LightSquared Partners With Aircado to Service "Micromarkets"

LightSquared continues to do deals, the most recent highlighting its potential service to "Underserved" communities, a target population of the White House/FCC 4G wireless push.

Only hours before a Hill hearing on LightSquared's impact on small businesses, the company announced that it was partnering with Redmond, Wash.-based Aircado on high-speed mobile data service to so called "micromarkets," cities with between 10,000 and 100,000 residents, or about 20 million people, that LightSqured says are "underserved" by larger carriers.

LightSquared plans to provide a wholesale national 4G network to commercial customers who can brand and sell it as their own.

The FCC gave it a conditional waiver but has held up on authorizing the service until it can do more testing of its impact on GPS, the subject of Wednesday's Hill hearing in the House Small Business Committee.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.