TTA Archives 2005-2012

Back in March when AT&T announced its intention to purchase Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile, it was widely speculated that the impetus was to add US GSM network capacity that AT&T sorely lacked, especially for data-heavy initiatives such as AT&T ForHealth [TA 22 March] and the companies who use AT&T for their back end. Unfortunately, the merger now faces a long travail. Seven states joined last Friday to the existing challenge by the FCC and the US Department of Justice. And efforts to add spectrum have run into trouble because they bump up against vital frequencies such as GPS. One of these companies, LightSquared, is now embroiled in a potential scandal alleging that they improperly influenced the Administration to attempt to change the Congressional testimony of USAF General William Shelton, commander of the Air Force Space Command, to be less critical of the company. [Daily Beast] Which raises the question; if eHealth can get beyond the ‘braces and glasses’ stage into a respectable young adulthood, when it finally arrives, will there be enough bandwidth?