Sprint makes official offer to acquire Clearwire

[marioc21]

Today there's news that Sprint has made an official offer to acquire the remaining 48% of Clearwire stock it doesn't own. Sprint is offering $2.1 billion for the rest of the Company.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sprint-offers-2-1-billion-121233205.html

 

(Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp (NYS:S) is offering $2.1 billion to buy the rest of wireless internet provider Clearwire, to get full ownership of its wireless spectrum.

The bid, at $2.90 a share for the 48.3 percent of Clearwire that Sprint Nextel does not already own, values Clearwire at around $4.2 billion.

[JeffDTD]

Edit:delete

[rjw]

I wonder how this will change Sprint's original deployment strategy for LTE Advanced that they had agreed upon with Clear.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[SpenceSouth]

It probably will change it significantly. They will probably deploy very wide channels of that 2.5ghz spectrum at most NV sites.

 

This may be unlikely, but I hope that Sprint gets to keep all 150mhz of that spectrum.

[MacinJosh]

This is probably the most interesting thing to happen with Network Vision this year. And knowing that there are 2 investors who are already against Sprint, this could be interesting to see how it plays out.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Forum Runner

[bigsnake49]

So it pays $2.1B for the 49% it does not own and it is assuming the debt, I presume, which is about $5B, so basically paying $7.1B in total? Pretty expensive for what it offers.

 

There's something else in the works and it involves Dish. I feel it in my bones, I tell you!

[mhammett]

http://www.telecomramblings.com/2012/12/sprint-offers-2-1b-for-the-rest-of-clearwire/

 

It'll be interesting to see how they handle the Clear towers and backhaul. 2.5 GHz will not penetrate as well as any of the existing Spring bands. They won't be able to just cancel out of all of the existing leases. That said, they should be able to do that with some of the leases.

[bigsnake49]

I wonder how much this is driven by Softbank's desire to build up the TDD-LTE device ecosystem for the 2.6GHz band.

[DaQue]

How much does TDDM add to ping times?

[jroepcke51]

Exciting to see a strong third competitor in the market.

[WiWavelength]

It'll be interesting to see how they handle the Clear towers and backhaul. 2.5 GHz will not penetrate as well as any of the existing Spring bands.

 

BRS/EBS 2600 MHz does not need to have the signal propagation of the PCS 1900 MHz or SMR 800 MHz bands. It will be for offload, not complete overlay.

 

Think of a set of three concentric circles all centered on the same cell site. Mobiles in the innermost circle are most likely to use TD-LTE 2600, mobiles in the intermediate circle most likely to use LTE 1900, and mobiles in the outermost circle most likely to use LTE 800.

 

And since TD-LTE 2600 will not cover cell edges, it will encounter less interference from adjacent cells. That combined with 20 MHz TDD carriers should make TD-LTE 2600 insanely fast.

 

AJ

[mhammett]

Well right, but with such large spectrum allocations (I believe 150 MHz in some markets), Sprint is really poised to deliver very big bandwidth. Might as well attempt to make it ubiquitous over major metro areas, universities, etc. I completely understand there not being a need to do so in their more rural areas (beyond their protection sites).

 

Does anyone know if the antennas deployed in NV are capable of delivering decent RF performance at 2.5 GHz? I know that their base stations are chassis based, so adding another card isn't a big deal.

[WiWavelength]

Well right, but with such large spectrum allocations (I believe 150 MHz in some markets), Sprint is really poised to deliver very big bandwidth. Might as well attempt to make it ubiquitous over major metro areas, universities, etc. I completely understand there not being a need to do so in their more rural areas (beyond their protection sites).

 

The 150 MHz figure oft cited is somewhat misleading. Most of that is leased, some of it non contiguous, and much of it tied up in WiMAX. After WiMAX winds down, Sprint may terminate some of those leases because the spectrum is not well suited to 20 MHz TDD carriers and to cut costs. Sprint will be fine with only 40-60 MHz of BRS/EBS 2600 MHz per market, and that may allow Sprint to focus on its licensed BRS spectrum, rather than leased EBS spectrum.

 

Speaking of WiMAX, it needed to be a ubiquitous 4G solution. But TD-LTE 2600 does not because Sprint will have plenty of LTE 800/1900 underlying TD-LTE 2600 coverage.

 

Does anyone know if the antennas deployed in NV are capable of delivering decent RF performance at 2.5 GHz? I know that their base stations are chassis based, so adding another card isn't a big deal.

 

No, any addition to Network Vision -- such as Clearwire BRS/EBS 2600 MHz or Dish AWS-4 2000+2200 MHz -- will require additional panels. Current panels are dual band SMR 800 MHz/PCS 1900 MHz.

 

AJ

[MacinJosh]

So the next set of NV panels will be LTE2600/LTE800, and maybe even LTE Dish (which is 2000MHz, right?) antennas.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Forum Runner

[WiWavelength]

So the next set of NV panels will be LTE2600/LTE800...

 

No. Current panels going up on most sites are already dual band 800/1900 MHz. Otherwise, CDMA1X 800 would not be possible.

 

AJ

[MacinJosh]

No. Current panels going up on most sites are already dual band 800/1900 MHz. Otherwise, CDMA1X 800 would not be possible.

 

AJ

 

So they could deploy LTE 800 using the existing panels? Wow, what a cost saver.

[jroepcke51]

So they could deploy LTE 800 using the existing panels? Wow, what a cost saver.

Thinking ahead. Sounds like they will just "flip the switch" in July 2013?

[ericdabbs]

I don't know how I feel about this deal if it goes through. On one hand I am happy that Sprint and Clearwire will end this love/hate relationship and will help Sprint bolster their spectrum holdings. However I am not happy that they are deciding right now to do it.

 

I am really afraid the FCC will not allow Sprint to bid on the H block in 2013 and prohibit any potential spectrum sharing deal with Dish to use their 2 GHz freqs just due to being above the spectrum screen. I guess the only thing going for Sprint concerning the H block is that they did pay a pretty good chunk of money to move the BAS to 2025 MHz. I would assume if any other carrier were to obtain the H block that they would have to pay Sprint a lump sum of money to use it.

 

Also with this Clearwire deal Sprint is shooting themselves in the foot for any potential MetroPCS/Tmobile PCS divestitures since that would mean obtaining more spectrum which with the Clearwire deal would put them over the top. I just do not like the timing of this deal. I don't want Sprint to draw attention from the FCC from trying to become big too fast.

 

Maybe Sprint is not happy with Clearwire trying to deploy only 2000 sites by June 2013?

[MacinJosh]

I don't know how I feel about this deal if it goes through. On one hand I am happy that Sprint and Clearwire will end this love/hate relationship and will help Sprint bolster their spectrum holdings. However I am not happy that they are deciding right now to do it.

 

I am really afraid the FCC will not allow Sprint to bid on the H block in 2013 and prohibit any potential spectrum sharing deal with Dish to use their 2 GHz freqs just due to being above the spectrum screen. I guess the only thing going for Sprint concerning the H block is that they did pay a pretty good chunk of money to move the BAS to 2025 MHz. I would assume if any other carrier were to obtain the H block that they would have to pay Sprint a lump sum of money to use it.

 

Also with this Clearwire deal Sprint is shooting themselves in the foot for any potential MetroPCS/Tmobile PCS divestitures since that would mean obtaining more spectrum which with the Clearwire deal would put them over the top. I just do not like the timing of this deal. I don't want Sprint to draw attention from the FCC from trying to become big too fast.

 

Maybe Sprint is not happy with Clearwire trying to deploy only 2000 sites by June 2013?

 

I firmly believe this is related to Clearwire being lazy in their deployment of LTE, like they were with WiMax.

[jroepcke51]

Think of a set of three concentric circles all centered on the same cell site. Mobiles in the innermost circle are most likely to use TD-LTE 2600, mobiles in the intermediate circle most likely to use LTE 1900, and mobiles in the outermost circle most likely to use LTE 800.

 

With that being said, If this all goes through, Sprint would want to put this on ever tower like the current NV project? Or has this always been a part of the plan.

[bigsnake49]

I don't know how I feel about this deal if it goes through. On one hand I am happy that Sprint and Clearwire will end this love/hate relationship and will help Sprint bolster their spectrum holdings. However I am not happy that they are deciding right now to do it.

 

I am really afraid the FCC will not allow Sprint to bid on the H block in 2013 and prohibit any potential spectrum sharing deal with Dish to use their 2 GHz freqs just due to being above the spectrum screen. I guess the only thing going for Sprint concerning the H block is that they did pay a pretty good chunk of money to move the BAS to 2025 MHz. I would assume if any other carrier were to obtain the H block that they would have to pay Sprint a lump sum of money to use it.

 

Also with this Clearwire deal Sprint is shooting themselves in the foot for any potential MetroPCS/Tmobile PCS divestitures since that would mean obtaining more spectrum which with the Clearwire deal would put them over the top. I just do not like the timing of this deal. I don't want Sprint to draw attention from the FCC from trying to become big too fast.

 

Maybe Sprint is not happy with Clearwire trying to deploy only 2000 sites by June 2013?

 

I also don't like the timing of this, but I like the fact that they're cleaning up their messes. First, they get rid of IDEN, then they get rid of Clearwire. Next thing you know, they might get some spectrum from Metro/T-Mobile and then bid for PCS-H.

Edited December 13, 2012 by bigsnake49

[dedub]

With that being said, If this all goes through, Sprint would want to put this on ever tower like the current NV project? Or has this always been a part of the plan.

 

Having 3 layers on each tower was always the plan, from what I remember of the original NV slides, it was depicted just as AJ mentioned in post #11, 3 concentric areas of mhz vs speed vs range.

[WiWavelength]

In the last 12 hours, Clearwire's market capitalization has increased by $600 million on ten times the average volume of CLWR shares traded.

 

AJ

[TheForce627]

Now I regret not buying clear stock when I had the chance

[dedub]

Now I regret not buying clear stock when I had the chance

 

I regret selling off my lots from ~$.95 at around $2, but at least I still have some left based around 2.15 and some jan calls gonna make some nice extra xmas money.

 

I wish sprint would start taking off again, its basically flat lined @5.60 or so the last couple months.