[Cambridge, CANADA] Urbana.ca, a provider of set-top boxes and
geographic virtual communities, has inked a licensing agreement with Community
Infonet of Toronto.
Under the deal, Urbana.ca will roll out LocalNets in the regions of
York, Durham, and Metro.
Urbana.ca’s custom designed set-top box is an easy-to-use, affordable
Internet appliance that connects televisions to the World Wide Web.
The unit allows members of a community to become connected to the
Internet and LocalNet for a monthly fee.
The Localnet site is a user-friendly online portal that provides
residents easy access to important community information and provides
local advertisers the ability to target advertising to their
geographic virtual communities.
Community Infonet is comprised of a team of professionals involved in
finance, business, and education who share some common goals. It
believes that real-time interaction of information made available to
all will benefit communities greatly.
The LocalNet installations will begin this month in the Richmond Hill
area of the region of York, and expand to other communities beginning
in 2001. These new territories represent an additional 1,200,000
potential customers and over 120,000 new local businesses for the
Urbana.ca service.
Urbana will receive a license fee and ongoing royalties from each
community. “These territories will increase Urbana’s license revenues
for Localnets to over $1,800,000 over the next two years, with
royalties estimated to grow to $500,000 per month by the end of
2001,” said Urbana.ca president, David Groves.
A definitive agreement between Urbana.ca and Community Infonet will
be completed in the next 30 days. To date, Urbana has six operating
portals in Guelph, Cambridge, Grey/Bruce, Halton/Peel, and
Haldiman/Norfolk regions, representing over 700,000 potential
customers.
http://www.urbana.ca
