Sprint in talks to buy Clearwire for 4G LTE roll-out

By on Aug 19, 2011 at 3:45 PM
mobile August 19, 2011

Sprint is in talks to purchase Clearwire outright, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The carrier has been speaking to a number of firms including Comcast about the possible acquisition, which would help Sprint build out a 4G LTE network capable of going head-to-head with competing networks from Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Cox Communications has also been involved in the discussions, Bloomberg said. Sprint could take one of two paths: it could invest more in Clearwire, although it already owns a controlling 54% stake in the company, or it could acquire it fully. Clearwire has said that it needs roughly $600 million to roll out LTE alongside its current 4G WiMAX network. In late July, however, Sprint inked a deal with network wholesaler LightSquared, in which LightSquared agreed to pay Sprint $9 billion and give the firm several billion more in service credits over 15 years for the right to use Sprint’s infrastructure to build out its own 4G LTE network. Bloomberg said Sprint’s talks with Clearwire are still in early stages and a deal is not imminent.

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26 Comments

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  • Robert Turner

    LTE on clear’s crap spectrum isnt going to be any better than wimax. What’s the point if it can’t penetrate a building.

    • Ryan Bailey

      That’s what she said.

    • http://twitter.com/_fredLjones Fredrick Jones

      That’s exactly what she said

    • Anonymous

      Hey, if you want to talk about how to get penetrated just ask Scroat aka Mobile aka PAPINYC iMpersonator; he gets penetrated every day (real’ good) -
      True Story™®©

    • Anonymous

      it works good for me in so cal.. and between clear, sprint, and light squared there is going to be lte on at least one other band..

  • serpentor

    $600 million to roll out LTE is a lot cheaper than the 39 billion to buy tmo to make an LTE network.

    • Anonymous

      At least they will have an LTE network that will penetrate a paper bag,  Sprint needs to worry ABOUT making money, not what others spend WHO do make money.

      • Anonymous

        so you mean cell phones can only use one band.. who woulda knew

  • Anonymous

    Sprint would like to expand their 4G, but Dan Hesse is too busy trying to stop the AT&T&T merger.

    • Anonymous

      unless you have a thing for donating to selfish rich people you better hope he succeeds..

      • Anonymous

        I doubt Mr. Hesse is on welfare either.  Or even food stamps.  

  • Drew

    Why would you want this?? WiMax and 2500 MHz has been proven to be worthless at penetrating buildings indoors.

    • David

      Once iden is dead i bet they’ll build right on top of that old 800 mhz spectrum. Oh yea iden is going away really soon. See Oct 7 sprint announcement.

      • Drew

        That would be the smart thing to do…

      • Dejan Jancevski

        The minute iDEN goes away, you can bet that Sprint will grow even smaller than it is today.  iDEN was the only thing making serious money for Sprint.  Once iDEN is gone, sure, Sprint will have the 800/900Mhz spectrum, but they still won’t have a clue how to make a profit from it.  After all, proof is in the past since Sprint apparently only seeks to repeat their own stupidity.  Don’t believe me?  Well, let’s briefly review, shall we?

        1. Sprint invests $Bs in Global One…resulting in….$Bs wasted.
        2. Sprint buys Nextel, sells Nextel’s 2.5Ghz spectrum to Clearwire, and now wants to buy Clearwire to get the spectrum back.
        3. Sprint invests in Q-chat, but launches it without properly testing it only to find out that it didn’t work.
        4. Sprint disses Apple and claims the iPhone is junk, and that they would rather sell the Samsung Instinct…which is now…extinct.
        5. Sprint disses Apple and claims the iPhone is a fad, and that they would rather sell the Palm Pre…which is now…dead.
        6. Sprint claims to have the largest & fastest 4G network when Verizon just began to invest in LTE, and then 6 months later, Verizon has as many 4G customers as Sprint, Verizon’s LTE network has larger coverage AND offers faster speeds than Sprint’s 4G.

        There are so many examples of how Sprint screws things up, but my favorite is this last one…

        7. Sprint charges $99.99/month + taxes for EVERYTHING (allegedly), yet anyone can buy a Boost Mobile phone, pay $60 (including taxes) for the same thing!  And even if one purchases the same phone for both, you are looking at paying $959.76 more over the course of 2 years if you are a post-paid customer.  So, unless the phone costs 959.76 pre-paid (NO PHONE COSTS THAT MUCH THAT SPRINT SELLS), it basically shows that Sprint would rather become a pre-paid company rather than remain a post-paid one, yet Dan Hesse continues to talk about how he can get more post-paid customers to sign with Sprint (which simply isn’t materializing).

        So…if Sprint (or anyone else) thinks that shutting down iDEN is a smart move, I will gladly bet that Sprint either files for bankruptcy or gets bought out within 5 years post-iDEN shutdown.  MARK IT!

      • David

        Iden network is being shutdown and all push to talk is being moved to cdma network. Check BGR for that story. Sprint is calling it sprint direct connect. The old spectrum will be for data services.

      • http://www.facebook.com/DIVCorp Corey Fisher

        Not really, some of your information is correct (in a way), but this is mostly incorrect information and a negative view. The point is, Sprint has been a very innovative company and was the first to invest in a company to roll out 4G and currently is still the only company along with Clearwire to offer true unlimited 4G at very reasonable prices. The 4G service isn’t the fastest, however, but the potential throughput of 2500mhz is amazing. Let’s also not forget that with network vision, their 4G tech will run on 2500mhz, 1900mhz and 800mhz. So if you are close to a tower for example, you will use 2500mhz as it has more throughput and wont matter. Once you start to go farther you will go into 1900mhz and once you drift out in to the middle of nowhere in some 50 year old brick building, it will switch to 800mhz. Sprint will utlize these three spectrums in Network Vision for Direct Connect, 3g and 4g technologies, which is actually one of the most efficient network structures ever designed and will allow their network to achieve an amazing 300% increase in spectrum with their current infrastructure, this is something carriers simply cannot achieve.

        Also, I whole-heartedly disagree with your Iden assessment, obviously your not following the real thing’s that matter here and your a little bit out of the loop. Iden will be decomissioned in 2013 and it’s spectrum will be used by next-generation 3g an 4g Direct Connect technologies and devices, this makes good sense for the future. Customers who are migrated to the next-gen Direct Connect network will most likely have a huge incentive and people who use this type of technology will have extremely fast data transfer as well as the ability to direct connect, not to mention the vast increase in coverage we were talking about earlier. I find your view obviously ill-willed towards Sprint and I don’t think it’s good to leave your comment to read without the correct information in response. This country needs Sprint or we will have an evil duopoly that will control prices and customers… figure it out.

  • http://treworld.com Tre

    All of these companies need to come together and work as a team if they really want to compete. Instead of shelling out BILLIONS of dollars to build a LTE network that will cover 100% of the United States, they really need to come up with an LTE standard and share the network with each other. Keep in mind that the United States of A is over 10 times bigger than the UK or New Zealand or even Japan. So, stop buying out companies to build the network from scratch; build it forward!

    • Dejan Jancevski

      Um…last I checked, we’re not a socialist or communist country.  So why would one company freely share their network with another one?  For the betterment of society? Please!  Be real.  This is a capitalistic society…it’s dog eat dog.  Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile needed to build their own networks PERIOD!  Ultimately, no matter what Sprint does, it will be Verizon v AT&T.  Sprint is operating on borrowed time.  MARK IT!

      • http://www.facebook.com/DIVCorp Corey Fisher

        This guy is out of control… he looks like he works for Verizon. lol

      • ted

        The country needs Sprint! Wtf…NERD

      • Anonymous

        you are ignorant beyond belief lol doesnt even warrant a response.. but i can gurantee you do not work in the telecom industry and dont have anything to do with real business

  • The1aboveall

    Sprint also needs to get its ass in gear and get something going with Apple. They won’t survive another few years if they don’t come to the some type of 4G solution and without iPhone.

  • Anonymous

    All Sprint needs now is LTE phones.

  • Marc

    there are big differences between post paid plans and prepaid. i left sprint for tmo and had a $80 plan and switched to the $50 plan plus bis. i notice several things that i dont get with the prepaid that i got with the post paid. i can live without them but i am simply saying there is a difference.

    in my opinion, although sprint owns a majority of clearwire it is not the sole owner. big difference. if sprint buys the company outright then they get the revenue. clear’s service is good and getting better. i’m not certain lte is superior to wimax but everywhere i travel i can use clear 4g.

  • Anonymous

    4G LTe here we come, Go Sprint!! Wop wop

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