Freedom4 Wimax to go mobile

Freedom4, the company formerly known as Pipex Wireless, has applied to Ofcom for the right to offer mobile Wimax services.

The company, a joint venture with Intel, has already begun a rollout of fixed Wimax services in Britain. Its request to have its licence amended to permit mobile use was expected and is likely to be approved.

A group called the Mobile Wimax Acceleration Group (M-WAG) announced last month that it will pilot a mobile Wimax service at Maidstone, in Kent.

This uses frequencies around 2.5GHz, whereas Freedom4 owns spectrum around 3.6GHz. But Wimax modules going into Intel notebooks later this year will support both bands.

News of the Freedom4 move was buried in a complex statement about disposal of assets of its parent, formerly known as Pipex Communications and renamed last week as Freedom4 Communications.

The company sold the right to the name Pipex last year to service provider Tiscali, which also bought its voice and home-broadband businesses.

Now, subject to the approval of shareholders, its web-hosting and business division will be sold off in a deal worth around £120million to a company called Host Europe, newly formed by Oakley Capital Private Equity LP.

To complicate matters further, the division's hosting and domain registration services are sold under the brands 123-reg, Webfusion, Donhost and Supernames. These are owned by a company called GX Networks, part of the Freedom4 Communications group, and will go to Host if the deal goes ahead.

The former Pipex Business, now called Vialtus and also owned by GX Networks, is also included in the deal.