Press Release: Wireless ISP Announces New $9 Million WiNet Contract with Louisiana Bank

Wireless ISP Announces New $9 Million WiNet Contract with Louisiana Bank

July 23 -- ERF Wireless announced that its Enterprise Network Services subsidiary has entered into its first ten-year WiNet System Agreement. This new contract is with First Federal Bank of Lake Charles, Louisiana, to utilize the bank's excess bandwidth and wireless infrastructure to provide Wireless Internet Service Products (WISP) to the bank's commercial and retail customers in southwest and central Louisiana.

The WiNet System Agreement is in addition to the BranchNet and US-BankNet contracts recently announced with First Federal Bank. ERF Wireless plans to operate and support its WiNet product offerings through its Wireless Bundled Services subsidiary and estimates its WiNet operations with First Federal Bank will generate more than $9 million in recurring revenues over the next ten years after a two-year ramp-up period. The bank will receive 10% of the gross subscriber revenues as part of the agreement.

John A. Burns, Chairman and CEO of ERF Enterprise Network Services, commented, "Our marketing and sales force is doing a tremendous job rolling out our newly announced product line. This new WiNet System Agreement with First Federal Bank is the first of its kind and will open the door for ERF Wireless to expand the Wireless Bundled Services subsidiary from its current base of Texas networks, serving over 2,000 customers, into a number of new and greatly underserved markets. The nature of this revenue-sharing agreement with the bank allows ERF Wireless to quickly enter into servicing these new territories without having the expense of constructing or leasing towers."

Mr. Burns further commented, "In addition, since it is utilizing the excess bandwidth of the bank's BranchNet system rather than the company having to build out a capital-intensive backbone, the WiNet system strategy allows ERF Wireless to concentrate its resources on sales, marketing and ongoing operations. Even the marketing of the WiNet digital products and services under this agreement is unique as the bank will be fully cooperating with ERF Wireless to generate new WISP customers throughout the local communities served by the bank, including its many commercial, retail, and residential customers."

Mr. James M. Fazende, Chief Operating Officer of First Federal Bank of Louisiana, remarked, "The ERF Enterprise Network Services team is right on target with their new WiNet strategy. Financial institutions across the country are struggling to find ways to generate new fee-based income. When we were offered the opportunity to enter into a WiNet System Agreement with ERF Wireless to make our investment in the company's BranchNet and US-BankNet systems a revenue-producing asset, our senior management team carefully evaluated it. It didn't take us long to make our decision once we realized that this revenue-sharing agreement will not only generate significant recurring revenue for the bank over a ten-year period, but will continue the payback for up to 25-years with renewals. In addition, the WiNet services can assist many of our bank customers with high-speed internet services that aren't found in many of our branch communities."

Dr. H. Dean Cubley, CEO of ERF Wireless, commented, "Our latest contract with First Federal underscores just how quickly we believe we can implement our strategy to develop four separate and distinct revenue streams from every financial institution that we bring on as a wireless system customer. These four separate revenue sources are through a BranchNet Agreement to construct the banks basic wireless network, a US-BankNet Agreement to interconnect the bank to our statewide and eventually national network, a WiNet System Agreement to provide wireless broadband services to the banks customers and the local community, and the sale of additional advanced digital applications utilizing the greatly expanded bandwidth now available to the bank. We also anticipate quickly expanding this multi-source revenue business model into Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and, eventually, throughout the country."

ERF Enterprise Network Services is an experienced provider of wireless networks throughout rural areas of the U.S. The company and its principals have been in the LAN/WAN, network integration, ISP, Internet banking, encryption technology, and banking software businesses for more than twenty years and have constructed secure, encrypted, wireless broadband networks as well as secure Internet banking solutions and other secure data processing systems for hundreds of banks, primarily in rural communities across America.