ip.access ltd. announced the conclusion of an £8.5 M financing round led by Scottish Equity Partners, including Intel Capital Corp. and Rothschild & Cie Gestion. The investment will be used to finance the expansion of the company's current successful second-generation pico base station business and to develop cost-effective third generation access points for use in homes and small businesses to support fixed mobile convergence. ip.access is based in Cambridge, UK, and was founded in 1999 as a spin-out from TTPCom to provide mobile network operators with solutions to improve in-building cellular coverage and capacity.

The company claims to produce the world's smallest GSM base stations that are designed to be deployed inside buildings and communicate with operators' infrastructure using ubiquitous broadband IP links. It has enjoyed increasing success and its nanoGSM equipment is used by operators globally, including T-Mobile USA, Telfort (Netherlands), Spring Mobil (Sweden), Smart (Philippines) and Eurotel (Czech Republic). Also, in 2004, the company signed a global OEM agreement with Siemens Mobile under which Siemens distributes nanoGSM as part of its enterprise portfolio.

"We are delighted to welcome SEP, Intel Capital and Rothschild as investors," said Stephen Mallinson, ip.access' CEO. "Their investment will enable us to accelerate the development of our 3G Access Point, with which operators will be able to cover homes and small businesses and provide converged fixed-mobile services at prices competitive with fixed-line services. It will also help us expand our GSM market, addressing new opportunities, such as those presented by the forthcoming auction of the 1800 MHz spectrum in the UK."

Tony Milbourn, TTP Communications MD and ip.access chairman, added, "Demand for fixed mobile convergence is growing. ip.access' vision, tenacity and technical and commercial expertise has brought the company to an impressive position in delivering commercial in-building wireless solutions based on low cost cellular technology. Now, with this additional funding, we are in a strong position to do the same for residential markets."