Two summers ago when we first heard about LightSquared our faces lit up like a child on Christmas day. Their proposal to launch a brand spanking new nationwide LTE network that would be a dumb pipe that other companies would then resell to end users was just the kind of thing that the wireless industry needed to break the duopoly that is AT&T and Verizon. Sadly, things didn’t work out. The spectrum that LightSquared owns sits dangerously close to the same spectrum that GPS receivers use to listen to the satellites spinning around earth’s orbit. Initial testing showed that nearly every GPS receiver within a 20+ mile radius of a LightSquared cell tower failed to get a GPS fix. That’s obviously not a good thing and given the choice we’d rather know where we in a strange new city than be able to stream Lady Gaga music videos in glorious 1080p. By the end of this month we should know wether or not the FCC will let LightSquared build their network, though to be perfectly honestly they have a snow ball’s chance in hell at getting the go ahead.
This is where Carl Icahn steps in. If his name sounds familiar then you probably remember him from the days when Motorola was one big company. Icahn bought up Motorola shares, forced the company to split up, and by this time next month Motorola Mobility should become a part of Google. According to Bloomberg, he’s about to do the same thing to LightSquared. They say that Icahn bought up $300 million worth of LightSquared debt, though they have no idea what he plans to do with the company. With Motorola he wanted to sell their wireless unit, because that was actually worth something. If the FCC says LightSquared can’t use the spectrum they own, then what’s he going to do with it?
Keep your eyes peeled, LightSquared is about to get really crazy.