ABRY Partners made yet another investment in the communications space with its $20 million infusion into Airband Communications (News - Alert) Inc. The funding, announced today, will enable the fixed wireless service provider to expand organically and do additional mergers and acquisitions.

“The surging demand for high-quality data, VoIP and business continuity services and the explosion of cloud-based computing present us with exceptional growth opportunities,” says Airband CEO Michael Ruley.  “With this new capital, we can increase our network coverage to better support regional and national accounts, including marquee brands that want Airband services in hundreds of locations.”

The funding news follows by about a year the merger of Airband and Sparkplug (News - Alert). That created the largest fixed wireless company for businesses in the U.S., Ruley, who had been CEO of Sparkplug, told TMCnet at the time of the deal.

The Airband-Sparkplug merger last year involved a different $20 million-chunk of change, which the newly enlarged company received as part of the transaction. That 2010 funding came from the company’s previous equity backers Ignition Partners, Key Venture Partners, M/C Venture Partners and Trilogy Equity Partners (which in all provided a $11 million equity investment), and $9 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank and MMV Financial.

Airband operates in the following markets: Atlanta; Austin; Baltimore; Dallas; Des Moines; Fort Lauderdale; Fort Worth; Houston; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; Orange County, Calif; Philadelphia; Phoenix; San Antonio, San Diego and Washington, D.C. Services running over Airband’s broadband wireless network include data offers from 1mbps into the gigabit Ethernet speeds as well as VoIP services, including hosted VoIP and SIP trunking.

As part of the Airband investment announced today, Boston-based ABRY Partners will have a seat on Airband’s board of directors.

ABRY’s collection of communications-related investments include CapRock Holdings, COMFORCE Corp., CyrusOne, Grande Communications (News - Alert), Home Town Cable, Hometown Broadband, Navtech Inc., Network Communications, RCN and Sidera Networks (News - Alert).

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.