iPass customers can roam onto KT's locations: The 500,000 active users of iPass's aggregated dial-up, wired, and Wi-Fi network can access the 14,000 locations in one of South Korea's two enormous hotspot deployments. KT requires 802.1X for authentication, which iPass supports. Last year, KT offered iPass to its customers; this just closes the loop with bidirectional access and aggregation.
iPass says they have 23,000 hotspots active in their current footprint in 52 countries. This will push them to 37,000 when activated. The bragging rights associated with total hotspot count is starting to matter. iPass saw its stock drop when it turned in reduced profits as dial-up revenue sinks while broadband revenue, including both wired and Wi-Fi income, increases.
The broadband sector of its revenue is up from $450,000 in Q2 2004 to $2.1 million in the most recent quarter. This is a big quarter over quarter rise, though, with only $1.4 million collected in Q1 2005. Total revenue was $43.1 million, down a million from Q1 2005. The company continues to be profitable, but is experiencing a drop in earnings and revenue, which makes this continued transition into broadband forming a majority of their income a painful one.
The stock is at about one third of its IPO price, but the company maintains a very high cash-on-hand balance and a solid market capitalization.