Sidecut Reports

We are in the middle of working on one of our famed in-depth Sidecut Reports so pardon the lack of posts… for your reading pleasure some links to mobile headlines in the news and our instant analysis of same, starting with MetroPCS making good on its pledge to ship the “first” LTE smartphone in the U.S.

The fine folks at Engadget have a good hands-on review and all the news, including the pricing which is $399 for the device and $50 a month for 1 GB of data, or $60 a month for unlimited data. While MetroPCS’s devices and plans aren’t meant for the top end of the market I think the company’s strategy of offering more horsepower to the prepaid crowd is a smart one. With more full-featured phones like this Samsung Galaxy Indulge MetroPCS can go a long way toward satisfying an audience that may not ever need or want a PC, laptop or any other Internet device.

While some folks may try to equate MetroPCS’s network with Verizon’s because they use the same base technology, Long Term Evolution or LTE, don’t be confused — MetroPCS is not in the big-bits game that Verizon is playing in, and as such its plans won’t ever truly compete with Verizon (or AT&T, or Sprint’s) ability to provide much faster download speeds. Though MetroPCS uses LTE it also uses small spectral “channels” which means you might see faster than 2G speeds but you won’t see anything close to Verizon’s advertised 5 Mbps to 12 Mbps or Sprint/Clearwire’s 2 Mbps to 6 Mbps for their WiMAX network.

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I’ll leave it to those who have more time to spend with SEC documents than I do right now to sort out all the details, but the initial public offering hinted at by MagicJack founder Dan Borislow last summer has sort-of come to pass, with the announcement of a merger between MagicJack’s parent company and VoIP gear supplier VocalTec, which trades on the public markets.

As befits a Borislow operation, there’s a whole lot of murkiness and mess involved — gotta love the line from the SEC filing that flashes a big red light over any and all proceedings, mainly to do with the fact that VocalTec isn’t a U.S.-based company so doesn’t necessarily have to play by NASDAQ rules. From the merger SEC filing, we quote:

We are a “foreign private issuer” and you will receive less information than you would about us from a domestic U.S. corporation. In addition, we have opted out of certain Nasdaq Marketplace listing requirements.

With the caveats out of the way, what else is interesting about MagicJack? According to the fiscal numbers, MagicJack did indeed have a $100 million revenue year in 2009 as Borislow predicted when we talked to him last — it was actually $117.8 million in revenue according to the document — but the company also incurred a loss of $22 million for the year, mainly due to huge costs like those of the MagicJack devices sold ($23.4 million), advertising ($32.1 million), network and carrier charges ($25.6 million) and $41.8 million in “General and administrative” charges, which seem quite high for a smallish startup of MagicJack’s nature.

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Normally known for his intelligent takes on all matters regarding telecom policy, our pal Harold Feld shows his technology and market chops with an excellent post today about why he thinks the so-called “death of WiMAX” may be a precursor to a long, active afterlife.

You should, of course, read the entire wonderful post but to sum up Harold’s points — WiMAX may be surpassed by Long Term Evolution (LTE) as the eventual 4G market “standard,” but that’s not going to happen for awhile and with lots of gear and services deployed, it’s not like WiMAX is going to disappear off the shelves like Betamax tape players. A great post to bookmark and remember after all the “death sentences” for WiMAX inevitably appear.