Many cable and Wall Street eyes will be on little old Vyyo first thing Monday morning

Alan Breznick, Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading

March 30, 2007

2 Min Read
Watching Vyyo

Many cable and Wall Street eyes will be on little old Vyyo Inc. (Nasdaq: VYYO) first thing Monday morning when the company reports its fourth-quarter and year-end earnings results.

That's because Vyyo's stock has soared over the past two weeks as the company has announced a major deployment deal with Singapore MSO StarHub , signed up two top former MSO executives, and secured $35 million in fresh financing from Goldman, Sachs & Co. After five years of plugging its spectrum overlay technology to a skeptical cable crowd, the firm finally seems on a roll.

In fact, the buzz among some investors and analysts is that Vyyo has sealed, or is close to sealing, pilot deployment deals with several big U.S. cable operators, including Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), Charter Communications Inc. , Cox Communications Inc. , and Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC).

Most recently, ThinkEquity LLC ' Anton Wahlman predicted that Cox, which has already started deploying Vyyo equipment for business services, will begin rolling out the technology for residential service in at least one undisclosed market this year. He also predicted that at least two of the other three big C's -- Comcast, Charter, and Cablevision -- will conduct advanced field trials of the spectrum overlay system for consumer service before the end of the year.

In addition, Wahlman predicted, "almost all cable operators will be deploying at least modest quantities of Vyyo equipment for enterprise applications" by the end of December. Cox has been trying out the firm's equipment for that purpose in San Diego and New Orleans.

As a result, Wahlman projects that Vyyo's revenues will leap to $64.6 million this year and $111.6 million in 2008 from an estimated $10.1 million last year. He sees the company's net loss narrowing to $4.9 million this year from an estimated $24.5 million in 2005 and then swinging into a $9.9 million profit in 2008.

But other analysts warn that Vyyo fans may be getting just a wee bit ahead of themselves. They note that the timing of MSO contracts is notoriously difficult to predict. So a bunch of folks will be hanging on Vyyo chairman Davidi Gilo's every word when he speaks Monday morn.

— Alan Breznick, Site Editor, Cable Digital News

About the Author(s)

Alan Breznick

Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading

Alan Breznick is a business editor and research analyst who has tracked the cable, broadband and video markets like an over-bred bloodhound for more than 20 years.

As a senior analyst at Light Reading's research arm, Heavy Reading, for six years, Alan authored numerous reports, columns, white papers and case studies, moderated dozens of webinars, and organized and hosted more than 15 -- count 'em --regional conferences on cable, broadband and IPTV technology topics. And all this while maintaining a summer job as an ostrich wrangler.

Before that, he was the founding editor of Light Reading Cable, transforming a monthly newsletter into a daily website. Prior to joining Light Reading, Alan was a broadband analyst for Kinetic Strategies and a contributing analyst for One Touch Intelligence.

He is based in the Toronto area, though is New York born and bred. Just ask, and he will take you on a power-walking tour of Manhattan, pointing out the tourist hotspots and the places that make up his personal timeline: The bench where he smoked his first pipe; the alley where he won his first fist fight. That kind of thing.

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