The Spectrum Bubble

Wall Street

from the call-your-broker dept

Om Malik’s got an interesting post up saying that good old irrational exuberance is back, and fueling a “spectrum bubble” on Wall Street. He points to a couple of fixed wireless broadband companies with little to no revenues but enjoy pretty good-sized valuations, their only assets being LMDS spectrum up in the 24-31g GHz range. As Om points out, companies working in this same spectrum (like XO Technologies) were part of the last bubble, and what ultimately brought them down was that none of the technology worked very well, if at all. There’s been little to suggest technology has improved — and no, WiMAX doesn’t operate up there — but apparently saying a company does “wireless broadband” is enough to deliver a nice pop to its stock.