Sprint to take control of Clearwire

[Boosted20V]

http://online.wsj.co...1759878238.html

 

No real details, I'm assuming Sprint will pick up a majority share in CLWR again in the near future, but not a full buyout.

 

UPDATE - Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), the company that has agreed to sell 70 percent of itself to Softbank Corp. (9984), acquired Eagle River Holdings LLC’s stake in Clearwire Corp. (CLWR), a move that gives it control over the wireless company’s board, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The transaction could be announced in a regulatory filing as soon as tomorrow, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deal is private. Eagle River held a 4.5 percent stake in Clearwire, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Sprint, which already held 48 percent of Clearwire, sought the majority stake to give it added sway over the fate of the company’s wireless-networking capabilities, including lucrative airwaves needed to deliver mobile calling and data.

[WiWavelength]

Hooray for Sprint-uh-Bank-Crearwire!

 

AJ

[lynyrd65]

I hate that WSJ makes you pay to view their articles....... and it still has ads

[Boosted20V]

Looks like they're picking up shares from Intel and Comcast.

[JeffDTD]

Thankfully. Having to hear Clear executives act and speak as though the company didnt answer to sprint always irritated me.

[Boosted20V]

Thankfully. Having to hear Clear executives act and speak as though the company didnt answer to sprint always irritated me.

 

The corporate structure of Clearwire is one of the strangest things I've seen. I can't blame CLWR executives seeing as how Sprint dangled them out there, not really sure what they wanted to do with the company.

[WiWavelength]

AT&T has qualms about Sprint-uh-Bank taking control of Clearwire, may object to the FCC about spectrum aggregation.

 

http://www.phonescoo...cle.php?a=11341

 

Shocking...

 

 

AJ

[Boosted20V]

AT&T has qualms about Sprint-uh-Bank taking control of Clearwire, may object to the FCC about spectrum aggregation.

 

http://www.phonescoo...cle.php?a=11341

 

Shocking...

 

 

AJ

 

I do wonder what the FCC will have to say about this. I guess it would become more interesting if they try to pick up another carrier like Metro, T-Mo, etc.

[bigsnake49]

The corporate structure of Clearwire is one of the strangest things I've seen. I can't blame CLWR executives seeing as how Sprint dangled them out there, not really sure what they wanted to do with the company.

 

I think that corporate structure was imposed by the cable cos. Sprint did not put any money into the venture so they could not say much. It's a much different dynamic right now.

[lynyrd65]

Lol, AT&T not comfortable. I guess they're still butthurt over the T-Mobile acquisition.

[david279]

This was a long time coming.

[Tomas]

 

 

Welcome to Spankwire...

[jefbal99]

Hopefully Sprint takes control of their LTE roll out and and puts it on every Sprint tower in a Metropolitan area

[Thomas L.]

 

LMAO, that would be one butt-ugly logo.

[Tomas]

LMAO, that would be one butt-ugly logo.

 

I'm just happy I didn't have to come up with the "U.S.T-MetroSpricketwire" logo yet...

[Boosted20V]

I'm just happy I didn't have to come up with the "U.S.T-MetroSpricketwire" logo yet...

 

Yet...

[WiWavelength]

I do wonder what the FCC will have to say about this.

 

This FCC administration seems to be willing to look at spectrum aggregation not as an absolute but as a sum of parts of unequal value. In other words, VZW and AT&T may not be allowed to gobble up nearly all below 1 GHz spectrum, then claim inequity because Sprint-uh-Bank-Crearwire has ~150 MHz of 2.6 GHz spectrum.

 

If I were the Spectrum Czar that the FCC should have, I would value spectrum according to this formula:

 

[1000 × bandwidth (GHz)] ÷ [center frequency (GHz)]²

 

The higher the value, the greater the spectrum applies to the cap...

 

AJ

[WiWavelength]

Welcome to Spankwire...

 

Call it Spank or Spankwire. Just do not call it SpankBank. That means something totally different.

 

 

AJ

[DaQue]

Guess Clearspank is out too.

[supert0nes]

This is just the beginning of the opposition to Sprint's spectrum position. I think they wont be allowed to easily acquire any other companies and acquiring H will be harder because ATT is butthurt about it's own spectrum position. I bet that Verizon doesn't say much though. The analysts that used to hate Sprint will start bashing their new powerful position like Entner at the end of this article.

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/entner-softbanks-purchase-sprint-could-make-it-bandwidth-powerhouse/2012-10-16

 

The New Sprint, and its probable acquisition target Clearwire, should be a significant consideration as the FCC overhauls its approach to the spectrum screen. The current practice of counting only half of Clearwire's spectrum in the screen is peculiar at best. The New Sprint clearly has the means now to acquire the half of Clearwire it doesn't own and capitalize on the spectrum asset. The FCC's current practice to hold down AT&T and Verizon's spectrum ambitions is clearly going to be overtaken by real-world events.

[ericdabbs]

This is just the beginning of the opposition to Sprint's spectrum position. I think they wont be allowed to easily acquire any other companies and acquiring H will be harder because ATT is butthurt about it's own spectrum position. I bet that Verizon doesn't say much though. The analysts that used to hate Sprint will start bashing their new powerful position like Entner at the end of this article.

 

http://www.fiercewir...ouse/2012-10-16

 

AT&T has no right to be butthurt about its spectrum position since they'll be able to deploy LTE on 700 MHz, Cellular, AWS, PCS and WCS spectrum. What more do they want? The problem with AT&T is that they still have to support an old 2G GSM/EDGE network that I am sure they would love to convert that into LTE but can't until they have some sort of sunset period.

 

If I were the FCC, I would ignore AT&T's complaints since they seem to still be very butt hurt about losing the Tmobile transaction. The FCC has been more than generous with them bending rules to give AT&T the ability to launch LTE in WCS spectrum.

[supert0nes]

I agree with you, except I don't see them deploying LTE on Cellular or AWS in any significant capacity in the short term. AWS just doesn't make sense as they gave it all to T-Mobile. I see it more as a bargaining chip for more spectrum in other areas. Cellular, I see them using as their primary voice platform. It must be able to serve the areas that 2g voice serves today. We have noted that VoLTE might not be able to do that.

 

Those are minor details. however. You are right. AT&T holds a lot of prime spectrum and is having a tough time migrating to 3g/4g technologies. The FCC should not adjust their spectrum positions just because some technologies are harder to migrate from than others.

[rayluis1988]

 

 

Welcome to Spankwire...

i like it

[silverhawknike]

 

 

Welcome to Spankwire...

 

haha well Spankwire isnt good idea.... if you know what I mean.

[Rawvega]

http://www.bloomberg...html?cmpid=yhoo

 

Part of this stuck out to me:

 

Sprint had also approached Comcast Corp. and Intel Corp. recently to discuss acquiring those companies’ stakes in Clearwire, according to the people who have knowledge of the Eagle River deal. It made little headway, they said.

 

DirecTV was 100% right IMO. Once Comcast and the other cable companies jumped into bed with VZW, they all should have been forced to sell their respective stakes in Clearwire right then and there. Fortunately Time Warner sold a few weeks earlier and missed out on the recent run-up (lol at them). Bottom line though, Comcast can't have their cake and eat it too.

 

Edit: Bright House Networks should sell too, for that matter.