The Lightsquared hybrid satellite/LTE network being built by Nokia and Harbinger Capital Partners could shake up the competitive landscape by offering new players wholesale access to an entirely new LTE network. However, the project is facing several obstacles including funding and interference concerns with GPS. The company just cleared several hurdles by getting the FCC to ease a few constrictive spectrum conditions, and by launching a satellite to be used to fill in rural coverage. Lightsquared says they’ve signed at least two carrier deals already, with other talks ongoing.

One of those interested carriers is MetroPCS, whose discount almost-LTE service could certainly use the added help. MetroPCS says they’re absolutely interested, assuming the LTE network ever actually gets built. Assuming Lightsquared gets funding, builds the network, survives a likely political and PR assault by AT&T and Verizon and navigates GPS interference concerns, MetroPCS would still have to deal with a few more technical hurdles, including handset compatibility:

There’s still a significant amount of doubt in the industry about whether Lightsquared, the joint effort of a cash-strapped also ran satellite outfit and a former junk bond salesman, ever actually gets built.
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Tags: API, FCC, handsets, Media, Opera, Spectrum, Telecommunications India

One of the breaking news of the day is that Nokia has opted for Windows 7 platform; I usually don’t comment on these “platform changes” but Nokia is dying a slow death.

I had earlier written about owning a Nokia E63:

I own a Nokia E63 but that’s about it. It’s the “low end” of the smart phone because the screen sucks. Ovi store sucks. There are no apps to speak of. It has a weird “signed” and “unsigned” policy which doesn’t allow me to load in any kind of an application I need. Yet, the Wifi is a great addition even though it has a restricted range. My mail is configured; is a boon when I am not around my laptop. In general, it works the work but then there is nothing that I exude my enthusiasm about owning this

This has been prompted by is steady decline in the US market where it has been drubbed nicely.

So what does it do next?

It shifts to Windows 7.

Inquirer has hit the nail on the head.

Elop tried to answer the question the world had, why the hell not Android, and his answer was lacking. He explained that he had spoken to Google about Android but it was rejected as Elop felt that Nokia could not differentiate itself among the Android handsets.

Trust me. If Nokia had shifted to Android, I would have shifted to it immediately solely because of the quality of the hardware.

But then Windows has been screwed royally in the back by Linux.

Tags: android, Google, handsets, INQ, laptop, Linux, Media, Microsoft, Mobile, Telecommunications India, Wifi, Windows, Windows 7

I am not here to be a party pooper but if you look at the profile of the countries where broadband is a laggard, it speaks for itself. It only reflects a huge pent up demand for a “regular internet” than a crippled version of the mobile internet.

The beauty of Opera is that it’s available for a huge range of handsets; including java based crapware that is lowly bottom of the end stuff. Agreed that most people cannot afford a smartphone (it’s an overkill), still it reflects the pattern of usage.

This is bound to create a lot of interest for advertising which surprisingly Opera has been able to keep it as a free platform. Although I have tried the beta version of their mobile browser on Android, there is nothing to write home about; I invariably fall back on the Mini version. In case I have to tether my useless Docomo GPRS to my laptop, I use an emulator which makes checking email and going through some mobile optimized web site easily.

This also means that the desktop version is going to lag in “love”; something that Opera employees deny strongly. As a company, it has one of the worst outreach towards it’s customers; try getting the contact details of the key people. They seem to have “hired” forum trolls because any word of criticism is hushed up immediately or the forum thread locked up. Their extensions are bare bones (unlike the Chromium API which is fairly stable) and does not allow interaction with the key features of the browser.

This isn’t technical debate about how the browser wars play out in the real web but in my opinion, Chromium (on Linux) is perceptibly fast. Although Firefox Beta has seen a wonderful improvement over it’s previous versions but it’s useless implementation of extensions means that a bare bones browser is as good as useless.

Ironically, this post on Opera is made using Chromium; I use Feedly (intermittently for RSS Feeds), Google Reader with a focussed tab and souped up with wonderful extensions to make my life easier when going through over 500 articles per day. I have (yes, wonderful) Thunderbird for IMAP Access; although a bit of pain to focus on one window to another but Opera has screwed (and fucked) up it’s Mail implementation.

Hope that opera now implements it’s Fastmail acquisition properly. If I can read the tea leaves properly, Opera would want to leverage itself as a “leading brand for mobile applications/other than desktop” category. Primarily reason is that internet access is now moving away (slowly and steadily) from the desktop/laptop combination. With huge profit base in the mobile applications, I see that there is no reason to innovate on the Linux/BSD/alternative platforms over a period of time.

That’s where Chromium is slowly becoming the centre stage; with a slow but steady shift to cloud computing as a platform. Mobile access is one part of the key in this game.

Tags: Advertising, android, API, Broadband, Browser wars, Chromium, Computing, crapware, Google, GPRS, handsets, Internet, Java, laptop, Linux, Media, Mobile, Opera, Telecommunications India