Coming This Fall: Real Competition In Mobile Broadband

Lightsquared is a start-up in the mobile broadband space, but one with $7 billion in capital commitments and a chunk of wireless spectrum.  How the company got a hold of it is a long an interesting story - it's tied to satellite bandwidth that wasn't really originally intended for high intensity ground network.  Nonetheless, the letter of the law allows the company to do exactly that, provided it integrates the ground network with a satellite network.

While the specifics of the ground to satellite integration are not trivial, for users on the ground, no real difference will be visible between Lightsquared's network and any other mobile operator.  Lightsquared will offer data only, as I understand it, leveraging a 4G LTE network.  The Lightsquared offering will only be available at the wholesale level, so other companies will have to package and sell the service.

Competition From Space, On The Ground.  Photo by KiWanja

This could lead to a big wave of innovation and service.  Today, all the major Virtual Network Operators depend on a branded network operator like Sprint or Verizon to provide their service.  As a result, whole sale rates, while lower than commercial rates, are set to enable price discrimination but not real competition.  Lightsquared, without any branded network of their own, could inject dramatically different practices into the market.

Launch is set for late 2011 in selected markets and accelerates into 2012 with a goal to cover at least half the US population by 2016.