LightSquared, Best Buy partner for mobile video network
Apr 4, 2011 2:29 PM, By Debra Kaufman
LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja announced the Best Buy deal at CTIA 2011. Photo courtesy CTIA.
A day after LightSquared cut an LTE roaming deal with Cricket provider Leap Wireless, the company inked a wholesale deal with Best Buy to allow the retailer’s Best Buy Connect service to access its LTE network. According to LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja, Best Buy will begin trials on the LTE network in Q1 2012.
The move is another step in LightSquared’s plan to cover 100 million points of presence by the end of 2012, 145 million by end of 2013 and 260 million by the end of 2015. LightSquared also committed to spending $14 billion on rolling out and operating its network over the next eight years. LightSquared represents itself as delivering more capacity for users to enjoy fast mobile Internet access. On the flip side, LightSquared has gotten some push back from the Coalition to Save Our GPS, which claims that LightSquared’s L-band spectrum is too close to GPS spectrum and will cause interference.
This is not the first mobile video network deal that Best Buy has signed. Last year, the retailer signed a deal with Clearwire to provide service on its mobile WiMAX network. This service is expected to launch this year.
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