bigsnake49

If I may add a third, why don't they lease their 800MHz spectrum in rural areas to these carriers? In return they get native roaming.

Specifically, Hesse said that Sprint is working on a solution that will allow LTE roaming across 850 MHz, 1900 MHz and 700 MHz spectrum. Sprint and C Spire have already completed intercarrier roaming tests. "We are working closely on a technical solution for intercarrier 4G roaming between our network and others," Hesse said. I think we need to actually look at the video of the address to erase any doubts, but fiercewireless seems to think that the roaming wil be over those three frequencies. and from rcrwireless.com: Hesse said the carrier has begun to work on providing specifications that would allow for roaming between the carrier’s current LTE service running in the 1.9 GHz band and those of carriers that are looking to rollout LTE services in the 700 MHz, 850 MHz and 1.9 GHz bands. A Sprint Nextel spokesman added that the 700 MHz support would include the lower A-, B- and C-Bands, also known as Band Class 12. The move would seem to be good news to a number of rural carriers that have been unable to garner device or equipment support for their lower 700 MHz spectrum as well as allow Sprint Nextel to tap into potential coverage provided by rural carriers that can begin rolling out LTE services in those bands. ........................................... Sprint Nextel noted that the plan was still in its infancy, but that it planned to begin working shortly with equipment providers and chip makers like Qualcomm on specifications that would allow roaming between its Band Class 25 and Band Class 12 networks in the lower 700 MHz band. http://www.rcrwirele...le-lte-roaming/ What? These people have never heard of multitasking?

Bondholders are apparently not too happy: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-18/sprint-lenders-clash-with-owners-on-dish-bid-corporate-finance.html

Of course after the dust settles.

Oh, of course!

And why not? They inherit 5.5M customers, mostly postpaid. They reduce their roaming bill.

I have no problem with Verizon or Dish or AT&T buying a slice of that spectrum. Unless Sprint/Clearwire become OTT video providers and/or fixed broadband ISPs, they will have no use for that spectrum for strictly mobile needs. I would not mind at all if there was a three way split of the spectrum. VZ and Dish split the EBS spectrum and Sprint/Clearwire get the BRS spectrum. Dish also gets the Clearwire infrastructure. Sprint/Clearwire gets some money out of it to wipe out some of Clearwire's debt and the spectrum gets utilized. Then Sprint turns around and merges with T-Mobile/MetroPCS. Sprint is happy, VZ is happy, Dish is somewhat happy, the feds are happy that we have 4 carriers again, and most importantly, I am happy because we have 3 strong competitors.

It has nothing to do with WiMax. It has something to do with Clearwire's frequency planning and not wanting to take the time to tune the network. Actually Wimax can have fractional frequency reuse.

The reason why they did it is that they did not want to tune the network. With the amount of spectrum they had you can waste the spectrum without worrying about interference between adjacent sectors or sites. Now I had heard that they only did it for adjacent sectors, but had never heard that they did it for adjacent sites.

Yes but, that can be easily remedied.

Yes, it does. Does nobody have any insight on the particulars?

I am still interested in the plans that Sprint/Softbank have for the Clearwire spectrum. 160Mhz is a hell of a lot of spectrum, no matter how you look at it.

Which is still a nice chunk of change. Do we know the average spectrum depth per market for the offer? 40Mhz, 60MHz?

Leased spectrum, which is usually EBS.

They know better not to even ask for BRS, since Sprint has a right of first refusal.

Yes, but Verizon thought enough about it to extend a $1.5B offer for EBS leased spectrum.

I think that in the end both Dish and Softbank can walk away winners. Softbank gets Sprint and BRS spectrum and Dish gets Clearwire and EBS spectrum. Win/win all around. Sprint might also get some money out of selling its shares in Clearwire.

I am with you. I have said it before and I will say it now. Unless Sprint plans to make money from OTT video (i.e. an extra $10-20/month for OTT video), they should just take the BRS spectrum out of Cleariwire and then try to get some money out of Clearwire by selling the network + spectrum to Dish or spectrum to Verizon.

Yeah, look how successful Google is running Motorola Mobility.

The combined company will be mired in debt. No, hell no!

This is all a delay tactic. They want a pause in the proceedings so they can come up with something else. If Sprint board is smart, it will do something like T-Mobile's board that required both money and spectrum if the merger did not go through.

Why do they need equipment? If they sign an agreement with either Clearwire or T-Mobile to host the spectrum, then it is the responsibility of the host. From the always interesting Tim Farrar blog: UPDATE 2 (4/12): Clearwire has filed a proxy statement this evening, noting that it was approached by Party J, a strategic (i.e. non-financial) buyer, earlier this week with an offer to buy 5B MHzPOPs “in large markets” for $1.0B-$1.5B minus the NPV of the associated lease payments. Given the NPV of Clearwire’s lease payments is $1.8B of which I’d guess at least two-thirds is in large markets, and 5B MHz POPs would be around half of the leased spectrum in these markets (assuming this is the top 100M POPs in the US), that would mean a deduction of $600M or more, leaving a net price of ~$400M-$900M. Walt Piecyk at BTIG thinks that Party J might be Ergen once again and I tend to agree (perhaps this approach is through Echostar?). It would fit with the move on LightSquared last week as another effort to establish a potential backup to T-Mobile, by persuading Clearwire stakeholders to hold out for more money and reject the Sprint bid. Clearwire seems to be hinting that it will file for bankruptcy on June 1 if the Sprint bid is rejected and that would also provide Ergen with far more options in the event that he can’t pull off a deal with T-Mobile, because of his substantial holdings of Clearwire debt. However, given the difficult relationship between Sprint and DISH and the numerous challenges associated with LightSquared, both look far less attractive options than a deal with DT for DISH to invest in T-Mobile. http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2013/04/12/fcc-budget-shreds-lightsquareds-spectrum-swap-proposal/#comments

Sprint will let them have Clearwire if they come to an agreement with T-Mobile.

From what I understand it will be a 3 year project after the conclusion of the merger. What they have been struggling with is what to do with the 800MHz SMR spectrum. One of the options is to move voice to VOLTE and have the 800MHz SMR be the primary voice frequency. Of course when there is light voice traffic, then the bandwidth will be used for pure data. The FCC will not have a problem with he combination, given certain spectrum divestitures. The resistance will come from the DOJ and FTC. I am thinking that divesting Clearwire entirely will satisfy the DOJ and FTC . There might be other conditions such as deployment of 800MHz SMR in rural areas.

Probably $1.5B (just pulling a number out of my ...)