US Gov concerned about foreign-controlled Sprint, centers around SprintLink

[Conan Kudo]

FYI... http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/101830/000119312513238555/d545797d8k.htm

I'm guessing the Security Director will also be the manager of those critical assets. At least an outright divestment wasn't required. That could have been problematic.

[xenadu]

I'd rather SprintLink get spun off and remain a company in its own right. SprintLink has loops in areas that no one else does, and it is a viable option for affordable Tier 1 access.

Please, NO! Sprint needs to invest in that business and keep it strong. Having a seat at the Tier-1 table is invaluable and critical to the health of the wireless business. It allows them to peer (they don't pay for their traffic, once it is on their network they can transmit it to any of their peers at zero cost).

 

Remember, they spun off the POTS business, giving up their ILEC footprint, thus negating any negotiating leverage they had with Verizon and AT&T, both of whom scratch each other's backs with backhaul in their respective territories. That will prove to be a huge mistake in the future. Besides the fact that in those areas backhaul for wireless would be effectively free, something that helps VZW and AT&T tremendously.

 

Of course my dream is someone (Sprint, Google, whoever) starts rolling out gigabit fiber nationwide by overbuilding the ILECs. It sure would cut the legs out from under those a**holes, especially if you started vastly undercutting their business POTS and backhaul services. You can stick to the cities >100,000 population and hit 80% of the US population at reasonable cost (the last 20% is the rural areas that have vastly higher deployment costs).

 

If I were Sprint, as soon as I was financially healthy I would be working on a way to be mostly self-sufficient in backhaul because that's certainly part of the long game by biggest competitors are playing.