Sprint close to $20 billion network deal with LightSquared

By on Jun 2, 2011 at 5:21 PM
mobile June 2, 2011

LightSquared Inc., a 4G LTE communications network, is very close to a deal that could put up to $20 billion in the bank for Sprint Nextel over the next 15 years. According to two anonymous sources speaking to Bloomberg, the agreement would give LightSquared the ability to expand faster while letting both companies share costs in regards to network build-out.

Sprint would receive as much as $2 billion annually from LightSquared in the first stages of the contract to help pay for the network equipment and construction costs, said one of the people. Payments thereafter would vary annually based on the number of users on the LightSquared network and usage patterns, said the person. The full value of the contract will depend on those payments.

4G LTE, here we come.

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  • Scott

    This sounds fishy… like similar to WiMax. Wasn’t that deal “suppose” to help spread the network out faster? What a joke! Phoenix, Az (which was 5th biggest, screw you Philly) 6th biggest city, has no WiMax here. Sprint you’re such a joke. Heck, I bet AT&T will have LTE here before you do! 

    • Anonymous

      Sprint doesn’t own WiMax, Clear does and it’s because of Clear the reason why you don’t have WiMax. I know Sprint owns a large portion of stock with Clear but Clear still operates independently.

    • Anonymous

      This is nothing like Sprint + Clearwire.

      Clearwire (for the most part, except for ~3,000 “towers”) is 100% separate from sprint – they don’t share any resources.

      Sprint is rebuilding their entire network with new antennas, new radios, new base stations, etc and since Sprint is doing that Lightsquared decided it would be cheaper to put their antenna/radio/basestation in at the same time and share the cost since it is cheaper for both parties.

      AT&T will have 70 million people covered with LTE before Sprint has any people covered with LTE.  Either way Clearwire/Sprint covers (poorly, 2.5GHz sucks indoors) 126 million people right now with WiMAX.  That’s a lot better than AT&T covering a big fat zero people with LTE right now.

      • Anonymous

        My WiMax is far from poorly.. I have 4G coverage over almost all of So Cal and hit 9mbps in many places.. In Rancho Cucamonga I get 7mbps indoors every day

      • http://twitter.com/jimmiekain Jimmie

        yup I get about 7mb down here in Ontario California inside my house. (htc evo sprint) and at work (Brea, California) i get close to 9mb in a 3 story building while my buddy with the Atrix (AT&T HSPA+) averages 1.5 down with only 200kb up. I just hope they dont raise prices too much when LTE comes to sprint. 

      • 123

        come down to San Diego and you’ll see the definition of poor sprint coverage. I can’t even get half a MB indoors, and not even a single MB outside. Tried all sorts of ROMs, tricks, PRL’s, etc. nothing makes a diff. Thanks Sprint for that extra charge of $10 a month to not even be half as fast as AT&T’s worthless network.

      • Poopy Pants

        2.5Ghz is the amount of spectrum they have, not the frequency.  You’re a little confused I think.

    • Anonymous

      When Sprint bought Nextel (which is going to be turned into the Nations best 4G network soon) the FCC mandated that Sprint provide service on the 2500mhz band in the next 4 years. LTE wasnt ready yet so Sprint had to start with Wimax. And Sprint smartly saved the Prime iDen bands for LTE since the market isn’t even ready for Full Blown 4G yet..

      Im glad I have 4G but unless you tether or watch youtube alot its not gonna change too much

    • Portorokk

      philly says screw you too! we have wimaxxx jack asss!!!!

      • Anonymous

        lmao

      • Poopy Pants

        that was his point.  He was saying that Phoenix is bigger than Philly but Phoenix got passed on for Wimax coverage even though it’s bigger than Philly.  Slow down when you read and think before you comment so angrily.

    • Migs

      Scott… first off Sprint owns a majority of Clear which is RESPONSIBLE  for its wimax network layout. Clear is the one that’s slowing things down for Sprint, Clear is the one that has financial troubles and was looking to sell Spectrum to raise money. Don’t hate on Sprint when its someone Else’s problem….. that’s like saying you are a contractor and you hired a construction company to build out a house, the house came out shitty because the construction company didn’t have enough money to do a proper job. its not the contractors fault they paid the construction company already.

    • No

      Phoenix has 4G…  like 3 towers, but still…

  • Anonymous

    This the same 4G LTE that uses the spectrum that knocks out GPS signals. Let’s hope they DON’T expand.

    • Anonymous

      That’s incorrect.  Not all of the spectrum lightsquared owns messes with GPS.  They own 59MHz of spectrum in total.

      In 2012 they have 20MHz of spectrum ready to go for LTE that does not impact GPS.

    • Anonymous

      Its probably going to be on some of Sprints bands that are actually the best.. Give it few years Sprint will have the best 4G network

      • Anonymous

        sure they will.. haha

      • Anonymous

        Go read At&t’s merger filings.. That’s their biggest card in getting T-Mobile

  • Justin Peterson

    Finally – I would take this that Sprint will move to LTE over the next few years.  I know WiMax was first but I’d prefer a common 4g platform.  This will allow for equal footing for compition amoung carriers and better handsets down the road.  Split technology makes no sense because all it does is cost everyone. 

    • Anonymous

      Well, Sprint only choose Wimax cuz it was the only 4g option at the time. It was always open to LTE, what ever is faster the better as long it isn’t tiered on Sprint lol

      • Anonymous

        Sprint wanted to have the lowest possible bit-served costs.  WiMAX has less licensing fees vs. LTE.

      • Anonymous

        Naw LTE wasnt ready yet Sprint had 4 years to provide service on 2500 after the Nextel merger per an FCC ruling. So they had to go with WiMax.

  • Trybe

    Whoa! Boss move

  • ozziedog

    Maybe some company need to cry foul, ha.

  • mrpeewee

    I think AT&T should file a complaint with the FCC and SEC.

    • Tilde

      I hope you’re being snarky here, but this is truthfully nothing like the AT&T/TM merger.

  • Anonymous

    What’s a LightSquared?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=631382009 Bill Anderson

      LightSquared is a GPS jamming service.

  • Anonymous

    nice! cant wait

  • bigbudha

    this was t-mobile original plan to partner with light square.

  • Anonymous

    I know there is a difference between Wi-Max and Lte but as long as sprint stays truly unlimited without capping or throttling speeds I don’t give a ish………..I kill about 4-5 Gb’s a month streaming 

  • James Bond

    I paid $32.67 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Toshiba laptop for $94.83 being delivered to our house tomorrow by FedEX. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores. I even sold a 46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $52.78 to get. Here is the website we using to get all this stuff, MadCent. com

  • Anonymous

    So is Sprint turning themselves into an MVNO? 

  • http://twitter.com/jaytee1o4 jaytee1o4

    Sprint has 20 billion to spend? 

    • serpentor

      No, it’s LightSquared that’ll be spending the $20 bil

    • Anonymous

      Sprint has way more than that with the rights to the most $G spectrum

  • http://twitter.com/pablostation8 pablostation8

    this might be a stupid question but what about the customers that already HAVE a 4G WiMax phone? I believe that the two technologies are not comparable but im not sure. Is there something on the software side that would allow the WiMax radio to speak to an LTE tower? 

    • Anonymous

      That is supposed to be possible but probably wont happen.. Because if Sprint goes LTE it wont be on the current 2500mhz band. So any current WiMax devices wont be compatible with this new build out even if it was the same Wimax, the frequencies are different.

    • Tilde

      By the time this LTE network is ready, the devices that have WiMax now will be ‘old’ and most people will have upgraded to a handset that supports LTE.

  • Anonymous

    And people think Sprint can just up and get bought….

  • Anonymous

    Sounds good to me. WiMax is ok but no one thinks it can hold a candle to LTE.

  • Anonymous

    i think this sucks for most people with wimax devices…sprints going to probably support both wimax and lte for a couple years until they stop producing any more wimax devices…but this transition too 100% LTE will probably take at least 4 years from when they actually switching on some LTE site and converting the old wimax stations over to LTE…this reminds me when ATT was trying to get everyone off their old analog system with their TDMA phones over to GSM…that took forever!

    • Tilde

      As someone said above, the Clear towers are separate from the Sprint towers and Sprint is currently in the process of upgrading their own towers. This deal with Lightsquared should help speed up that process, and my guess is they will be building in LTE into the towers when the upgrade them. Sprint has known for a while that LTE may be the way to go, and they may have already started supporting LTE in their new towers.

  • applesuxa$$

    1. i hope there as fast as clears proposed speeds of upto 90mbps dl and 40-50 up saw a youtube on it 2. lets hope its more reliable than v’s supper huge and so called reliable 4g 3.att sux donkey ass and they rape for everything they charge for they should be shut down for crimes against ppls wallets they suck you pay a hundred bux for the bill and another 60+ for data lol f*ck u

  • http://twitter.com/ggore Glenn Gore

    Sprint has great coverage here in the middle of the country, far better than AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile, and it is pretty much ALL 3G.    So I hope this money is spent adding 4G/LTE capabilities to their network.  

  • Anonymous

    I get great coverage in hamilton,ohio suburb of cincinnati, ohio….go reds! LoL

  • Anonymous

    Must be nice to have train loads of cash lying around.

    http://www.privacy-web.no.tc

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