FreedomPop, LightSquared Promise Free Wireless New Startup From Skype Co-founer Zennström LightSquared doesn't even have a network yet, and the ability to build one is hampered at the moment by ongoing GPS interference worries. That hasn't stopped the company from signing up more than 30 wholesale partners, the latest of which is the new brain child of Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström. Named FreedomPop, the new startup and wireless operator is getting press for promising free mobile services for all. According to a joint LightSquared and FreedomPop press release, the service will launch in 2012, target largely underserved markets, and aim to "ensure that every American has access to fast, free and convenient communication services." The nature of the service isn't yet clear, but comments made to Multichannel News suggest that users will get access to some degree of basic services for free, with users paying more if they want any meaningful service options: In an email, FreedomPop chief operating officer Matt Ingrid compared the company's business model to that of Dropbox, the online storage service. Dropbox offers up to 2 Gigabytes for free, and sells access to additional storage for a monthly fee in different tiers. "We're building a new kind of company we call a 'Webco' (vs. telco), i.e. economics of a Web company (no network, no high cost base, 100% online only)," he wrote. Like Republic Wireless, which offers $20 wireless by offloading the majority of services to Wi-Fi, we're starting to see smaller operators hoping to compete by offering more creative pricing models that rely more heavily on the fact that all voice and SMS are simply data. Whether Zennström's new project will have the same kind of impact Skype had is unlikely (especially if LightSquared can't get their network up and running), though it may be something for those interested to keep an eye on. You can sign up for updates on the service over at the FreedomPop website.
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 |  | | | FCC won't let Lightsquared go live if it is stomping on GPS sign Planes, trains, and automobiles won't be allowed to crash for the sake of free internet. | |
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 n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY | The Telecom Companies What is it about the telecom companies such as AT&T and LightSquared that is making them so arrogant with their "we don't give a crap" attitude. It must be all the dollars they see because both of them have taken positions that seek to damage a lot of people. Either through simply eliminating a competitor, in the case of AT&T in order to raise prices, or LightSquared by making the thirty year old reliable GPS system a game of chance and potentially making most privately owned GPS devices currently installed nothing better than a brick. I wish these companies would go out and get new business models and stop trying to screw "we the people". Perhaps they should go into another "loved" business: mortgage banking.
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I support the right to keep and arm bears. | |
| |  TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY | Re: The Telecom Companies Go back to the BPL days and substitute LightSquared for BPL and it is the same thing. | |
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Reviews:
 ·ooma
 ·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FiOS
| Vaporware Free services will never see the light of day.. the cell carriers have too much at stake to let a free service thrive. That's why Google's free service is quite limited in scope and wifi doesn't exist anymore except for one small town. Wifi services have been beaten back and stopped dead in their tracks time and again when they get too close to offering a replacement/alternative for paid services. | |
| | | Corrupt lightsqaured Lightsquared's allocated frequency spectrum was originally licensed for satellite communications use (i.e. low terrestrial receive power levels). For some reasons they were able to get away with having the FCC grant them a waiver to allow them to use that spectrum for mobile use while studies on GPS interference is being conducted. By laws of physics, using their satellite spectrum in a terrestrial cellular network will emit higher power levels that interfere with weak GPS signals from space. Effectively, Lightsquared is expecting to get away with $10B worth of spectrum for free with the FCC waiver. Other operators like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Metro PCS, etc. have to win frequency auctions, or purchase other operators' spectrum (e.g. AT&T is currently pursuing to buy Qualcomm's frequency license). In effect Lightsquared is robbing taxpayers $10B worth of frequency spectrum, a public asset that the government auctions to generate funds. Now they also want GPS owners (taxpayers) to pay and retrofit existing GPS receivers with filters to eliminate interference from the modified use of their spectrum. They are also threatening the FCC with lawsuit if they are not granted approval to operate. Now that is an really arrogant company which could probably operate in some third world country where the government can be bribed. I hope this does not happen in the US, or we are really getting screwed.. | |
| WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX
kudos:5 | "We have contracts..." LightSquirrel will tell the FCC they have all these deals lined up and will loose lots of money if LS can't get approved, and hundreds of thousands of people will be out of work - ignoring the fact the they were never hired in the first place and using "man years", i.e. one employee position over ten years amounts as ten employees theoretically hired. | |
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Lightsquared making a lot of deals if never ok'd by FCC
