Thought that the 700MHz auction was the last chance for an all-new US carrier to emerge? Think again. Turns out that NextWave, the company behind the TDtv mobile television standard among other things, has itself a nice little collection of US spectrum that it claims covers something on the order of 251 million Americans -- and it's retaining professional help to shop the package around. These airwaves are split across the 1.7 / 2.1GHz (AWS), 2.3GHz, and 2.5GHz bandwidths, leaving with the potential buyer with a fragmented, albeit wide-reaching swath of EF that could theoretically see another player hop in the ring to offer voice, data, or both -- subject to the FCC's approval of any sale, of course.

[Via mocoNews]

Still struggling to figure out a way to turn a profit on the whole concept, carriers and infrastructure suppliers apparently have no bones about continuing to go full speed ahead on mobile TV R&D, trials, and deployments. NextWave Wireless' TDtv standard has one key advantage over competitors like DVB-H, DMB, and FLO, though: because it utilizes unpaired UMTS spectrum, it makes use of frequencies and technologies that carriers already possess. On the flipside, it has taken considerably longer for TDtv to come into its own, while DVB-H has secured a deathgrip on Europe and FLO has done the same in North America, so it's unclear at this point just how much impact it'll ultimately have. Anyway, Orange and T-Mobile apparently have shown enough interest to find out for themselves, with both carriers committing to TDtv trials in the UK that'll have West London customers receiving up to 24 telly channels and 10 digital radio stations when the system launches in the second half of the year.