AEPONA, the Belfast-based offshoot of APiON Technologies, which sold to Phone.com last October for $239 million (€249 million), has announced plans to almost double its workforce over the next two years.

Aepona has announced 97 new jobs which will expand its workforce to around 200 people. The company is entirely self-financed and plans to spend £3.2 million sterling (€5 million) on the company's expansion. It will also receive grant aid from the Northern Ireland Industrial Development Board totalling around £986,000 in training and employment grants over the next three years.

Aepona specialises in developing third generation mobile technology which will allow mobile devices to be used for data traffic as well as voice traffic. It is working on technology which will allow users of mobile phones receive "location sensitive" information. For example, as a mobile phone user passes a shop they may be alerted on their mobile phone to special offers available within that branch.

"As the next generation of mobile technology requires a complete reshaping of the telecommunications infrastructure, telecommunications operators are under increasing pressure to provide platforms for service providers to develop and deploy the new data focused applications of the future. Aepona is very well positioned to be the software supplier of choice to network equipment providers in this area," says Mr Liam McQuillan, Aepona managing director.

Aepona, which was ApiON's non-WAP (wireless application protocol) related services business, is only six months operating independently and already has its software installed in over half the telecommunications base station controllers worldwide.

Such controllers route telephone calls from sender to receiver and Aepona's software oversees the operation, administration and maintenance of the controllers.

Mr McQuillan said Aepona's long-term business strategy had not yet been defined, but, given the company's history, a trade sale remained a possibility.