‘Nextel All Over Again’ Bets All on FCC Blessing Spectrum Reuse

A telecom startup that’s staked its future on airwaves licenses it bought five years ago for $100 million is poised to get a major boost from the Federal Communications Commission to enter the lucrative broadband business.

Electric utilities, manufacturers, and transportation giants, including United Parcel Service and freight railroads, currently use the airwaves for dispatch radio communications. But pdvWireless, headed by the co-founders of Nextel Communications Inc., hopes to convince the FCC that opening up some of the airwaves for broadband use will not only benefit itself—allowing it to launch private LTE networks for businesses that use the spectrum—but is ...