Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
“Turn the Lights-squared out”
What can possibly be said about LightSquared at this point, besides bad puns?
I know that the company is not “dead” dead, but it seems that the hill it has been climbing in trying to launch a wireless service just received a new helping of lubrication. And that lubricant was delivered with GPS-like accuracy. ZING!
And so it is that LightSquared’s attempt to become a carrier’s carrier (where have we seen that fail before?) has hit a hurdle too high with the Federal Communications Commission refusing to grant the company access to spectrum that it controls.
This is the same FCC that got the ball rolling on this whole fiasco by telling LightSquared to go ahead and start working on its planned mobile broadband network despite the fact that the powerful GPS lobby was set to prevent LightSquared from ever getting its paws on that spectrum. This encouragement was done under the guise of the FCC wanting to expand broadband services.
For those out of the loop on this whole deal, basically LightSquared managed to scrounge together spectrum assets in the 1.6 GHz band that was originally set aside for use in satellite communications and then convinced the government to allow the company to use that spectrum to provide traditional cellular service. It even seemed to gain favor from the stodgy pants over at the Federal Communications Commission, who sort of granted LightSquared to move forward with those ambitious network plans even though everyone sort of knew that there would be some potential interference issues with GPS devices that operate in bands adjacent to LightSquared’s spectrum.
“No Light-squared at the end of the tunnel”
Now, this is where it gets funny. (Well, sort of). Appearantly, all of those GPS devices that have made life so much easier for those of us that don’t know their left from down, as well as other users of GPS for such things as farming and aviation, well they seem to be overstepping their bounds in transmitting in other people’s spectrum bands. ZING!
LightSquared tried to play the political game, but in the end found out that playing in that game requires a new wardrobe.
Anyways, back to where we are now. LightSquared is stuck having spent a reported $4 billion on plans to launch wireless service not being able to use the spectrum that it has the right to use. (Some may question the $4 billion figure, but they did launch a satellite. And I can only guess that had to cost a few bucks, or else all of us would be doing it.)
“FCC turns out the light on Lightsquared”
Is any of this fair? Of course not.
On the face of it, any sane person would agree that LightSquared, no matter how crazy its plans were, is getting screwed on the deal. This also sets a shaky precedent for other spectrum holders that may be holding licenses adjacent to other devices popular with consumers. Possession is nine-tenths of the law? Perhaps.
On a selfish level, I hope this is not the end for LightSquared as I have enjoyed covering their ambitious attempts to get involved in a highly competitive industry that has devoured so many others who have tried to join the club. Plus, they have a satellite in orbit, and how cool is that?
“Last one out, turn off the Lights-quared”
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
— We are now just about a week away from the annual Mobile World Congress event, which has found a nice home in Barcelona and could be even more deeply discovered than in previous years by attendees. As such, those of us in the United States will be making a pilgrimage to the old world, where streets were initially constructed for something narrower than a Hummer, an “early-bird special” for dinner is a near-midnight affair and where making a cellphone call harkens back to the days of “Ma Bell” long-distance charges.
While the first two are issues that can easily be dealt with, it’s that final issue that somehow manages to escape me. How is it that at a time when traditional voice calling has become a commodity often priced at pennies per minute for most consumers, wireless carriers continue to charge exhorbidant rates when a customer takes their mobile device to another country.
I know this is an issue that customers who live in country’s with many borders nearby have to deal with on a regular basis, but it seems like with the upcoming MWC event, this would be an issue that could somehow be solved. How is it possible to charge someone $2 or more per minute to make a cellphone call?!?
Sure, wireless carriers do what they do so they can make money for stockholders, but it just seems that this market for international roaming is too small to make a real impact and thus somehow finding a way to curb these charges would be in everyone’s best interest.
Some will claim that there are plenty of VoIP options out there for those looking to skirt the cellular issue. But, these require either a Wi-Fi connection, which sort of undermines the whole “mobile” issue, or you need to sign up for a data plan, which somehow have even more outlandish pricing models.
Maybe I will just have to wait to place my calls on Sunday.
–Doing what it does best, Nielsen released a report this week showing that parents are increasingly relying on their mobile devices to raise their children.
Hard to really pick on parents for going this route seeing as how I was raised on “Gilligan’s Island” re-runs and Atari. But, it’s sort of funny that a generation of parents that are so enthralled with scheduling every second of their children’s lives, including play dates, have not problem handing over the raising of their children to a mobile device.
–Had to double check that it was not April 1 on this report, but a new survey out of the United Kingdom from SecurEnvoy found that two-thirds of people questioned said they “fear losing or being without their mobile phone.” Even better, this “condition” was labeled “nomophobia” in the press release. Those British are so funny.
Women in the study were seen to be more stricken with fear in losing their mobile device, though men were more likely to have two mobile phones, you know, in case they lost the first one. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an email at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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