I found this on the Ihub IDCC thread:
Nextel wins bidding for WorldCom's broadband spectrum
By BOB BREWIN
JULY 02, 2003
Nextel Communications Inc. submitted the high bid of $144 million in a federal bankruptcy court for broadband spectrum in 100 markets, which WorldCom Inc. bought in its go-go days in the mid-1990s for $1 billion.
Analysts and wireless industry vendors speculated that Nextel could use the spectrum to develop a new service targeted at enterprises that could deliver portable or mobile wireless service at data rates many times the speed offered by other cellular carriers -- from 1Mbit/sec. to 45Mbit/sec.
Audrey Schaefer, a spokeswoman for Reston, Va.-based Nextel, confirmed yesterday that the company had submitted the high bid for the WorldCom Multichannel Multipoint Distribution System (MMDS) spectrum in the 2.1- and 2.5-to-2.7-GHz bands to a federal court in New York that is overseeing the bankruptcy of WorldCom (now rebranding itself as MCI). But Schaefer said the deal wouldn't be final until "approved by the judge July 8."
Sprint Corp. in Overland Park, Kan., also bid on the WorldCom spectrum. James Fisher, a Sprint spokesman, declined to say whether his company might increase its bid.
Schaefer wouldn't say what Nextel -- which pioneered the push-to-talk voice market and also offers a location service embraced by enterprises -- plans for the WorldCom spectrum. But, she said, "Nextel has always looked for opportunities to acquire spectrum at attractive prices." She said Nextel could use spectrum acquired from WorldCom to support its existing voice services or to offer new broadband services, or both.
Alan Menezes, vice president of marketing at Aperto Networks Inc., a broadband wireless equipment supplier in Milipitas, Calif., said that if Nextel successfully acquires the spectrum, it will move quickly to exploit it, with enterprises being the target customers.
"I think they will stick with their enterprise customers because they get good traction" with such customers, Menezes said.
The WorldCom spectrum would also give Nextel an opportunity to capitalize on work going on in the wireless industry to develop the 802.16 metropolitan-area network standard (see story), Menezes said. MMDS frequencies are well suited to handle high-speed data within the 30-mile range envisioned by 802.16 backers.
The MMDS spectrum was originally allocated by the Federal Communications Commission to support one-way broadband video applications, with start-ups using it to offer pay TV services. The FCC then opened up the spectrum for two-way data use, which caught the attention of both WorldCom and Sprint.
But, as Sprint's Fisher pointed out, first-generation MMDS data hardware was expensive and required installation by a service technician. Sprint, which has had a limited rollout in several markets, including Phoenix, doesn't plan to proceed with the technology until it first looks at advanced equipment that can be installed by the user, Fisher said.
Craig Mathias, an analyst at FarPoint Group in Ashland, Mass., said MMDS spectrum has "a lot of potential" for the kind of service envisioned with the 802.16 standard. But it's not clear what Nextel intends to do with the spectrum, he said, noting that the company could use it to either broaden the coverage of its existing voice service or offer a true broadband wireless service at speeds 10 times faster than the 144Kbit/sec. service now available from cellular carriers such as Sprint PCS.
Source: Computerworld |
