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WiMax ISP Open Range Shuttering Operations
CEO Has Left, Staff Being Laid Off

Open Range Communications, a privately held WiMAX operator that served 140 markets in a dozen states is winding down their business operations, according to information gleaned by Fierce Wireless. While the company will continue serving existing WiMax customers (for now), the CEO has left the building, the company is no longer taking on new customers and is in the process of laying off the majority of its employees.

Back in 2008, the company received a $267 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Utilities Program to improve rural connectivity, followed by $100 million in equity from One Equity Partners.

The company had also just recently struck a network sharing arrangement with LightSquared, and could be a quick acquisition target for a number of companies including Clearwire, Towerstream or LightSquared.
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88

Member

govt $ for free

quote:
Back in 2008, the company received a $267 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Utilities Program to improve rural connectivity, followed by $100 million in equity from One Equity Partners.
Sounds like this company was set up only to collect government loans then default. Typical American behavior.
avantwireles
join:2003-03-21
Reno, NV

1 recommendation

avantwireles

Member

350 Million in 3 years!!!

300K PER DAY!!!! That is some outrageous spending. This sort of stuff should demand that a whole bunch of people end up in JAIL. But that is what's going on. The thieves are backing the dump trucks up to the Gov't Banks and loading the money up. What do you guess that the terms let One Equity Partners get their money from the loan first? So just how does this compare to cutting money from NPR?
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: 350 Million in 3 years!!!

But if the network is acquired by a company who could not have built it in the first place, and it runs for a long, long time, then that could be a lasting investment. That being said, that's still a lot of money, although it doesn't say how many customers they have.
PastTense
join:2011-07-06
united state

PastTense

Member

4G better way to go than Wimax

It looks like 4G would have been a better way to go than WiMax. Even Clearwire is going in that direction.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: 4G better way to go than Wimax

WiMAX is 4G. What I don't understand is why they don't all use Wifi. The gear out there is incredible, it's all unlicensed, and the Ubiquiti gear can do 100mbps over miles and miles, so offering the speeds of FTTH, at least on a shared basis, is really only dependent on the backhaul.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

Re: 4G better way to go than Wimax

It's not that easy. You don't need 100s of millions of dollars to deploy a ubiquity network.

digiblur
Premium Member
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana

digiblur

Premium Member

Re: 4G better way to go than Wimax

said by battleop:

It's not that easy. You don't need 100s of millions of dollars to deploy a ubiquity network.

100s of millions? What size network were you talking about!?

WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX

WHT to BiggA

Member

to BiggA
said by BiggA:

WiMAX is 4G. What I don't understand is why they don't all use Wifi. The gear out there is incredible, it's all unlicensed, and the Ubiquiti gear can do 100mbps over miles and miles, so offering the speeds of FTTH, at least on a shared basis, is really only dependent on the backhaul.

1) WiFi (tm) gear is crippled by the inter-compatibility requirements to carry the WiFi trade-mark branding. It will not have any "incredible" features like non-WiFi propriatry systems like UBNT's AirMax and Mikrotik's NV.
2) UBNT and any other gear cannot deliver 100 Mbps "over miles and miles". More on the order of a mile or two. Please review the transmitter derating and SNR requirements for the faster MCS speeds.
3) Dedicated to the node FTTH is not even comparable to a last mile wireless shared connection.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: 4G better way to go than Wimax

Much of Ubiquiti's gear is wifi, and the gear that will transmit 100mbps is Wifi N based. If you're pushing the limits on wifi, i.e. a 12 mile link, you're not going to be getting 100mbps, but even if you're getting 15mbps symmetrical at the edge, that's comparable to at least cable, and doing better on the upstream, and if you're doing 25-50mbps closer in, then you're doing really well, at least as well as Verizon FIOS. That being said, if FIOS was actually uncapped, and was going 1gbps symmetrical, then wifi has not hope, so the comparison is a little unfair.

MooJohn
join:2005-12-18
Milledgeville, GA

MooJohn

Member

Sad to hear

I liked this company sooo much more than Clear (and I've sold both services). They were much less "car-salesman-like" in their business manner. Their focus was specifically rural broadband; the people who usually have to choose between dialup and satellite. Isn't this the market that's always begging for service?

They offered one product: a home transceiver with built-in WLAN that was configured & ready to work right out of the box. Most customers were very glad to get a device that required no configuration, and they didn't have to string another router or access point behind it to get coverage within their house.

WiMAX or LTE had no bearing on this. Except for the marketing hype, nobody chooses an ISP based on the protocol used to deliver the service. As long as they can deliver the promised connectivity, it's a viable product.

hdman
Flt Rider
Premium Member
join:2003-11-25
Appleton, WI

hdman

Premium Member

Rural build out my a$$.....

These guys bilked our stupid Governement to build out in rural areas....and at least in my area, they didn't.

There is a decent sized city to our East....and guess what, thats where these guys blew the wad. In an area served by Uverse, Time Warner, etc., they built a WISP....how stupid was that?

I hope the people who took the money, gave the money, and oversaw the spending of the money from the company to the Governement ALL go to jail.

What a joke!
LineNoise
join:2006-06-25
Downers Grove, IL

LineNoise

Member

Re: Rural build out my a$$.....

They did this a few places. Doesn't make much sense. They built out a town in Illinois that has it's own muni wifi....

Screavics
Premium Member
join:2011-06-23
Pearcy, AR

1 edit

Screavics

Premium Member

This is what happens...

This is what happens when you Deploy a service in areas that already have some coverage for broadband. Granted those major cities were rural they were not covered 100% with competitors thus why they got their grants and ignored investment opportunities...

Blind spending just saying...

Before I get flak, I know this is not 100% of the case but look at their footprint and you can see it for yourselves.

annonymiss
@comcast.net

annonymiss

Anon

Sooo, this proves....

This proves that EVEN WITH government subsidies people that LIVE IN THE BOONIES just can't afford to buy high speed internet at the high price it needs to be.

Yeah, don't move to the BOONIES then expect city services people.