Korea's SK Telecom has emerged as the mystery operator that could invest in LightSquared, the US venture set up to build a national LTE wholesale network in mobile satellite spectrum.
Its chief backer, Harbinger Capital Partners, has been looking for investors, and has hinted at one or more operators taking a stake in return for access to the network.
T-Mobile USA has been the most discussed candidate, but SKT has also been aiming to increase its US presence for some years.
If SKT were to take a share in LightSquared, it would indicate a similar model to that of Clearwire, which has Sprint Nextel and three cablecos as stakeholders/MVNOs and has also been reported to be in talks with T-Mobile.
LightSquared has so far raised all its money from financial institutions, but will need more financing to meet its ambitious rollout targets, and has made no secret of its wish to involve operator partners and/or suppliers.
At one time, Huawei was thought to be interested in a stake plus equipment contract, but LightSquared then chose Nokia Siemens to build and run its network (without any investment from NSN).
SKT would take a $100m investment, according to Reuters, and has confirmed its talks with Harbinger, but said “some terms haven't been met yet.” SKT could launch consumer or enterprise LTE services under its own brand via a wholesale deal with LightSquared, and would also gain expertise to use in its own LTE roll-outs in its home market and possibly elsewhere.
It has said it will start rolling out 4G in Korea next year and achieve national coverage in 2013, so it might, in fact, be SKT that brought the balance of expertise to a LightSquared partnership. Not to mention its knowledge of mobile web behavior from one of the world's most advanced wireless and internet markets.
SKT’s previous attempts to break into the US have not been very successful. It formed a joint venture with ISP EarthLink in 2005, which was later renamed Helio and set up an MVNO. Despite an ambitious agenda to bring advanced mobile content services to the US, it did not thrive and was sold to Virgin Mobile, now part of Sprint Nextel.
SKT has looked around for acquisitions outside its saturating home base, and was rumored to be a suitor for Sprint at one time, as well as taking a $100 million stake in Malaysian Wimax player Packet One.
Meanwhile, LightSquared has obtained further financing in the form of a $750 million, four-year loan from UBS, according to insiders. Analysts at Oppenheimer have estimated that LightSquared needs $5 billion to build its network.
In July, the venture obtained $1.75 billion in initial funding commitments. Much of its spectrum comes from Harbinger's $500 million acquisition of SkyTerra.
This article originally appeared on Rethink Wireless
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SKT could be LightSquared's first carrier backer