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Sprint about to unveil $20 billion LTE deal with Lightsquared?

Gavisann said:
I am still concerned that in two to three years they might adopt LTE. Well, it is not the LTE itself, but the fact that it allows tiered data plans.
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Honestly, sprint will not be around 2 to 3 years from now. If they do adopt lte, that simply means the quicker death of them. The current contract states this. 1.) lightsquared will offer lte service over sprint towers. 2.) sprint has the right to lease spectrum to lightsquared. 3.) sprint has the right to lease lte from lightsquared. In the real world, they would be stupid not to accept the deal. It leaves all the options open. If they choose to fully build out with lte, they simply can not afford it. Wimax is the only option for sprint. If they choose to go to lte, they are planning to be bought out. Sprint stock was 5 dollars yesterday, before the deal, it is not about 4 dollars after the deal.
 
Does this mean WiMax will stop expanding? Here in Phoenix AZ we still have basically NO 4G coverage from Sprint. I just bought an Evo3D with a 4G WiMax radio and I'm going to be very disappointed if I never get to use it.
 
i dont know... there will be a huge announcement from DanH coming soon.
i am hoping it will explain the network issues of late.. and give us hope for the near future.
 
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[According to vice president of production development for Sprint, Fared Adib, hinted they'll be looking at possibly rolling out a family plan-like bucket for data services. These plans would be interchangeable between phones, tablets, cameras and other devices. This would allow a family to have multiple devices without the need to carry a data plan on each device, but simply pay for 'X' amount of data similar to voice minutes shared across several phones. Fared Adib said "This isn't going to happen overnight," and the biggest hurdle they'll have is changing their billing system to ensure that data usage can be tracked accurately.]
 
catpowrd said:
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[.... Fared Adib said "This isn't going to happen overnight," and the biggest hurdle they'll have is changing their billing system to ensure that data usage can be tracked accurately.]
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Ever hear of a BTN (Billed Telephone Number), it's been around for a few decades, mostly for business accounts. All phone lines are billed to a BTN, usage is listed for all lines.
 
Gavisann said:
So Sprint took the LTE plunge? It won't be long until we are get tiered data plans like the other carries.

What is with Sprint's fascination with high frequencies? I guess they don't want signal in buildings...
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Haven't you heard from AT&T? There is a wireless spectrum crisis in the US!
 
RiverOfIce said:
Honestly, sprint will not be around 2 to 3 years from now. If they do adopt lte, that simply means the quicker death of them. The current contract states this. 1.) lightsquared will offer lte service over sprint towers. 2.) sprint has the right to lease spectrum to lightsquared. 3.) sprint has the right to lease lte from lightsquared. In the real world, they would be stupid not to accept the deal. It leaves all the options open. If they choose to fully build out with lte, they simply can not afford it. Wimax is the only option for sprint. If they choose to go to lte, they are planning to be bought out. Sprint stock was 5 dollars yesterday, before the deal, it is not about 4 dollars after the deal.
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I don't agree with this. I think they will be around. If you look at there earnings, They pretty much just paid off all the debt. I think with the LTE coming out this fall, they have a pretty good chance of making it. Once the LTE is release and they can compare themselves to Verizon speed, you will see them forward. If they can hold on to the Unlimited plans, it will work out pretty well.
 
the pending samsung announcements of their new LTE devices had me thinking? for the more sprint knowledgeable folks, do you think sprint will be part of this now that they have LTE from the lightsquared deal? or is it too soon?
 
In my opinion (guess), I don't thing the samsung announcements re LTE will pertain to Sprint. However, Dan Hesse said that Sprint will have major 4G announcements coming Fall 2011. So, That, on top of the Sprint-LightSquared deal (and I've even read DishNetwork is in 4G via satellite-terrestrial talks with Sprint), makes me think that there are 4G changes for Sprint on the horizon. that being said, 4G (via WiMax) support will likely be available for quite some time as these changes are implemented.
 
According to what I have read in the contract between sprint and lightsquared, you will never see a lightsquared/sprint device. Lighsquared is renting the tower room from sprint, but sprint does not have the rights to run a device on their network.

The rental agreement, as far as I understand it, between lightsquared and sprint does not include using any device from one network to be used on the other network. According to the current wording, you will not be able to use a lightsquared product on sprint nor a sprint product on lightsquared. They would need to start a new contract to do so. It is rumored that clearwire will start to roll out lte, and sprint has a written contract with them to use devices, so if lte is coming to sprint, it will be through clear.

So to answer your question, probably never.

Sprint has the some contracts with att and tmobile (all carriers, do to tower space is very limited) to use sprint towers. You don't see gsm phones on sprints network, do you?
 
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