FCC clears LightSquared for LTE wholesaling

LightSquared, the company building the first hybrid LTE/Mobile Satellite network in the U.S. announced Wednesday that it can now vend its services as either dual-mode satellite/cellular or just as cellular, according to the demands of its wholesale partners.

This announcement is significant because LightSquared is building a wholesale network that will end up being sold to consumers under more familiar networks' brand names.

At this point, no partnerships have been announced, and networks on every tier could benefit from the expanded coverage they could buy from LightSquared.

T-Mobile USA would be the obvious first choice, since it doesn't have its own LTE network planned. But it could just as easily benefit Cellular South, which is building a 700MHz LTE network, but refuses to share coverage with much larger Verizon Wireless. Even Verizon Wireless and AT&T could use LightSquared to flesh out LTE coverage for their much larger subscriber bases.

With the FCC's clearance, any of these networks can partner with LightSquared exclusively for its terrestrial LTE infrastructure, and they won't have to also sign on to sell its MSS Satellite network services.

"LightSquared's network will provide a robust, open-access network that will permit reliable and affordable service to customers across the country in every market segment," a statement from the company said on Wednesday. "The FCC's grant of this application is an essential building block for our network as we build out to meet the rigorous construction timetable that the Commission has made a condition of our authorization and reaffirmed in today's grant of our request."

LightSquared expects to deploy 40,000 LTE base stations across the United States by 2015, which Nokia-Siemens Networks said will be the largest outsourced deployment of a wireless network in U.S. history.