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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Drew Williams who wrote (12362)	7/4/2001 9:18:18 AM
From: Ron M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197227

Drew: Nextwave hopes to be operating in Detroit and Madison with 3G by the end of the year, or so the story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal reports this am. Story follows. From what I know of siting telecomm towers, the operator has seldom negotiated the site leases or managed the construction. Usually some locally hired real estate guns negotiate on behalf of the operator and construction is managed by a major contractor, eg Bechtel when Sprint did their build out. Here is the local article which states NW plans to be operating a 3G voice and data system in Madison by years end. As engineer replied earlier, I seriously doubt they have sitting on their hands awaiting the decision. I'm quite sure a number of contingent deals are in place to get them on the air quickly. Wireless firm to build network in Madison By LEE BERGQUIST of the Journal Sentinel staff Last Updated: July 3, 2001 A wireless company that won an important court fight over the ownership of its radio spectrum last month says that Madison and Detroit will be the first markets it will start operating in. A spokesman for NextWave Telecom Inc. said Tuesday the company had reached an agreement with Lucent Technologies to design and build a so-called "3G," or third generation wireless network, in the two cities, which will double voice capacity and let customers use high-speed connections to the Internet. Madison is a market with "a lot of businesses and a lot of kids with laptops," said Michael Wack, senior vice president and deputy general counsel at NextWave. NextWave hopes to start operating in Madison and Detroit by the end of the year, specializing in data transmission, although voice services also will be offered. NextWave also signed a deal with Lucent for a data-only network in 93 other markets, which includes Milwaukee. The deal to build the network for Madison and Detroit is all cash and will not involve vendor financing. NextWave, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, said the company received approval from the bankruptcy court in New York to fund the deal with Lucent. This week's announcement follows a major court decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals, which returned NextWave's radio spectrum after it had been revoked by the Federal Communications Commission for non-payment shortly after the company filed for bankruptcy protection. The FCC had taken back the spectrum and re-auctioned it to other companies, but the Court of Appeals said NextWave still has access to the radio waves. The court victory gives the company and the financial community the comfort they need to build the network, Wack said. NextWave had paid for the licenses in Madison, Detroit and three other markets, meaning those markets were never part of the bankruptcy and the FCC never took spectrum from those markets back. "Now we will file a plan of reorganization that will provide billions of dollars of financing for our creditors and the FCC, and will provide for a build-out in all of the markets," Wack said. There has been speculation that NextWave would sell its spectrum to other carriers that had bid for it in the re-auction. But Wack said the company had no such plans. "I think that is coming from the losers," Wack said. "Our intent is to build out the licenses." NextWave has 95 wireless licenses covering more than 168 million people. Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 4, 2001.