LightSquared: A New Player in 4G?

By  |  Friday, April 15, 2011 at 2:02 pm

In a time where we seem to be increasingly concerned with the state of wireless competition, a new player may be emerging hoping to shake up the space. LightSquared hopes to make its mark by selling 4G broadband to companies looking to add wireless connectivity to their products and is poised to begin a nationwide rollout., PC World’s Paul Kapustka reports.

The company certainly has the backing necessary: investment from billionaire Philip Falcone and its own spectrum. However, it needs partners and is rumored to be in talks with Sprint Nextel over a tower sharing deal. Service could begin as soon as the end of 2011, and Best Buy will resell its service beginning sometime next year.

Certainly more wireless competition is something that a lot of wireless watchers will appreciate. However starting a network from scratch is no easy task, and especially one that would be built from the beginning to support a next-generation technology. It is not going to be cheap at all.

That said, with AT&T-Mobile a possibility, having LightSquared could answer concerns of rising costs due to lack of competition. Look at the company’s deal with budget carrier Cricket. Its desire to operate on a wholesale level — they sell to companies, not consumers — means they could viably serve as a way for those small mom and pop wireless carriers to compete with what soon could be the Big Three.

 
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  1. @ggore Says:
    April 17th, 2011 at 5:10 am

    Ah, here we go again, another "nationwide" rollout, which in reality means, one tower site in New York City, another in San Francisco or Seattle, and NOTHING in between, while the headlines and company PR blares "NATIONWIDE SERVICE".

    We have the same thing right now with CDMA, EDGE, 3G, 4G, LTE, HSDPA+, whatever, you name it, NOT ONE of these technologies is in reality truly nationwide, wherein you can drive north-south or east-west across the US on any cross-country highway and have service the entire distance. You might have service in the center of your mega-city, but the instant you leave that center for work, play, vacation, whatever, your service drops from the nice fast 4G/LTE level to 2G or drops completely for a hundred, several hundred, or a thousand miles before picking up again in the middle of the next mega-city.

    Or god help you when driving through the wilds of the Great Plains (where people do live, by the way, there are populated cities and towns here) and break down and need help from AAA and there is no signal for 100 miles in any direction.