11.29.10
Posted in Financials, ICO/DBSD, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 3:57 pm by timfarrar
Last Friday the FCC extended the deadline for comments on the LightSquared’s updated ATC plans to December 2, with reply comments due by December 9, after a request from the CTIA. As I noted last week, it will be interesting to see the response from different cellular industry players, to what the CTIA characterizes as a “new precedent with significant legal, regulatory, and policy effects”.
If the FCC does agree to LightSquared’s request that it should be permitted to offer integrated service just to its wholesale customers, with no obligations upon those customers to offer only integrated service packages, this would mean that end users would then be able to purchase terrestrial-only terminals and service plans. In such circumstances, it is hard to see what would be gained by the 2GHz MSS players agreeing to relinquish their spectrum for an incentive auction, and to share the proceeds of that auction with the government. As a result, the FCC could end up torpedoing the intentions of its own NPRM/NOI, particularly the objective of gaining “appropriate compensation for the step up in value” of the 2GHz spectrum, because, as the FCC admits, it cannot force DBSD and TerreStar to give up their satellite spectrum, while these companies have operational satellites in orbit. Both companies would therefore presumably be well within their rights to hold out for a similar wholesale ATC-based arrangement to that planned by Harbinger and LightSquared, under which they could keep all of the proceeds from (for example) a leasing arrangement with a major cellular operator.
The FCC might still have some leverage, as it would be able to impose buildout conditions on any proposed ATC license modifications (or on a future merger of DBSD and TerreStar). However, any deal could also be delayed considerably by the additional uncertainty that would be introduced over the value of the 2GHz MSS spectrum in the current bankruptcy proceedings. This is likely to be particularly problematic in the case of TerreStar, where it already appears that there will be substantial disagreements between the parties concerned, due to the numerous classes of creditors, including both secured and unsecured debt holders at TerreStar Networks, plus preferred and common stock holders at TerreStar Corporation.
Such an outcome would clearly help Harbinger, as it looks to attract investors and partners for LightSquared, because the 2GHz spectrum would then provide a less clear-cut alternative for cellular operators such as T-Mobile. In that context it was particularly interesting to see a research note issued last week by New Street Research in London, which rated a “deal with Echostar (as likely owner of TerreStar and DBSD spectrum)” as the most probable of five alternative spectrum sources for T-Mobile USA, while suggesting that “a deal with LightSquared (or its successor)” was the least likely option for T-Mobile.
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11.22.10
Posted in Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum at 10:49 am by timfarrar
On November 18, LightSquared filed an updated showing with the FCC of its plans for compliance with the ATC gating criteria. LightSquared states that it will ensure that its wholesale offering includes 500 kbytes of satellite capacity for every 1 Gbyte of terrestrial capacity it provides to a partner, and that dual mode chipsets are available through its $50M development agreement with Qualcomm. However, LightSquared also admits that its “retailer customers will have the ability to offer terrestrial-only plans to their own end users” and that it intends to “file reports with the Commission every six months providing the number of terminals in service falling into each of three categories: MSS only, dual-mode MSS/ATC, and terrestrial-only” (implying that terrestrial-only chipsets and/or devices will also be developed).
In view of the poor reception that the TerreStar Genus phone has received, both in the MSS community and amongst terrestrial-oriented reviewers, it is hardly surprising that potential LightSquared partners are unlikely to be enthused about attempting to sell a dual mode satellite-terrestrial service to a mass market, and would much prefer the opportunity to offer terrestrial-only service. Indeed, as I noted previously, the responses from Leap Wireless and T-Mobile in the FCC’s current MSS NPRM/NOI proceeding, were supportive of interpreting the ATC gating requirements in a manner which would allow for terrestrial-only devices.
While LightSquared states that its “revised business plan satisfies the Commission’s integrated service requirements for L-band MSS systems” the original ATC rules did not consider the business plan that LightSquared now envisages, that of a wholesale provider whose customers are retailers (or other operators) who repackage and sell on the service. For example, the FCC’s February 2005 ATC report and order states:
The purpose of ATC is to enhance MSS coverage, enabling MSS operators to extend service into areas that they were previously unable to serve, such as the interiors of buildings and high-traffic density urban areas. We will not permit MSS/ATC operators to offer ATC-only subscriptions, because ATC systems would then be terrestrial mobile systems separate from their MSS systems. We therefore clarify that “integrated service??? as used in this proceeding and required by 47 C.F.R. § 25.147(b)(4) forbids MSS/ATC operators from offering ATC-only subscriptions.
LightSquared appears to be arguing that because it is offering integrated service to its customers, it is irrelevant whether or not those customers offer ATC-only subscriptions to their end users. Likewise, instead of seeking the safe harbor that all devices will be dual mode, LightSquared apparently intends this narrative (as required by the February 2003 ATC Order) to provide “for Commission review evidence demonstrating that the service they propose to offer will be integrated. This can be accomplished through technical, economic or any other substantive showing that the primary purpose of the MSS licensee’s system remains the provision of MSS.”
It will therefore be interesting to see the responses to this application (although as noted below the short timeframe may limit the number of comments) and the degree of support that LightSquared receives from the FCC. It seems all but certain that AT&T and Verizon will continue their hostility to LightSquared, while assuming Sprint remains committed to Clearwire, it would also likely be counted on to oppose the application. On the other hand, I would expect most of the smaller cellular operators including T-Mobile, Leap and US Cellular to be supportive, as they look to ensure that more spectrum options are available when they eventually decide how to move to 4G.
One additional (and more speculative) conclusion that could also be drawn from this submission is that LightSquared may now push off the announcement of any major partnerships (for example with one or more cellular operators) until more clarity is available on the FCC’s attitude to both this application and the MSS NPRM/NOI (where LightSquared has requested that the FCC reconsider the requirement for a ground spare satellite). This is because it would seem surprising for LightSquared to introduce additional regulatory uncertainty over its business plan if the company was in a position to announce a series of partnerships in the near term (which until recently I had expected might come shortly after the launch of SkyTerra-1). Nevertheless, LightSquared has announced previously that it intends to exercise its Phase 2 option with Inmarsat before the end of the year (which will involve substantial additional payments), and Harbinger appears to be under considerable pressure from its investors to demonstrate the progress it is making, so there will undoubtedly be more developments in this story soon.
UPDATE: Given that the FCC has placed this submission on an extremely accelerated timescale, with comments due by November 29 (immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday) and reply comments due by December 6, it seems plausible that LightSquared might well be expecting to receive a decision on this application very soon. Assuming this ruling was favorable, LightSquared might therefore still be able to announce its planned partnerships and exercise the Phase 2 spectrum option with Inmarsat before the end of the year.
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11.19.10
Posted in Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory at 10:34 am by timfarrar
Back in March, we noted the rumors that Huawei could end up building and vendor financing the LightSquared network to the tune of $1B+ and highlighted the potential security concerns that would be associated with such a move. Today the Wall St Journal’s story on Huawei appears to confirm this rumor, stating that Huawei’s “acquisition attempts since [2008], including an attempt to buy into Harbinger Capital LLC’s high-speed wireless network, have been quashed due to security-related concerns as well, according to a report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission”.
This raises the interesting question of whether Huawei was one of the potential funding sources that Harbinger was counting on when it decided to buy SkyTerra in 2009, and whether Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) was actually the second choice as prime contractor to build the LightSquared network, after the Huawei deal fell through. It also leads us to wonder whether NSN will eventually provide substantial vendor financing for LightSquared, and at what stage that will be announced. With Reuters reporting last week that Nokia and Siemens were making “little progress in efforts to find a deep-pocketed partner for their ailing telecom gear venture” it might now be more difficult for NSN to make a major funding commitment to LightSquared in the near term.
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10.26.10
Posted in Regulatory, Spectrum at 2:19 pm by timfarrar
We’ve already expressed some skepticism about both the methodology and the underlying growth assumptions used in the FCC’s Mobile Broadband Spectrum Forecast. It also appears that there is a limitation in how upgrade costs are treated in the FCC’s model. Specifically, the FCC model assumes that the “economic value” of additional spectrum is based on avoiding the construction of more cell sites by using additional spectrum at existing cell sites to accommodate the increased traffic load. However, the model ignores the cost of upgrading existing base stations to make use of this additional spectrum.
The underlying assumption which is used to justify ignoring this upgrade cost is that existing base stations will be upgraded anyway to 3.5G or 4G technologies. However, it is not always the case that these upgrades can accommodate more spectrum at no incremental cost. That might be a reasonable assumption if a PCS base station adds more PCS spectrum. However, if the new spectrum is at a considerably different frequency (e.g. adding 2.5GHz spectrum to a 850/PCS/AWS network), then it may not be possible to re-use a common set of antennas (potentially implying additional tower lease costs) and in some circumstances it may even be necessary to use a completely new cellsite plan, due to the different propagation characteristics (cell radius) of the new spectrum (although this may be mitigated if the spectrum is being used to add capacity in dense urban areas where the cell radius is very small regardless of the frequency). Thus though these incremental upgrade costs might be somewhat limited (perhaps a few billion dollars?) they can’t be completely ignored when operators decide whether to buy more spectrum or add cell sites in their existing spectrum, and they become more significant if usage growth and the need for spectrum are lower than expected.
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10.25.10
Posted in Regulatory, Spectrum at 4:53 pm by timfarrar
After looking at the consequences of what appears to be a mathematical error in the FCC’s Mobile Broadband Spectrum Forecast last week, I thought it would be useful to look at some of the underlying traffic growth forecasts themselves.
The FCC forecast gives some detailed projections of traffic growth per device and device penetration in 2014 in a couple of its exhibits, based apparently on Cisco data, split between “basic and feature phones”, “mobile broadband handsets” and portable devices (“computing devices (netbooks and notebooks), tablets, handheld gaming consoles, e-readers, digital cameras and camcorders, digital photo frames, and in-car entertainment systems”) either as substitutes or complements to fixed broadband. The forecast assumes rapid growth of take-up and traffic for data intensive devices, but what is remarkable is that more than two-thirds of all the traffic in the Cisco model comes from portable devices. However, under any reasonable assumptions about ARPUs from each type of device (unless you assume “voice will be free” as Cisco used to assert) – say $40 per month for “basic and feature phones”, $69 for mobile broadband, $35 for fixed broadband and $25 for portable devices, then less than 10% of 2014 revenue comes from this 68% of traffic, as shown in the chart below. (Note that these ARPUs were chosen to match with annual revenue growth of 7.5% p.a., which is in line with the growth rate from 2005 to 2010 according to the CTIA).
In this case, the solution to the spectrum “crisis” is pretty clear (especially for AT&T and Verizon) – sell people DSL/FiOS/U-verse/cable broadband with WiFi, and limit their use of complementary portable broadband devices, unless they are either high end (laptop) users, or don’t use much bandwidth (Kindles). In any case, certainly don’t allow them unlimited usage. If you’re a second tier player then you have to decide if you can afford to meet the needs of these portable device customers, or if targeting the other 90% of revenues is enough for now. If you’re a new entrant trying to go after these portable device customers, then you’d better hope your spectrum really is very cheap. Perhaps you can hope that by serving people’s portable devices you can capture all of their mobile spending (i.e. provide them with a phone as well)? Maybe that could be the case some of the time (though somehow I doubt that buying a Kindle or a camera or a photoframe is going to make you switch cellphone provider), but isn’t it just as likely that the big players will offer “family plan” type bundled rates for various other devices and just keep a tight lid on their usage? How much more do you really want to spend each month on all these devices in addition to your current cellphone bill (indeed is $25 per month even remotely achievable as an average ARPU for these sorts of devices)? After all, a lot of people (myself included) have apparently decided not to bother with 3G iPad connectivity at $25 per month.
Perhaps it could be argued that in fact voice (VOIP) might well be free eventually, so operators have to get used to that and go after these portable device customers instead. However, that outcome is even worse for spectrum valuations, because if 70% of current wireless revenues are destined to disappear then investment dollars for 4G buildouts and spectrum will be pretty hard to come by.
UPDATE: We understand that there is an inconsistency in the FCC report between the data for usage growth per device from 2009-13 (from the Cisco 2009 report) and the penetration in 2014 (from the Cisco 2010 report) due to a major change in the definition of “portable complementary” devices. As a result the 2009 Cisco report predicts there will be about 11M portable complementary devices in 2013 but the 2010 report predicts there will be 51.8M of these devices in 2014. Because the underlying data in the Cisco report is not published (and no definitions appear in the paper), it is hard to see whether the 2009-13 data usage numbers are still valid for 2014 or not. However, our estimates are quite close to the total data usage predicted for North America in 2014 and Cisco certainly assumes that the vast majority of data usage in 2014 comes from “portables, netbooks and tablets”.
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10.22.10
Posted in Regulatory, Spectrum at 8:43 pm by timfarrar
I vividly remember attending the Cisco analyst conference in the fall of 1999, soon after I moved to the US, and being confronted by a rosy picture of ever increasing demand for telecoms equipment because of the dramatic growth in Internet traffic. I was moved to ask the question of whether in fact we were in a bubble, and if Cisco’s revenue trajectory would therefore end up resembling its logo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was never invited back to that particular event.
This evening I took the time to read Andrew Odlyzko’s seminal paper on Internet traffic growth in the 1990s. This paper explores the myth that Internet traffic was doubling every 100 days, which was a key contributor to the telecoms bubble of the late 1990s, and the subsequent loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of investors’ money. One of the highlights mentioned in Odlyzko’s paper was former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt writing in his book You Say You Want a Revolution that “[i]n 1999, data traffic was doubling every 90 days ….”. In reality, Internet traffic was growing rapidly, nearly doubling every year, but the growth rate from a short period of initial growth in 1995-96 had been erroneously equated to a long term growth rate. It was of course in everyone’s interests to promote this myth – it pumped up valuations, allowed startups to raise billions of dollars, and enabled politicians and others (such as Cisco) to claim credit for developing “the new economy”.
Thus it is particularly striking that we now see the current FCC Chairman using a flawed study to promote the “transformative moment we must seize” because “we are likely to see a 35X increase in mobile broadband traffic over the next 5 years” (based ironically to a significant extent on Cisco forecasts). We also see startups such as LightSquared and Clearwire raising (or at least trying to raise) billions of dollars on the back of their spectrum assets to build out new networks and realize the “extraordinary opportunity of communications technology” that the FCC Chairman envisages.
Of course it is true that mobile broadband demand is growing rapidly, just as Internet demand was growing rapidly in the late 1990s. However, perhaps we should pause and ask whether we are in danger of repeating some of the mistakes of a decade ago? When cellular operators, spectrum owners, equipment suppliers and regulators all have a vested interest in talking up the spectrum crisis, there has to be a danger of disappointment. I’ve already commented that spectrum might not be such a good investment and that the Clearwire auction looks to be going badly. There are even rumors that Clearwire is preparing for a round of significant layoffs. As a result I have to wonder whether we will look back at this moment in six months or a year, and conclude that yesterday’s FCC spectrum summit marked the point at which the spectrum bubble began to unwind.
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Posted in Regulatory, Spectrum at 2:41 pm by timfarrar
Yesterday the FCC announced with much fanfare the release of a new technical paper giving its “Mobile Broadband Spectrum Forecast”, which was trumpeted by the FCC Chairman as putting “the importance of this debate in perspective by assessing the economic value of this spectrum, which it estimates to be as high as $120 billion”.
The FCC paper is a fairly unsophisticated analysis, and its results contrast significantly with an Ofcom study released in April 2009 which found that under most scenarios for data growth the UK was unlikely to experience a spectrum crisis until 2020 or beyond. Although the UK is of course a very different market to the US, it was a surprise that the results were so dramatically different, which prompted us to take a closer look at the FCC calculations.
Unfortunately it appears that the FCC analysis contains a significant error in its calculations. Specifically, while the study assumes that all future cell sites are deployed to add capacity, it neglects to take into account that a significant fraction of current cell sites were deployed purely for coverage in rural and suburban areas, and are unlikely to ever need more spectrum beyond that available today. As a result, following the FCC’s methodology, these cell sites should not be included when calculating how much new capacity and spectrum is needed (as the FCC indicates elsewhere in the paper, upgrading to more spectrally efficient technologies would provide significant gains and presumably sufficient capacity when data usage does increase in rural areas).
UPDATE: Assuming somewhere between 20% and 50% of current cell sites (as of 2009) have been deployed for coverage rather than capacity (which seems reasonable, as according to the FCC Competition Report, cellular voice services are provided to 60M people in rural census blocks covering 2.3M square miles, and 76% of these regions have two or more providers) then the FCC’s own analysis shows that the incremental spectrum demand by 2014 is reduced from 275MHz to between 117MHz and 227MHz and the cost of deploying extra cell sites to serve this demand (the FCC’s definition of “economic value”, assuming a cost of $550K per cell site) is reduced from $120B to between $33B and $85B. Only 60K-155K additional cell sites are needed to meet demand, compared to the 99K that the FCC’s model estimates will be deployed anyway in the next 5 years. Put another way, the annual growth in the number of base stations would increase from 7% p.a. to between 10% and 15% p.a., which is not significantly out of line with the 12% growth in base stations that occurred in 2009, according to the FCC’s own figures.
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10.16.10
Posted in Financials, ICO/DBSD, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 7:58 pm by timfarrar
Reports have now emerged that a TerreStar bankruptcy filing may take place as soon as Sunday, October 17, with “one creditor” potentially providing about $75M in DIP financing. It would not be a surprise to see a bankruptcy filing this weekend, as the interest payment on TerreStar’s preferred stock, which was due on Friday, had always provided a deadline for resolution of the funding situation.
Now the question turns to who will provide this DIP. The fact that it is described as coming from “one creditor” indicates that this is almost certainly Echostar, given that Harbinger could potentially face regulatory concerns if it was to acquire control of TerreStar in addition to LightSquared. As we noted in previous posts, it appears there may have been efforts earlier in the summer to syndicate a much larger DIP to other parties and cram-up the first lien debt. However, assuming these efforts have failed, Echostar presumably will be able to protect its first lien position by providing the DIP itself.
It will be very interesting to see whether Harbinger will retain a position of influence in TerreStar or if it will end up largely sidelined in a TerreStar bankruptcy. In the latter case, it is quite plausible that in addition to Clearwire’s ongoing spectrum auction, Harbinger could find itself faced with competition for strategic partners from yet another source of spectrum – the opportunity to access the 2GHz ATC spectrum. Of course, some wireless operators might prefer the spectrum to be returned and re-auctioned without ATC constraints in an incentive auction, but even the initial rulemaking won’t be complete until sometime in 2011, and an auction could take another year or more to organize. Thus until the FCC completes its MSS rulemaking, the owners of the 2GHz ATC spectrum (at least other than Harbinger) would certainly have nothing to lose in seeking out a potential buyer.
UPDATE: Harbinger has now stated that it is “not really involved anymore” with TerreStar, essentially confirming that it will not be providing the DIP financing. This comment also tends to suggest that Harbinger might no longer be in a position to prevent the owners of the 2GHz ATC spectrum seeking a spectrum buyer in competition with LightSquared.
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10.09.10
Posted in Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory at 12:52 pm by timfarrar
“We see them come.
We see them go.
Some are fast.
And some are slow.
Some are high.
And some are low.
Not one of them is like another.
Don’t ask us why.
Go ask your mother.”
Though Dr Seuss did a pretty good job of summarizing the MSS industry, he may not have had the answer to this puzzle. In an interview this week, one of LightSquared’s senior executives referred repeatedly to the “one satellite” LightSquared intends to launch “in the next couple of months”. This is strange because LightSquared was granted a waiver by the FCC back in 2007, enabling it to use two in-orbit satellites for mutual backup rather than relying on a ground spare satellite as would otherwise be required by the ATC gating criteria. The second satellite was apparently needed to satisfy “United States and Canadian interests in the launch of next-generation L band MSS satellites”, and to provide 3dB of extra link margin by use of diversity.
If LightSquared decides not to launch the second satellite, then it would still meet the ground spare requirement in the ATC gating criteria, while saving tens of millions of dollars in insurance and launch costs. However, if it proves successful in its recent request to the FCC to eliminate the ground spare requirement, then presumably not only would LightSquared save on the cost of launching and insuring the second satellite, but could also raise some additional money if it could find a buyer for that satellite.
Given the rapid pace of developments, it looks like a lot of these issues will be clarified over the next few months, most notably who LightSquared’s partners will be, and it will be interesting to see what Phil Falcone pulls out of his hat next. With apologies to Dr Seuss, let’s hope for his sake its not Voom (especially given that when Cablevision finally gave up on the satellite business, it sold the assets to Echostar).
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10.08.10
Posted in Financials, Globalstar, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum at 11:30 am by timfarrar
Although we remain intrigued by the timing of yesterday’s announcement of LightSquared’s chipset and device partners, what is now clear is that next year should finally result in the actual commercial deployment of an ATC network, offering both satellite and terrestrial mobile services for the first time. (Although Open Range had deployed a couple of thousand terminals under its agreement with Globalstar prior to the FCC suspending Globalstar’s ATC license, these did not include two-way functionality, and to date no handheld terminals had been produced).
LightSquared now claims to have raised over $2B, which the company expects will see it through to “operational launch and beyond” in the second half of next year. Although it is not clear where the $2B is coming from, and whether (as yet unannounced) vendor financing will form part of that $2B or could be incremental to it, it is certainly the case that with Harbinger apparently injecting funds from a $400M UBS loan in July, converting its reported $430M of debt into equity (as part of this week’s $850M debt refinancing) and presumably investing the proceeds from the sale of half of its Inmarsat stake (for $650M) in LightSquared, the company should have enough money both to pay Inmarsat for the ongoing rebanding of the L-band, and to fund the buildout of its first markets in 2011, an outcome that looked like a distant dream less than a year ago.
Given that there are no significant remaining technical barriers to overcome in deploying their satellite network, and LightSquared has commitments to produce both chipsets and ATC devices from leading manufacturers, it will be interesting to see next year both how the LightSquared network is positioned and what the public reaction is to the service. In particular, will LightSquared’s retail partners attempt to use satellite as a key differentiator, or will they rely just on the LTE offering to compete with Verizon, Clearwire, MetroPCS and others?
In the nearer term, we will also look forward to finding out exactly who these retail partners will be, and whether any of them will make a financial investment in LightSquared itself. In that regard, it appears that T-Mobile is certainly keeping its options open with regard to LightSquared, having filed at the FCC in support of relaxing the ATC gating criteria, which currently require all devices to offer integrated satellite and terrestrial services. Leap Wireless also appears to be looking closely at the ATC opportunity, having initially proposed this relaxation of the gating criteria. Whether T-Mobile’s actions are part of its negotiating strategy with Clearwire, or whether T-Mobile and Leap really are taking a potential investment in LightSquared seriously, remains to be seen.
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