Maybe someone can explain why Lightsquared doesn’t seem willing to move their service to “terrestrial” bands, since they are now proposing to build 40,000 terrestrial towers (where the prior approved proposal was all satellite based) and using satellites very little.
The simple “why” is billions of dollars.
Terrestrial spectrum is finite, being actively used (Verizon and AT&T dropped their “unlimited data” plans partly due to capacity issues), and extremely valuable.
Satellite spectrum is also finite, but the companies trying to establish satellite services have been more notable for their business failures than anything else. The ones that hang on have a lot of excess bandwidth.
The National Broadband Plan states an objective to convert 120 MHz of underused/underutilized satellite spectrum to wireless broadband.
Harbinger Capital Partners simply read the clear and open signals from the FCC, picked up a struggling satellite company (complete with the L-Band spectrum adjacent to GPS L1) and renamed it LightSquared, and is now swinging for the bleachers.
If they connect they’ll make billions, but probably more important to the main players they’ll be the “smartest guys in the room” for pulling off this trick of establishing an LTE network for a fraction of what it would cost if they purchased terrestrial spectrum.
GB
Source: http://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=80575
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