Sprint And Dish To Trial LTE 4G Broadband To Homes

Sprint today announced that it is partnering with Dish Networks to offer LTE 4G-based broadband in Corpus Christi, Texas. Dish will be responsible for installing the satellite dish and in-home networking gear, and Sprint will deliver TDD-LTE via its 2.5GHz spectrum. Sprint expects the trial to be up and running by the middle of 2014. The companies will consider expanding the service to other markets depending on the success of the trial. Clearwire, which Sprint now owns, offered similar in-home broadband service over its WiMax network.

Sprint Raises Clearwire Offer

Sprint today raised its bid for Clearwire from $3.40 per share to $5.00 per share, besting Dish Network's offer of $4.40 per share by 14%. Following the raised offer, Clearwire's board of directors has accepted the new bid and recommends that Clearwire's shareholders vote in favor of Sprint's proposal and not Dish's. In addition to the raised offer, Sprint also agreed to pay Clearwire a $115 million termination fee if the deal falls through under certain circumstances. According to Clearwire, Sprint's offer has the backing from a significant percentage of Clearwire's shareholders, including Comcast, Intel, and Brighthouse Networks, among others. Sprint hopes this final offer will give it the approval it needs among Clearwire's remaining investors. Earlier this week, Sprint filed a lawsuit against Dish seeking to prevent it from acquiring Clearwire after Clearwire's board recommended Dish's proposal be accepted. Dish has yet to respond to this latest move from Sprint.


Source: Clearwire

Dish Reevaluates Attempt To Buy Sprint

Dish Networks today offered an update on its bid to acquire Sprint. According to Dish, Sprint's recent legal actions have caused Dish to reevaluate its plans moving forward. It will drop its proposed acquisition of Sprint and will instead concentrate on acquiring Clearwire. "While Dish continues to see strategic value in a merger with Sprint, the decisions made by Sprint to prematurely terminate our due diligence process and accept extreme deal protections in its revised agreement with SoftBank, among other things, have made it impracticable for Dish to submit a revised offer by the June 18th deadline imposed by Sprint. We will consider our options with respect to Sprint, and focus our efforts and resources on completing the Clearwire tender offer." Sprint filed a lawsuit against Dish on Monday seeking to block its bid to acquire Clearwire, calling the proposal illegal.


Source: Dish

Clearwire Expected To Accept Dish's Offer

Despite Sprint's continued protest against Dish's cash offer to acquire as much of Clearwire as possible at $4.40 per share, Clearwire looks to be nearing a decision to accept it. Sources familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal that the special committee at Clearwire assigned with assessing the current offer from Dish will advise the rest of the company's board to push back a Thursday shareholder vote in order to accept Dish's cash offer for the company. Previous arguments from Sprint that the deal is not in the best interest of the company nor is it legally possible given the governance structure demands from Dish (which call for board member appointments as a term) still remain, adding to the confusion. Sprint claims that its previous agreements with Clearwire, and a restructuring of the company in 2008, conflict strongly with the demands Dish has on its offer.

Dish and Clearwire don't seem to be bothered by the potential structural issues of the deal, and have explained as such to Sprint previously. If Clearwire is to accept Dish's offer whether it be with revised governance terms or not it would have to be for at least 25-percent of the company to make any meaningful difference for Dish's plans to block Sprint's buyout of Clearwire. Sprint needs a majority of the minority shareholders to approve its plan to buyout the rest (49.5-percent) of the company it doesn't already own, something that simply won't happen if Dish controls that majority share.

Sprint Improves Clearwire Bid, Says Its 'Best And Final Offer'

Sprint entered into an agreement to buy the remaining 50 percent of Clearwire that it doesn't already own for $2.97 per share, or around $2.2 billion. This morning Sprint announced that it's decided to up its bid to $3.40 per share, putting Clearwire at a value of $10.7 billion. Sprint says that this is its "best and final offer" for Clearwire and that it's bid is the "best strategic alternative" for Clearwire and its shareholders.

This improved Sprint bid bests the offer that Dish Network made for Clearwire in January 2013, which was set at $3.30 per share. While it remains to be seen which offer Clearwire will ultimately take, things definitely appear to be leaning in Sprint's favor. Not only does Sprint now have the higher bid, it also has the support of Clearwire's Special Committee and its board of directors. What's more, Sprint says that it's been told by Comcast, Intel and Bright House Networks that they all plan to vote their shares of Clearwire in favor of Sprint's merger. Those three companies own a total of approximately 26 percent of Clearwire.

Source: Sprint

Dish Network Rumored To Be Interested In A Deal With T-Mobile

Dish Network Chairman Charles Ergen apparently met with Deutsche Telekom about a deal that would allow the satellite television content provider to buy T-Mobile and bundle its wireless service with Dish Network to give Dish customers a chance to purchase wireless service from the carrier. Ergen was said to have made his approach to the German telco prior to April 10th when the parent of T-Mobile raised its bid for MetroPCS. Now that the surviving company will have less debt after the merger, major MetroPCS shareholders are now supporting the deal which will be voted on by stockholders on April 24th.

With Deutsche Telekom committed to completing the merger with MetroPCS, sources say that the German telecommunications company might consider a deal with Dish Network after the MetroPCS deal closes and after the company sees if a merger with Sprint is possible under the current regulatory environment. If Dish has to wait for the MetroPCS deal with T-Mobile closes to buy the latter operator, it will be looking to purchase a public company with 42.3 million customers. The T-Mobile-MetroPCS deal is structured as a reverse merger in which the smaller MetroPCS will end up as the surviving company which will probably get a name change to T-Mobile.

Ergen has built up a treasure chest of $10 billion, some of which was the result of selling debt. The FCC has already hinted that they would like to see Dish use some of its spectrum used for satellite transmissions to start a new wireless company.The rest is up to Ergen who has been quite methodical about this whole process. Regulators would much rather have Dish acquire T-Mobile than Sprint because this way a major U.S. carrier doesn't disappear. 

Dish is also involved in Sprint's deal to buy the remaining shares of network provider Clearwire that it doesn't own. Japanese telecom Softbank's $20 billion deal to buy 70% of Sprint has given the nation's third largest carrier the money necessary to bid $2.97 a share for the slightly less than 50% of the shares owned by Sprint. Dish is bidding a higher $3.30, but with Clearwire already more than 50% owned by Sprint, Dish has a very tough task ahead of it. The reason for going after Clearwire is once again, networks, pipelines and spectrum. Clearwire has been drawing down chunks of financing from Sprint that is convertible into more Clearwire shares, pretty much ending Ergen's chances of buying Clearwire.



Source: Bloomberg

Google Builds New Experimental Wireless Network

Earlier this month, Google filed paperwork with the FCC to build a secret LTE wireless network on its Mountain View campus in California, which covers a radius of about two miles. The network will consist of 50 base stations, operating in the 2.5GHz frequency band – the same spectrum that Clearwire uses. Up to 200 “user devices” will initially be allowed on this network.

Obviously, this puts a whole new spin on rumors that have been swirling around for a long time concerning a possible Google foray into wireless service. What’s interesting about this latest finding, though, is that it appears Google might be partnering with Clearwire, since it’s using spectrum that almost no other carrier in the world has. It is highly unlikely that Google would be building devices that use this specific and obscure spectrum, unless Google was planning on doing something big with it.

A Google Clearwire partnership might also throw a huge kink into Sprint’s plans to acquire a 100% stake in Clearwire. However, at the same time, Dish did outbid Sprint, and Dish and Google were said to be in talks about a possible partnership. Could this latest FCC filing be a sign of things starting to fall in place for Google’s potential new wireless service?

Source: Pocketables

Dish Network Seeks To Halt FCC Review Of Sprint-Softbank Deal

Dish Networks today filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission asking it to pause its review of Softbank's proposed equity acquisition of Sprint. Dish wants issues concerning its competitive bid for Clearwire to be resolved first. Last year, Softbank, Japan's second-largest wireless network operator, proposed to purchase a 70% stake in Sprint for about $20 billion. Hoping to simplify terms of the deal, Sprint later proposed to acquire the remainder of Clearwire, in which it already holds a majority stake, for $2.97 per share. Dish Networks threw a wrench into Sprint's plans by making its own bid for Clearwire last week, offering $3.30 per share. According to Dish, "With competing offers for Clearwire in place, premature Commission evaluation of Sprint’s initial offer could undermine the Commission’s policy objective of neutrality in takeover contests by giving SoftBank and Sprint a very real advantage in the corporate valuation process." Dish has been looking for a way to enter the wireless network market for years, and is hoping a deal with Clearwire could make that happen.

+Christopher Hamilton

Karma Wants To Make 4G Mobile Hotspots Social

Wireless startup Karma is offering a hotspot that accesses Clearwire's mobile WiMAX network but allows users to open it up to the public.

According to a report from The Verge, the company's model works fairly simply. Users pay $69 to buy a mobile hotspot and then pay $14 per GB of data. The catch is that the hotspot is then opened up to the public, and when a new user joins, that user is taken to a page about the owner of the hotspot. Public users attached to the hotspot then can then sign in with their Facebook account to get 100 MB of free browsing. The key part of the setup is that for every new user who signs in, the owner of the hotspot gets 100 MB of free data credited to their account. Karma calls the scheme "social telecom."

 "Something is fundamentally broken in the market for mobile providers," Robert Gaal, one of the founders of Karma, told The Verge. "We want to give everyone a mobile, 4G hotspot that lives in their pocket. It's open to everyone, and lets you pay as you go. Best of all it works no matter what carrier or what device you're using."

Data sharing has been a hot topic of late, with much commentary this week focused on Verizon Wireless' launch of its Share Everything plans. However, other companies have focused on the issue as well. Ting, a Sprint Nextel MVNO run by Internet domain company Tucows, has offered shared data plans since February. FreeomPop, the forthcoming mobile broadband startup that also uses Clearwire's network, has discussed the idea of its users sharing data as well.

Karma is Clearwire's latest wholesale customer, and another in a long string of small startups.

Clearwire Joins The Rural Carrier Association

Clearwire recently announced that it has become the latest member of the Rural Carrier Association. The RCA, which is composed of carriers with fewer than 80 million subscribers, also counts Sprint and T-Mobile as members. The RCA believes that Clearwire shares concerns with its more-than 100 carrier members. 

Clearwire joined the RCA to help advocate for wireless competition.

HTC EVO V 4G Will Launch May 31 On Virgin Mobile

Previous rumors regarding a launch of the HTC EVO 3D on prepaid Sprint MVNO Virgin Mobile have now been confirmed. The device will be rebranded the HTC EVO V 4G and take advantage of Virgin Mobile's new 4G Beyond Talk plans.

The prepaid carrier will make use of Sprint and Clearwire's WiMAX network to offer unlimited 4G data, along with unlimited text and 300 voice minutes, all for $35/month. The device will sell for $299.99 with no commitment.

Interestingly enough, Sprint implies in its press release that the EVO V 4G will launch with Ice Cream Sandwich and Sense 3.6. Hopefully, this means that Sprint-branded EVO 3D handsets will also receive the update before May 31.

Best Buy Connect To Disconnect On June 1st

It is just short of two years since Best Buy launched its mobile broadband service, Best Buy Connect. Apparently, Best Buy has decided to abruptly pull the plug on the service completely.

New activations will cease effective immediately and the service will be shut down completely on June 1st.  Obviously, all early terminations fees will be waived. WiMAX 4G customers will have the option to transition their service to CLEAR.

Existing customers whose accounts are in good standing will receive a $125 or $150 gift card, depending on their service, by email on April 27th to help offset the cost of finding a new provider. Those with overdue accounts that address the balance will receive their gift cards on June 20th.

Best Buy simply states that it feels it “can achieve greater growth by delivering mobile broadband support in ways other than an exclusive Best Buy-branded service.”

Clearwire Launching TD-LTE In Early 2013

Clearwire is preparing to upgrade its 2.5GHz WiMAX network to support a variant of LTE, TD-LTE, that it's co-developing with China Mobile and the broadband wholesaler has just announced that it'll kick off that upgrade in 31 "hot zones" where wireless service is most crunched. Most of those markets have yet to be announced, but it has teased five today: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle, all of which are expected to start going live in early 2013; "remaining markets" will come online by the middle of the year.

Sprint, which owns a significant chunk of Clearwire, is underwriting a portion of the company's LTE upgrade costs and is expected to take advantage of the service once it's available. In the meantime, it's using both 1900MHz and freed 800MHz iDEN spectrum for its initial LTE deployment (which is using the more common FDD flavor shared by Verizon, AT&T, and others).

The news comes as Clearwire has announced its Q1 2012 earnings which tell a mixed tale it wasn't long ago that the company nearly missed making interest payments on its debt, and it's got a long way to go to become a profitable organization. Revenue is up 36 percent year over year to $322.6 million from 11 million subscribers, up from 6.1 million a year prior; that's good, but revenue is actually down about $39 million from Q4 2011. Overall, it chalked up an operating loss of some $422.9 million, slightly better than last quarter's $433.1 million. Importantly, cash on hand is on an upward trend: it's now at $1.433 billion between cash, cash equivalents, and investments, likely thanks in no small part to a capital infusion from Sprint.

Should Sprint Buy Clearwire

 

We’re wondering if it would be in the Now Network’s best interest is to flat out buy the wireless internet wholesaler Clearwire? With Clearwire's plans for TD-LTE, Clearwire could possibly be the boost that Sprint needs to get the Now Network upgrades up and running "now". 


Feel free to share your thoughts about Sprint and their relationship with Clearwire via the comments below. 

Cricket Signs Five-Year Clearwire LTE Deal

 

Clearwire is currently in the process of migrating from WiMAX to LTE, but there was a slight bump in the road when Google announced at the end of February it was selling its existing stock in the company, well below the market value. The 6.5% stake was sold for $47 million at $1.60 a share, below the $2.27 asking price at the time. Clearwire has today announced a new partnership with Cricket, which will see the budget wireless provider making use of Clearwire’s LTE network when it’s eventually built.

Cricket began rolling out LTE in December 2011, starting off in Tucson, Arizona. So far the company only supports USB modems, but with the latest move from Clearwire, could see some LTE smartphones on its network. Cricket are set to utilize Clearwire’s LTE network as part of a five-year deal. They’re the second company to make use of Clearwire’s LTE network so far.

Of course, Clearwire’s LTE network isn’t even live yet: the hope is to have 5,000 cell sites live by June 2013, then build towards 8,000 sites. Cricket are hoping to expand LTE coverage to around 60% of its exisiting network coverage, which should be helped significantly by Clearwire’s LTE network when it does eventually go live.

Eric Prusch, President and CEO of Clearwire said:

This long-term partnership with Cricket is a key step forward in the development of Clearwire’s wholesale LTE business model. We are very pleased to provide Cricket with additional mobile broadband resources to supplement their own LTE build and we plan to continue to actively seek new opportunities to serve the needs of other 4G providers.

Neither company has outlined the financial terms of the deal, however.

Google Takes a $453 Million Loss, Sells Its Ownership Stakes In Clearwire

Things just don't look too good for Clearwire. Even though the HTC EVO 4G was America's first 4G phone, and made use of Clearwire's 4G network, WiMAX never really seemed to catch on. To make matters worse, as Clear's finances became murkier, the 4G rollout came to a screeching halt and left lots of EVO users behind on Sprint's sometimes-awesome-sometimes-terrible 3G network.

And now, the latest news is that Google is selling its ownership stake in the company and will take around a $453 million loss. (Google originally invested about $500 million in the company, and is selling its shares for $47 million.) And Google's lack of confidence in the company is obviously affecting others' confidence in the company, as it closed down almost 7% Friday afternoon.

Reports Claim Sprint’s LTE Will Run On 1900MHz Only

                    

Sprint has been aggressively pushing its “Network Vision” strategy, with a big center piece of it being its proposed 15-year partnership with LightSquared. Now, a spokesperson for the third largest carrier in the United States revealed to PhoneScoop in an interview that all its LTE devices will run on 1900MHz spectrum. The Now Network has been on a roller coaster as of late, the company recently extended the deadline of its LightSquared deal to then put it on hold, awaiting a final decision from DC.

For the time being, Sprint’s 1900MHz spectrum will handle both the carrier’s current CDMA voice/data network and future LTE data network. The spokesperson also made it clear that Clearwire will not, however, expand its WiMax network beyond what it already covers and will eventually transition to LTE.

This would suggest that if the FCC rejects Sprint’s agreement with LightSquared, the company’s ambitious goal of rolling out its forthcoming Long Term Evolution 4G will be doomed or at least temporarily brought to a screeching halt. As evident with the spokesperson’s comments, the Now Network needs this deal to pass. We can’t see why the government wouldn’t pass a deal that’ll not only help save these companies a bunch of money, but extend 4G services to millions of customers.

Sprint Announces First Four LTE Markets

Sprint's making the jump from Wimax to LTE in 2012 (Wimax will continue to work for some time), and CEO Dan Hesse just annouced the first markets for the new brand of 4G. They are:

• Atlanta
• Dallas
• Houston
• San Antonio

Clearwire scores $715.5 million

                

Clearwire’s a bit of a funny compny. Sprint has a majority stake in them, yet they treat Clearwire like they’re some sort of distant relative that’s not really a relative at all. Thing is Sprint can’t actually function with Clearwire because Clearwire is responsible for delivering Sprint’s WiMAX network, the one that Sprint called 4G before Americans even heard the term 4G. Now the sad thing about WiMAX is that it doesn’t really deliver the kind of speeds that you’d actually call 4G. T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network runs faster. Verizon’s LTE network is faster. Even AT&T’s insanely congested 3G network is faster. Clearwire clearly knows this,and they’ve said that they’re going to transition to LTE. Said transition doesn’t come cheap however, so the company recently tried to secure some funding by offering some shares. The market took the bait and Clearwire is now $715.5 million richer. It should be noted that Sprint is responsible for $331.4 million of that. Erik Prusch, the CEO of Clearwire, had this to say about the new round of funding:

“This equity raise is a critical step for Clearwire to achieve its long-term business plan of creating the first wide-channel TDD-LTE 4G network in the U.S. The added resources will enable us to continue delivering 4G mobile broadband service to meet the rapidly growing demand in the industry. We remain ideally and uniquely positioned to serve both wholesale and retail customers well into the future.”

So when will this network be up and running and just how fast will it be? Sprint’s saying that everything should be good to go by the second half of 2012. And as for the speed, back in January Clearwire uploaded a video showing a test LTE network they setup delivering 90 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up. Here’s hoping they can actually deliver on that, because the 5 Mbps to barely 10 Mbps on a good day they’re delivering now just doesn’t cut it.

Sprint gives Clearwire $1.6 billion golden parachute

LTE may be Sprint's future network of choice, but WiMAX will be with us for a while longer. Clearwire provides the Now Network's waves of WiMAX, but it's had recent financial troubles that it claimed could prevent it from making a required $237 million interest payment due today. However, Sprint has come to Clearwire's rescue by agreeing to pay $926 million to keep the WiMAX network running through 2015. It also pledged to kick in $350 million to help fund the firm's shift to LTE, plus another $347 million in equity funding if Clearwire can raise more than $400 million on its own.