LightSquared's Hedge Fund Owner Fires Back at Senator
LightSquared - which is battling a range of critics including the GPS industry - has widened its targets to include Senator Chuck Grassley (R - Iowa). LightSquared is owned by Harbinger Capital Partners, a hedge fund headed by Philip A. Falcone. According to American Public Media's Marketplace blog, Senator Grassley has charged that Falcone wrote to him saying that a LightSquared approval could be a "win" for Grassley. In addition, he said, Fine Point Technologies Chairman and CEO Todd Ruelle suggested a call center might be built in Iowa if Grassley helped win approval to launch LightSquared's proposed network. According to a story posted by FINalternatives, Falcone fired back through Harbinger's lawyer, saying Grassley's allegations are "unsupported" and based on "selective excerpts," and that "his [Grassley's] story is so full of untruths as to create questions about the fairness of [Grassley's] inquiry into LightSquared." In a public statement, Senator Grassley's office said his focus is "shedding light on why the FCC gave LightSquared the fast track for approval without adequate consideration to widespread interference with the GPS devices used by the military, aviation, consumers, and precision agriculture."

New Frontier Office in North Texas to Employ 500 Workers
Frontier Communications said it has officially opened a new center in Allen, Texas. Approximately 500 employees work in the 84,000 square-foot facility. The Allen Center is also home to a new National Operations Center, one of several that manage the traffic and security for Frontier’s national communications network, the company said. Frontier also said it plans to hire more employees in the areas of marketing, product development, Internet help desk management, customer service, and engineering. Frontier offers communications services in 27 states and has approximately 15,250 employees based entirely in the United States.

Otelco Taps ADTRAN to Launch Wholesale Mobile Backhaul Services
Otelco Mid-Missouri, a division of Otelco, has chosen the ADTRAN Optical Networking Edge (ONE) solution to enable high-bandwidth transport capabilities. Otelco will use ADTRAN's ONE to support mobile backhaul applications for 3G and 4G mobile access services without the need for overlay network builds on top of its existing voice and data services. ADTRAN said the scalable service separation enables Otelco to provide a dedicated Ethernet backbone for Tier 1 wireless carriers while meeting the strict mobile backhaul service level agreements carriers require.

Qualcomm Revenue, Profit Up Significantly
Qualcomm reported that revenue rose nearly 40% in its first 2012 fiscal quarter (ended December 25, 2011), while unit sales of chips for mobile devices rose 32% and profit rose 20%. Qualcomm revenues for the quarter were $4.68 billion, up 40 percent year-over-year. Profit was up 20 percent year-over-year, to $1.4 billion. Earnings per share were $0.81, up 14 percent compared to the same period in the prior year. The company also disclosed that it learned last week that Justice Department officials in Southern California and the Securities and Exchange Commission have begun preliminary inquiries regarding the company's compliance with the US anti-bribery law known as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Qualcomm said it believes it is in compliance with the law.

... Randi Martin, Faulkner Information Services