American under the ticker symbol MIMO.

History

The company was founded in January 1998. In May 1998, Eric D. Stonestrom was named president and chief executive officer of the company. Its first product, AS4020 platform, was based on CDMA radio technology adapted for fixed

wireless access point In computer networking, a wireless access point (WAP), or more generally just access point (AP), is a networking hardware device that allows other Wi-Fi devices to connect to a wired network. As a standalone device, the AP may have a wired co ...

s. In July 2000, as the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

was bursting, the company became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...

and raised $82.5 million in an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

. Its stock price rose 113% in its first day of trading. In 2004, the company made an agreement with Neda Telecommunications, a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

of Aspen Wind Corporation, to send

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

s to

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. In the fourth quarter of 2005, the company released its WiMAX product line. In September 2006,

Oak Investment Partners Oak Investment Partners is a private equity firm focusing on venture capital investments in companies developing communications systems, information technology, new Internet media, healthcare services and retail. History The firm, founded in 19 ...

made a $29 million investment in the company. In 2010, the company teamed with LightSquared to market LightSquared's 1.4 GHz wireless spectrum in the United States. The spectrum is targeted primarily at the utility industry for Smart Grid deployments. In 2009, the company's stock was delisted from the NASDAQ. In March 2021, the company announced that it would be re-listed on NYSE American through a reverse merger with New Beginnings Acquisition Corporation, a

special-purpose acquisition company A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC; ), also known as a "blank check company", is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring a private company, thus making it public without going through the traditional i ...

. In August 2021, the company completed the reverse merger with New Beginnings Acquisition Corporation. The parent company was hence renamed "Airspan Networks Holdings Inc." and began trading on th
NYSE American under the ticker symbol MIMO

Awards and recognition

Airspan's industry recognition and awards date back to 2007 when the company won the 'Best of WiMAX World USA Award'. Airspan & Jio won the SCF 2020 Award for Excellence in Commercial Deployment (Urban). Sprint and Airspan won the SCF 2019 Small Cell Award for Excellence in Commercial Deployment. Sprint & Airspan Networks – Sprint LTE Magic Box won the SCF Award 2018 Excellence in Commercial Deployment (Residential). Airspan and Sprint were selected as the winners for the “Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough” at GLOMO 2018 Awards. Airspan and Qualcomm won the SCF 2021 Small Cell Award for Excellence in Commercial Deployment for 5G OpenRANGE mmWave outdoor small deployment.

References

External links

{{Dot-com Bubble 1998 establishments in Florida 2000 initial public offerings American companies established in 1998 Companies based in Boca Raton, Florida Technology companies established in 1998 Telecommunications companies of the United States