We want to keep you informed on all aspects of the Go Long Wireless (GWL) project and where we stand with our MVDSS licenses on a more regular basis. Just a recap:
• The FCC is requiring that anyone who holds an MVDSS license needs to show a substantial service by July 2019. The FCC defines a substantial service as a construction of 4 broadcast sites for every million people in each of our Designated Market Areas (DMA’s). We currently own and manage 36 FCC licenses in 36 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) throughout the US.
• The consequence of not meeting the FCC deadline is the licenses will be foreclosed to be re-auctioned by the FCC and our investment will be lost.
• In order to accomplish the goal of building out a service and keeping the licenses, we enlisted the expertise of two outside vendors, Cambridge Broadband Networks (CBNL) to provide the broadcast radios and receivers and Novation Networks to oversee the installation and build-out of our DMA’s.
• Cambridge Broadband Networks (CBNL) has manufactured and shipped the necessary equipment to construct the sites. The equipment comes in pairs, with a transmitting unit (Access Point) and a receiver (Remote Terminal). We took possession of all our equipment and it’s currently being housed in a few staging locations throughout the United States.
• Novation’s job is to identify the sites for the build, negotiate and install equipment on the site rooftops. The installations themselves will be performed by Warriors4Wireless (W4W) a non-profit organization that employs veterans in the telecommunications industry.
How close are we to reaching our goal?
Currently, we are in the process of selecting and surveying installation sites. Site acquisition is by far the hardest challenge of any sizeable build out. Our original plan was to partner with Veterans Service Organizations (VSO) in the U.S. We soon realized that as much as we wanted to partner solely with only VSO’s in each of our markets, they posed a different challenge as each site was managed independently. We have since modified our strategy as Novation has signed deals with single landlord entities who own multiple buildings in many of our DMAs. These sites give us more efficiency and scale. Although this course change put us behind two months, we are confident that we have built in plenty of time to keep us on track to reach the July 2019 deadline.
Stay tuned here for periodic updates on the status of the build-out, FCC and Market news surrounding our spectrum and anything else topical to our MVDDS holdings.