[07-29-11] Sprint Nextel<\/b> has confirmed that it is moving forward with its long-awaited partnership with 4G-LTE network operator LightSquared<\/b> and has signed a 15-year spectrum hosting deal to provide LTE to its customers, Sprint confirmed July 28 during its 2011 financial second-quarter report.<\/p>\n
The agreement allows LightSquared to complete its 4G-LTE deployment more than a year ahead of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission<\/b>\u2019s (FCC) mandate to cover 260 million Americans by 2015 and to generate more than $13 billion of network capital and operating expense savings in the next eight years.
\n The deal also includes a 3G nationwide roaming agreement with Sprint, which would allow LightSquared wholesalers to offer combined 4G\/3G data services after the LTE network is deployed in major U.S. markets between the second half of 2012 and early 2013. LightSquared will issue $4.5 billion in 4G-LTE and satellite purchase credits to Sprint with the option for future LTE credits.
\n During a Sprint financial conference call, Sprint Network Operations President Steve Elfman said the agreement is subject to LightSquared obtaining resolution and FCC approval involving terrestrial use of the L-band spectrum, as the company battles with the FCC regarding GPS potential interference issues caused by its satellite-based network.
\n LightSquared said that establishing the right to roam onto Sprint\u2019s nationwide 3G network gives the company immediate access to virtually ubiquitous coverage. Consulting firm PRTM Partner and Analyst Dan Hays called the agreement a \u201ccoup\u201d for LightSquared and Sprint, which presents significant benefits for both companies. \u201cFor Sprint, this will defray a significant portion of its planned capital investment and deliver increased cash flow while providing an opportunity to tap into LightSquared\u2019s competitive 4G technology. For LightSquared, this deal will dramatically reduce the cost and time required to deploy its nationwide, mobile broadband network to hundreds of millions of Americans,\u201d Hays said in a statement to Satellite TODAY Insider.
\n The deal also brings benefits to MSS operator Inmarsat<\/b>, which signed an agreement in June to help alleviate its GPS interference problems by accelerating its schedule for LightSquared to begin using its L-band block frequencies. Inmarsat\u2019s stocks rose more than 3 percent immediately following the Sprint announcement.
\nInmarsat signed its initial agreement with LightSquared in August 2010, which provided the MSS operator with $121.2 million in additional revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[07-29-11] Sprint Nextel has confirmed that it is moving forward with its long-awaited partnership with 4G-LTE network operator LightSquared and has signed a 15-year spectrum hosting deal to provide LTE to its customers, Sprint confirmed July 28 during its 2011 financial second-quarter report. The agreement allows LightSquared to complete its 4G-LTE deployment more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}