Dragonwave Gets a Clear(wire) Boost

DragonWave Inc. (AIM/Toronto: DWI; Nasdaq: DRWI) is predicting improved revenue for fiscal year 2010, thanks to wireless backhaul contracts from the likes of Clearwire LLC (Nasdaq: CLWR).

The Ottawa-based vendor today updated its revenue guidance for financial year 2010 to $120 million in Canadian dollars ($111.4M). This is a $20 million CDN increase on previous predictions by the company.

DragonWave, along with Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), is supplying microwave backhaul equipment for the "Clear" mobile WiMax deployment in the U.S. In fact, DragonWave has worked on the Xohm sites too before that all got folded into Clearwire. (See Sprint Rides DragonWave for Backhaul and Clearwire Confirms Huawei Deal.)

Faster backhaul is particularly important as carriers start to move toward 4G networks. Microwave and fiber links provide more horsepower to base stations that could be sending and receiving many megabit-speed connections at a time. Many carriers have found that older T1 connections are not sufficient for faster wireless networks. (See 4G Backhaul: A Problem for All?.) DragonWave will announce its second-quarter results on October 8.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung