Distressed-debt investors including Carl Icahn and David Tepper reportedly bought up LightSquared bonds at a discount as the company struggled to obtain a license to light up its combined satellite-terrestrial communications network covering North America.
This amended agreement provides LightSquared additional time and flexibility to use its spectrum to deploy a terrestrial 4G wireless network once all regulatory authorizations have been secured.
In simplified terms the system will be a hybrid network of satellite and terrestrial facilities tied to a ship cloud to transfer very large amounts of data and store it onboard.
The first buyer that comes to mind is LightSquared, which is trying to roll out a wholesale-only fourth-generation network using what was satellite spectrum for a terrestrial build-out.
Siano's chips can receive both satellite and terrestrial signals--an unusual combination that will eventually make the network more affordable, Ironi predicts.