How Craig McCaw Built a 4G Network on the Cheap

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: May 26, 2010 1:49:14 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] How Craig McCaw Built a 4G Network on the Cheap

How Craig McCaw Built a 4G Network on the Cheap

Craig McCaw's quest to dominate the emerging era of fourth generation, or 4G, wireless networks began in a Maryland 
basement office back in 2003. There, McCaw's representatives met with Rudy Geist, a lawyer with only one client, a 
Spanish-language broadcaster that happened to be the nation's largest licensee of the 2.5-gigahertz frequency of radio 
spectrum. That band had been given away to schools and nonprofits since the 1960s. In theory, it was to be used for 
educational TV. In practice, the spectrum mostly languished. McCaw signed a master lease with the Spanish broadcaster, 
giving a Kirkland (WA) company he founded that year called Clearwire a foothold in about 20 markets. Clearwire would 
end up with more than 1,000 such leases, for which it will pay about $5 billion over the next three decades. When the 
Federal Communications Commission in 2005 relaxed regulations on the 2.5-GHz band to encourage wireless broadband, its 
value exploded. McCaw was then in a position to compete against Sprint and other companies for control of a national 
portfolio.

<http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_22/b4180035396063.htm>

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