subject: Harbinger Will Compete With At&t, Verizon And Sprint In Wireless Data Services, But Who Are They? [print this page] The wireless industry changes every few yearsThe wireless industry changes every few years. Evolving from analog to digital to smart phones to wireless data. We see Apple iPhone and Google Android capturing the headlines and now the next big unknown, Harbinger.
Who? The only company I know by that name is a privately owned hedge fund in New York City called Harbinger Capitol Partners owned by Philip Falcone. It's the same company. You may ask, aren't they in the investment business? What do they know about the satellite or wireless industry?
That's the question many are asking. We have watched the industry change and transform itself over the last decade or two. Except all the innovation has come from solidly wireless companies and networks.
Even the new competitor Clearwire was started by Sprint. Now suddenly we have a new world opening up. Non-wireless companies like Apple and Google are capturing the headlines and at the top of the industry growth curve. These are not wireless companies, but suddenly they are on everyone's mind.
Now we have a new comer to the party. Harbinger is not a wireless company. It is not even a technology company. They make nothing. They sell nothing. They are a hedge fund. A very successful company, but nothing to do with wireless the wireless industry and has no customers.
Even Apple and Google have millions of customers that they can then market their new wireless phones to and they do it very successfully.
However Harbinger has no customers who use other services who they can convince to try their new wireless data service. So this seems to make little sense.
With that said, who knows, maybe they can be successful. After all Clearwire also started from scratch, but it has many heavy hitter companies helping them with customers like Comcast, Time Warner and others.
Phil Falcone just hired Sanjiv Ahuja, the former chief of France Telecom SA mobile unit Orange to head up this new company.
This is all speculation because they are a private company and have not discussed yet what their plans are, but it sounds like they plan to create a high-speed wireless data network in the United States. They are acquiring SkyTerra, a MSS company which means Mobile Satellite Communications Services. This allows communications with satellite instead of cell towers.
Are their plans to be a satellite provider, or mix that with building a wireless data network? There are more questions than answers so far.
That is the question many are pondering today. How serious is this company about getting into the wireless data business? How do they intend to compete with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile? Are they going to do something new like Clearwire?
Are they planning on breaking out of the investment business and being a real wireless competitor? Will we start seeing television commercials at dinnertime on this new service? If they do how well will they compete starting from scratch? Will they have a good quality service, priced competitively, will they market and advertise it well. Will they attract customers who like the service and stay? Will they build a real company?
Or is this just the first step in a larger investment plan? Create something of value then sell it to another company for a large profit?
So the bottom line question is, will they be a competitor or not? We don't know yet.
This is not a public company. Rather this is a private firm. Therefore we don't have to know anything they don't want us to know. They are keeping this close to the vest for now.
So all we can do is speculate. There has been some speculation, but not a lot so far. However they seem to be making the moves that say they will become a competitive force. They hired a known CEO. They are acquiring a company. These are steps in the right direction. However we don't know, and won't know anything until they are ready to talk more. So all we can do right now is stay tuned.
