US wholesale LTE operator prospect LightSquared claims it will receive between US$3 billion and US$3.5 billion in additional funding over the next two and a half years. In an interview with Fierce Wireless, the company’s CMO Frank Boulben said the investment is required “to get to peak funding that is needed to get to cash flow positive.” Despite ongoing concerns over potential interference with GPS devices, LightSquared, which is backed by hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, managed to secure another US$265 million in capital last month. In total, the company has raised US$2.3 billion in financing in the past year.
Last week LightSquared confirmed long-running speculation it is to lean on US operator Sprint for buildout of its new LTE network. The deal is a major blow to Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), which was originally awarded a US$7 billion, eight-year contract to build out LightSquared’s radio access (base station) and core network and services. Following the Sprint deal, only the core network deal remains in place, and this is likely to see NSN receive just a fraction of the initial US$7 billion sum. LightSquared will outsource to Sprint the radio access network elements of its network. Sprint is using Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Samsung for its ‘Network Vision’ modernisation project.
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