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Nokia Siemens to Build US Wireless Network for LightSquared

by Ava on July 22, 2010

LTE or long term evolution is one of those technologies alongside 3GPP and HSPA who shows the most promise among 4th generation mobile networks. In fact, a huge number of wireless network providers agree that LTE may be the only one that can provide realistic boost in network capacity, inevitably reduced total cost of ownership, improved quality of service, and notably enhanced data transfer processes. There is much promise in investing in this kind of technology since MIDs or mobile internet devices have acquired huge technological innovations lately including 3G and other improvements in the smartphone arena and this has led into more data traffic this year than voice traffic. And since the trend is expected to tremendously grow in the coming years, enrichment in this field is imperative to provide better delivery of services to its subscribers.

Lightsquared’s goal is to build a massive wireless network utilizing LTE and this proposed national network is envisioned to encompass forty thousand cellular base stations and be able to serve more than ninety percent of the whole of the United States come 2015. And Nokia Siemens Networks have cornered the more than seven billion dollar deal to construct this high speed wireless network facility. The contract is a build and operate scheme between Nokia Siemens Networks and Lightsquared, a company under the aegis of Harbinger Capital Partners who is the one financing the whole deal. The contract would be a marriage between Nokia Siemens Networks’ mobile broadband internet service which they have developed through the years and harbinger Capital’s satellite and terrestrial spectrum.

This is such a huge undertaking for both companies since its aim is to provide coverage to more than one hundred million mobile internet-using individuals towards the latter part of 2012, and cascading to two hundred sixty million by the end of 2015. Through its CEO Sanjiv Ahuja, Lightsquared intends to be able to offer wholesale services by the middle of 2011 and be in full coverage of the United States or at the very least ninety percent of it by 2015.

This grand setup has already started with its preliminaries and Nokia Siemens Networks are already in full gear in its preparation in designing and installation of the forty thousand wireless base stations that is the forefront of the whole Lightsquared setup. In fact, Nokia Siemens Networks have already agreed to shell out 2.1 US billion dollars in its acquisition of the bulk of Motorola’s network equipment business.

In line with Lightsquared’s wholesale services offer, talks are already in the way between Deutsche Telekom ( T-Mobile mother company ) and Harbinger about possibilities in renting a portion of the LTE network. Some hopefuls hanging around the area include SK Holdings and Qwest Communications and Leap Wireless, a company Harbinger owns a small portion of.