In addition to raising billions of dollars, successfully promoting a business plan that competes with the likes of entrenched gians AT&T (NYSE: T), Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and calming the nerves of uneasy investors, Harbinger-based LightSquared has only a couple months until it hits the first of some stringent FCC deadlines.
LightSquared is the brainchild of Harbinger hedge fund manager Philip Falcone, who wants to build a nationwide wireless broadband network using satellites. The service has been floated by some as an alternative wireless broadband possibility for cable operators should they decide to turn away from their Clearwire joint venture. LightSquared has also already pumped nearly $3 billion into the network and promised to pay Nokia Siemens Networks $7 billion to build and run the network for the next eight years.
All of that is enough to make Harbinger investors queasy. Now the FCC has thrown in a December 2010 deadline to start building a network of 36,000 base stations and launch a satellite or LightSquared will lose its airwaves. The FCC schedule is for Harbinger to support 100 million people by December 2012 and enable 90 percent of the U.S. population by December 2015.
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