NextWave plans to sell its U.S. wireless spectrum, ending all pretensions of becoming a mobile operator and allowing the carrier-turned-vendor to focus exclusively on its multi-faceted equipment and software businesses, says Telephony Magazine.
NextWave has hired a pair of financial consultants, Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank, to find a buyer for its 223 licenses divided among four different spectral bands.
NextWave says their spectrum covers more than 251 million people and includes markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston.
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NextWave currently owns the 150 Advanced Wireless Services (WCS) licenses at 1.7 GHz and 2.1 GHz, covering 62 million people; owns 30 Wireless Communications Services (WCS) in the 2.3 GHz band, covering 209.8 million people; and either owns or leases 39 Educational Broadband Services (EBS) and Broadband Radio Services (BRS) licenses in the 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz bands, covering New York City.
If the spectrum is sold at similarly prices paid in the recent 700 Mhz auction, NextWave’s licenses could be worth up to $6 billion, according to the AP.
But the actual retail price is likely to be a small fraction, since the bulk of the holdings (at 2.3 GHz), adjoins powerful satellite radio repeaters (from 2320-2345 Mhz). The company paid about $500 million for the airwaves, according to George Alex, the company’s chief financial officer.
NextWave has signed deals with Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent to incorporate its MXtv mobile TV technology into their WiMAX network equipment. NextWave is also involved with influential global vendors in the LTE space.
Related DailyWireless articles include; MobiTV Combines Unicast & Multicast, WiMAX TV from NextWave, Battle Over 2 Dot 3, Go Networks Beamforms Champaign, NextWave Announces Mobile WiMAX Chips, NextWave: WiMAX Chips R Us, Nextwave Buys IP-Wireless and NextWave Grabs WiMAX Ball.
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