Teligent attracts suitors

After filing for bankruptcy in May, Teligent may become an attractive property to larger carriers, despite the doom and gloom surrounding the fixed-wireless industry, analysts said today.

The Wall Street Journal today reported Verizon, WorldCom and IDT may be interested in bidding for all or part of Teligent’s assets, with plans to use the ailing carrier’s extensive rooftop rights, spectrum footprint, and remaining customer base to augment their metro enterprise networks.

Allied Business Intelligence senior analyst Andy Fuertes said the news signals that of the fixed-wireless industry--particularly local multipoint distribution systems (LMDS)--may be resurrected as a viable access technology by RBOCs and major carriers.

“The fact that Verizon would be interested is very telling,” Fuertes said. “They’re effectively saying there are shortcomings in its infrastructure. They have holes they need to fill, and it looks like they want to use fixed wireless to do it.

“Verizon and WorldCom want to go after the medium-sized customers. They can’t go out and bring fiber directly to them like they do their large customers, but fixed wireless is perfect way to target them.”

The problem Teligent and fellow bankrupt fixed-wireless carriers Advanced Radio Telecom and Winstar faced was bad business plans that put expansion above all else, Fuertes said. Though they created the metro fixed-wireless market, none of these carriers are in a position to see it to maturity, but ILECs and some long-haul carriers have the money and experience to use the technology, Fuertes said.

Teligent officials could not be reached for comment.

Teligent has built inner-city, point-to-multipoint networks in about 50 U.S. cities using 24 GHz spectrum.