Much like the scalability of the  wireless broadband capacity it  offers, Sparkplug Inc. believes its  ability to ratchet up its services to meet  increasing client demands will be a key  to its success.

The Chicago-based company, which  in July 2006 merged with West Des  Moines-based Prairie iNet LLC and  Telespectra LLC of Scottsdale, Ariz.,  now provides wireless broadband  services to businesses in eight states,  including Iowa.

With a $22.5 million round of equity  and debt financing announced on  Jan. 16, Sparkplug has “a tremendous  opportunity” to further expand its  wireless network, said CEO Bill Malloy.  With that expansion, Sparkplug’s West  Des Moines location, which currently  employs 22 people, will also serve as a  customer support center for all of the  company’s clients.

A privately held company, Sparkplug  does not reveal revenue or  income data, but says its eight-state territory  makes it one of the largest service  providers in the emerging business  wireless broadband market.

Businesses are beginning to consider  wireless broadband as a primary  service rather than a backup system,  Malloy said in a telephone interview  from his office in Chicago.

“What drives it a lot of times is that a  business has very unique demands that  call for very large bandwidth,” he said.

“We’re starting to see the advent of  more video services, for instance, and  businesses are asking, ‘How do I scale  up my broadband needs?’With our service,  it’s literally a phone call or an e-mail  away to size it up.”

In Greater Des Moines, Sparkplug  sees particular opportunities in serving  the financial services industry and the  legal and architectural professions, each  of which typically require the ability to  send large volumes of data.

Prairie iNet is in the midst of rebranding  itself as Sparkplug in Greater  Des Moines, but will retain its original  name in the remainder of the state,  said Steve DenHerder, Sparkplug’s vice  president of business operations in  West Des Moines.

“We have plans to hire additional  people this year as we bring on new territories  and new markets,” DenHerder  said.”They’re great jobs with a technology-  based company, from accounting  and customer and network support to  the operational parts of the business.”

Sparkplug’s merger with Prairie  iNet and Telespectra brought together  three broadband providers that were  successful in their respective markets,  Malloy said.

“When we brought together the  three companies, we had very strong revenue and profitability,” he said.”This  round of funding was put together to  continue to build out our networks and  to grow in other markets.”

In addition to Iowa, the combined  company serves markets in Illinois,  Arizona,Tennessee, Nevada, New Mexico,  Colorado and California, and will  focus on building additional business  in metropolitan markets such as  Greater Des Moines.

Malloy, previously a senior executive  with McCaw Cellular Communications  Inc. – a pioneer cellular telephone  company that AT&T Corp.  bought in 1993 – leads the combined  company with Jeff Hardesty, CEO of  Telespectra and head of Sparkplug’s  Southwest division. Neil Mulholland,  a co-founder and CEO of Prairie iNet,  serves on the company’s board.

Sparkplug’s chairman, former AT&T  Wireless CEO Steve Hooper, is also a  founding partner of Ignition Partners,  a venture capital firm in Bellevue,  Wash., that led the $22.5 million private  financing deal. Other partners in  the financing round were The Greenspun  Corp. of Henderson, Nev., a real  estate, media, travel, gaming and technology  company whose holdings  include SkyMall magazine and travel  Web site LasVegas.com; and Trilogy  Equity Partners, also a venture firm in  Bellevue,Wash.

As a combined company, Sparkplug  has a network of hundreds of antenna  sites, which are tied together with network  operations centers in Chicago,  Phoenix and West Des Moines. “We  build and maintain that architecture  ourselves, so that is a key piece of what  we do,” Malloy said.

In contrast with Wi-Fi services,  which might provide wireless broadband  hot-spots in public buildings, or  the emerging Wi-Max systems geared  toward communitywide coverage,  Sparkplug provides a dedicated service  for each client, which can be scaled  from 1 megabyte per second to as  much as 200 Mbps, depending upon  the business’s needs.