SOURCE: MILCOM Technologies

MeshNetworks Names Masood Garahi Chief Executive Officer

ORLANDO, Fla., July 28 /PRNewswire/ -- MILCOM Technologies, the world leader in commercializing military technologies, announces that its sixth portfolio company, MeshNetworks, Inc., has named Masood Garahi Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Garahi comes to MeshNetworks from TV Guide, Inc., where he was Chief Technology Officer in the TV Games Division. There he was responsible for the development and launch of next-generation interactive television products. He was also responsible for the development of the infrastructure for a two-way interactive television network including the back office e-commerce systems and the subscriber devices, which were set-top boxes and remotes. The product was launched successfully in July 1999.

Prior to his work in the TV Games Division, Mr. Garahi was the Vice President of R&D and New Business Development in the SpaceCom Systems Division of TV Guide. There he was responsible for new business development and the development of next-generation products. He was also responsible for the R&D group whose products included satellite receivers, self-calibrating antennas, Direct Video Broadcast (DVB), and MPEG video via satellite.

Before joining TV Guide, Mr. Garahi was Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Skytel. While at Skytel, he led the technical team in its development of the innovative two-way paging technology. Additionally, Mr. Garahi helped raise more than $250 million from private and public sources to support this product vision and he managed annual budgets of more that $100 million and projects of up to $300 million.

Mr. Garahi was also responsible for SkyTel's international wide-area network with over 6000 stations and with operations in 22 countries. The network supported nearly two million subscribers worldwide and was deployed in more than 300 markets. In addition, Mr. Garahi is the inventor on more than 9 issued patents.

Mr. Garahi stated, ``I joined the MeshNetworks team because of the power of its products. The MeshNetworks product presents the first real opportunity to deliver a true, unified network service with the convergence of voice data and video data on the same device at the same time. Under the MeshNetworks product strategy, your wireless phone will become your only phone with the same speed, capability and quality of service of any phone (wire-line or wireless) at a fraction of the cost. The MeshNetworks technology has the ability to completely change the current paradigm in the way the world communicates.''

MeshNetworks, Inc. has created a patented, proven, mobile Internet multi- media communications platform for Mobile Internet. It offers a unique Internet communications platform that is the first in the industry to provide a truly mobile infrastructure. The technology was developed by ITT Industries to meet Department of Defense (DOD) requirements for a multi-media hand-held terminal that supports voice, data and video services in a battlefield situation. MILCOM, through an agreement with ITT, has secured the rights to produce this technology through the launch of MeshNetworks, Inc. In addition to MILCOM, BancBoston Capital and Patricof & Co. Ventures back MeshNetworks. The company closed its first round of financing in early February.