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frontline posts

Frontline Aerospace shows off "Humvee of the air"

by Donald Melanson, posted Jun 16th 2008 at 3:03PM

While it looks like it's still quite a ways from actually being in the air, Frontline Aerospace nonetheless seems to have some pretty bold ambitions for its V-STAR unmanned aerial vehicle, which it has dubbed the "Humvee of the air." Like some of the flying car concepts we've seen, the V-STAR (or VTOL-Swift Tactical Aerial Resource) uses a ducted fan design, which promises to give it increased maneuverability in addition to vertical take off and landings, while dual Rolls-Royce Model 250 gas turbines help to propel it along at speeds up to 288 knots with a 400-pound payload. As you might have guessed, the company isn't making any promises as to when we can expect the first test flight, although they have apparently at least done some wind-tunnel tests (presumably on a scale model).

[Via The Register]

700MHz hopeful Frontline "closed for business"

by Paul Miller, posted Jan 9th 2008 at 5:20AM

There's a bit of a mystery emerging on the 700MHz auction front. Frontline Wireless, which has made no secret of its desire to bid and win on the D-block spectrum, has a released a statement saying "Frontline is closed for business at this time. We have no further comment." At the risk of stating the obvious, we'd say that it's a rather inconvenient time for the company to be "closed for business," and this could spell doom for the company's efforts in the 700MHz auction -- or not, there's really no way to tell at this point, and Frontline's industry connections run deep, including a sketchy sounding partnership with "Backline." In time all will be made clear, but for now we've got to wait out this silent auction with everybody else, which may or may not include Frontline Wireless.

Update: Both GigaOm and the New York Times are reporting that apparently Frontline Wireless was unable to raise the deposit required to participate in the auctions. What boggles is that the $128 million required up front is a pittance compared to the money spent in the actual bidding process. While it's sad to see that Frontline has lost the keys to "unlocking the value in 700 MHz" we're stoked for the fun to get started.

Who's in on the 700MHz auction?

by Paul Miller, posted Dec 5th 2007 at 1:27PM

Feel free to shout it out in the comments, we know y'all are gunning for a piece. What's that? Don't quite have enough change in the couch to hit the $4.6 billion minimum bid on the 700MHz C block? How lame. Lucky for us, there are quite a few companies out there that do have that kind of cash earmarked for this and other highly desirable parts of the spectrum, which should make for some exciting bidding. Too bad FCC's auction process, which begins on January 24th, is totally blind, and with the exception of the few companies that have publicly stated their intentions to bid, we won't know much about how the auction went down until February or March. The following, however, are confirmed:

AT&T; T-Mobile says it already has plenty.
Cox Communications; Time Warner and Comcast aren't biting.
Frontline; gunning for the D block.
Google; might just do the minimum to ensure the C block is "open."
Verizon; Sprint is busy with WiMAX.

Sounds like slim pickings, but there a bunch of wild cards out there, including satellite providers, smaller wireless carriers and even big box retailers.

[Via paidContent.org]

Wholesaling of D block spectrum okayed by FCC

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 19th 2007 at 12:58AM

Landing an agreement to create a worldwide mobile broadband standard with the freed up 700MHz band isn't the only good news going on in the spectrum world, as the FCC has also waived a previous regulation that would require winners of the D block segment to not wholesale more than 50-percent of its capacity. Now, the winner will be able to wholesale up to 100-percent of the capacity so long as it abides by the other guidelines surrounding D block, most notable of which is the provision that requires the victorious bidder to "build out a nationwide wireless network that is good enough to meet public safety specifications for coverage and redundancy." The move is seen as one that will widen the range of potential bidders and encourage small business participation, and for consumers, it could offer up more competition in the mobile services marketplace. Sounds like a surefire win-win, eh?

[Via RCRNews, image courtesy of toddemslie]
Read - FCC D block waiver [PDF]
Read - Explanation of D block spectrum