Where Do You Really Need a Carrier's Wireless Network? - Businessweek

Where Do You Really Need a Carrier's Wireless Network? - Businessweek: To run a wireless company, you need three things. You need enough transmitters (“cells,” the industry calls them) close enough to your customers to deliver a signal. You need a connection from that cell to the Internet (“backhaul”). And you need an available slice of electromagnetic spectrum to get that signal from the cell to your customer’s hand. As Scott Moritz and I wrote in last week’s feature on T-Mobile, it’s a hard business to get into unless you’re willing to spend tens of billions of dollars on tower sites, backhaul, and spectrum licenses.