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The Top 3 News Stories from Last Week
I think it is good to summarize the top stories every now and again from the perspective of an industry consultant and more importantly, a former WISP operator. This past week was a big one on several fronts.
Clearly the biggest news was Sprint's announcement of 4,000 job cuts as well as a reduction in its retail sales footprint from about 20,000 points to about 16,000. Of this number about 125 were company stores (8 percent) and the rest were third party sales points. This does not, so far as I can tell, directly affect Sprint's Xohm service per se. But it clearly indicates that Sprint has a lot on its plate in terms of problems in its existing business units. However, those 2.5 GHz licenses are very valuable and I expect Sprint to hold onto them in some fashion as hard as it can. Or at least it should.
My Colleague Jeff Orr and I have been tag-teaming in a fashion in pointing out new announcements of 3.65 GHz deployments. I mention a deployment one day. And he gets one the next. In aggregate I think this is a major news story of late. Both Jeff and I think this is going to be big. I am getting calls about every day from WISPs needing help setting up their national license. Many are interested in more regional plays for the time being, but this is a real opportunity for small carriers---and maybe big carriers too. I have gotten some comments asking for details about channel size and type of WiMax tech used and I will blog on some of those questions soon. This isn't big company or big wireless industry news. But this is big to me a former WISP operator. For those of you looking for opportunity, pay attention.
The FCC is revisiting testing for devices in the so-called "White spaces" of digital TV bands. Sprint and T-Mobile have championed this space for backhaul. And many computer and software companies including Microsoft are favoring this. I think it is important news. What will happen is anybody's guess. The first rounds of testing illuminated interference problems. Will these new devices prove out? Stay tuned.
Tim Sanders,
www.TheFinalMile.net
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