During Mobile World Congress, LightSquared has confirmed that two U.S. carriers have agreed to wholesale access from its hybrid satellite/terrestrial LTE network, with four more carriers expressing interest via network sharing agreement. The company’s SkyTerra 1 satellite has also been integrated into the network and cleared for commercial use by Boeing’s Space and Intelligence Systems division, which had been acquired in the purchase of the former SkyTerra initiative.
The company is currently conducting LTE trials in Baltimore, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix, with commercial launches planned by the third quarter of this year. LightSquared currently has access to 59 MHz of spectrum and has stated that its network will consist of around 40,000 cellsites, covering 92 percent of the U.S. population by 2015.
