Best Buy signs up as latest MVNO for LightSquared
Will start trials in early 2012, which could be another blow for current wholesale partner Clearwire
Published: 23 March, 2011
READ MORE: Spectrum | US | MVNO | LTE
Partnerships for LightSquared's planned wholesale LTE network are coming thick and fast now, with retailer Best Buy signing up.
The company, which is already a strategic ally for wholesale rival Clearwire, was widely touted to be a LightSquared customer when the start-up said recently that it had three carriers and a retailer signed up. Best Buy is the most advanced of the big US white box vendors in pushing wireless services and devices under its own brand and was a significant breakthrough for Clearwire, adding credibility to that operator's open retail model. However, Clearwire has been forced to pull back somewhat from that approach, because of disputes with major shareholder and MVNO Sprint.
LightSquared has also recently announced deals of various kinds with Leap Wireless and rural broadband provider OpenRange, and MetroPCS has hinted at advanced talks. However, the wholesaler has - like Clearwire - missed out on a possible tie-up with T-Mobile, in the wake of the AT&T deal. This would have given it a national 3G roaming/fallback partner, though the combination of Leap and MetroPCS would also fulfil this function.
CEO Sanjiv Ahuja, formerly of Orange, said in his CTIA keynote that his firm would "transform the US mobile industry", with the same disruptive impact that Amazon had had in ecommerce and ebooks or Dell in home PCs. Best Buy will start trials of its MVNO service in the first quarter of 2012, he said.
He flew the flag for the wholesale-only business model of LightSquared, which is building a hybrid terrestrial/satellite network in mobile satellite L-Band spectrum. "The traditional wireless business model has always been vertically integrated," he said. "The operators manage their own networks and content, and run their own distribution and retail channels. LightSquared is completely revolutionising this model with a fully horizontal approach that will open this market to new entrants", which could include carriers, wireline operators, retailers or device vendors. "LightSquared's model opens up the wireless industry to new players who previously couldn't have imagined being able to offer wireless services," he added.
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