Wireless Internet service provider NextWeb last week announced completion of the first phase in its plan to extend its pre-WiMAX network across the greater Los Angeles area, an expansion that will make the company’s high-speed service available to close to 50,000 additional business customers upon its conclusion.

For the first phase of the expansion project, NextWeb installed three base stations in downtown Los Angeles, which will deliver broadband wireless services of up to 100 Mbps. Phases two, three and four of the expansion--expected to wrap by year’s end--will further extend coverage to the western and eastern borders of Los Angeles County, culminating in further eastward expansion to Ontario in the Inland Empire.

Although NextWeb currently serves about 2000 enterprise customers in roughly 175 cities across California, 40% of its market is centralized in greater L.A. “The Los Angeles market is our biggest and most competitive market,” said NextWeb director of marketing and business development Eric Warren. “We already cover a good deal of it, but we needed to expand to better cover our addressable market. We also needed to upgrade the network and increase backhaul.”

Fremont, Calif.-based NextWeb first launched service in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000, acquiring its Los Angeles network assets via its 2003 merger with fellow WISP SkyPipeline. The company targets small and medium-sized businesses as well as large enterprise accounts, both of which exist in significant numbers in the Los Angeles market. According to Warren, while NextWeb’s SME customers currently account for the majority of its overall client base, its higher-end customers generate the majority of its overall revenue.

“Downtown L.A. offers our highest concentration of target customers,” Warren said. “When we launch new base stations, we want quick payback--hopefully in three months, and in no more than six.”