Sprint Network Modernization Means More Freedom

Sprint's new $5 billion network modernization program, which will allow it to consolidate its multiple radio networks into a single fabric, might save the company a huge amount of money: possibly $10 billion to $11 billion over seven years. That would be reason enough to pursue the upgrade.

More important are the potential strategic options, such as allowing Sprint the ability to deploy its own Long Term Evolution network, on its own facilities and using its owned spectrum, instead of relying on Clearwire facilities, even though Sprint owns 54 percent of Clearwire.

Sprint does not have management control over Clearwire and tensions between Sprint and Clearwire have grown over the last year. Sprint will have the ability to create a new LTE network on its own once it decommissions the iDEN network, and might have other options should Clearwire proceed with a planned spectrum auction, and should Sprint emerge as the winner of that spectrum.

At this point, Sprint might prefer to be the master of its own LTE and 4G destiny, rather than the depending on Clearwire’s WiMAX rollout.

Datamonitor | Media Center | Sprint takes control of 4G destiny, expert comment