Infrastructure startup Flarion Technologies has scored a small commercial deployment at Citizens, a service provider based in rural southwest Virginia.

The vendor is to deploy its Flash-OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) kit in the areas of Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford. These regions have a total population of approximately 73,000 and cover about 43 square miles.

Service is expected to be launched “in early fall 2005,” using 700MHz licensed spectrum. “They’ve had the equipment in a while, but the deal has just been announced,” says Flarion’s EMEA marketing director, Joe Barrett. According to Citizens’ marketing manager, Robert Weeks, the network is hoping to attract “around 4,000 customers,” including business and residential consumers, universities, and local public and safety organizations. Between eight and 10 base stations are expected to be deployed.

Flarion appears to be on a roll right now. Last week the company announced it was the equipment vendor of choice for a nationwide Finnish deployment in the 450MHz band, winning a deal at Digita Oy (see Flarion Wins in Finland ).

Flarion has previously announced deals at Aloha Partners and Cellular One of Amarillo, a high-profile deployment at Nextel Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: NXTL), and a public safety network project in Washington D.C. (See Flarion Greets Aloha, Flarion Unwires Amarillo, Nextel Flashes With Flarion, and Flarion & Friends Get Gov't Gig.)

The vendor has also trialed its equipment at Hanaro Telecom Inc., SK Telecom (Nasdaq: SKM), Telstra Corp., T-Mobile International AG, and Vodafone K.K. (See Flarion Doubles Down in Korea, Flarion Cookin' Up Seoul Food, Flarion Confirms Telstra Trial, T-Mobile Flashes Flarion Trial, and Flarion Wins Voodoo Trial.)

— Justin Springham, Senior Editor, Europe, Unstrung