Sprint, TowerCo seal deal on $670M tower sale
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 25th 2008 at 9:07AM
That sale of virtually all of Sprint's tower infrastructure announced back in July has now been finalized, giving buyer TowerCo a whole boatload of CDMA, iDEN, and WiMAX footprint it didn't have just a few hours ago. Sprint looks at the $670 million sale as a way to buy itself some "additional liquidity" and "focus more closely on our core business of providing communications services to our customers" (but let's be honest, it's really just about the additional liquidity); TowerCo, meanwhile, sounds like it's anticipating that it'll be able to lease out space on the towers to other carriers as they expand down the road. For its part, Sprint wasted no time signing up for a long-term lease on the very towers it just sold, but here's our doozy of a question: dare we say they're now a TowerCo MVNO?[Thanks, moochy989]
Filed under: Sprint
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
carcomptoy @ Sep 25th 2008 9:18AM
For all intents and purposes, they are pretty much an MVNO now, huh? That's crazy! While I'm sure they'll appreciate the money, it seems very emasculating (I can't think of a better term) to own not even the majority your own cell towers, in my opinion. What would happen if TowerCo were to just forego the lease? Not that that's likely to happen, but it's funny to think anyway...
Maciek @ Sep 25th 2008 6:30PM
Exactly my though. An interesting path...from MNO to MVNO to DMVNO (that D stands for dead). At last someone agreed to pick up the hammer and punch that nail into Sprint's coffin. Long live GSM.... I bid farewell to CDMA madness.
mpatel @ Sep 25th 2008 9:54AM
mpatel @ Sep 25th 2008 11:17AM
dare we say they're now a TowerCo MVNO?
Not really. There are selling the real estate only. It's still their network and their technology.
Sprint is doomed any which way you look at it. They need T-Mobiles customer service and Xohm in full force yesterday to survive.
nick @ Sep 25th 2008 10:17AM
Add in this, it looks like a tough business situation for Sprint at the moment. Which is a shame because I have 50 phones on their network right now, but honestly they're the ONLY carrier that services my company in the proper areas.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN2447205520080924?rpc=44&pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
PoisonEye @ Sep 25th 2008 11:29AM
This is highly inaccurate. TowerCo is not a carrier, they just own real estate and the tower itself. These towers usually have multiple carriers on them. So if Verizon owned a tower and ATT had their antennas on it also, would that mean VZ was an ATT MVNO? No. Sprint still owns all the equipment on site: antennas, radios, equipment shelters, etc. They get cash up front, and TowerCo gets to charge them and the other carriers a monthly fee. No one's turning sites off, etc. It's a play by Sprint to get some cash in hand at the expense of selling off some real estate assets, nothing more. I've heard some people say they will leave Sprint over this...really? OK I understand if you have other issues, but over a real estate transaction that has no effect on you?
Whatever else they do in the future, this particular transaction is really no big deal.
Yankees368 @ Sep 25th 2008 12:44PM
You are 100% correct PoisonEye. This sale is merely for the towers and and land they are sitting on, NOT in any way the cellular equipment. These towers will be like every single other tower now, which are usually owned by Crown Castle and such. Terrible article, it should be taken down ASAP>
Chris Ziegler @ Sep 25th 2008 11:31AM
Guys, just to be clear, I was calling Sprint an MVNO here with tongue firmly planted in cheek!
haX0r @ Sep 25th 2008 1:39PM
Dear Verizon,
This is the the CEO of Sprint, Dan Hesse. We would like to know what day do you plan on acquiring our customer base? Also, please take the failed Nextel division and we'll through in a ton of unsold Samsung instinct handsets that we though were the iPhone killer but turned out to be wrong.
Also, we are the only carrier still losing subscribers. In this purchase, you could acquire all of our subscribers and then buy the towers from TowerCo at a fairly good price or continue on with our lease until you can expand your own network.
Please send me an formal "Letter of Intent" so I can get my executive compensation package ready executive compensation package ready (cough), I mean the transition the customers to your network more easily for the launch of the several great new phones you have coming out in the 4th quarter.
Sincerely yours,
Mr. Dan Hesse
CEO of the lamest network in the United States of America
cocoviper @ Sep 25th 2008 4:02PM
The tower sale was only ~5% of Sprint's cell site portfolio. So basically 100% of Sprint's sites are now set up like 95% of them have been for the last few years.
It's not like it's a HUGE change...
Montusama @ Sep 25th 2008 4:20PM
With the way the economy is in right now, selling off land (and tower) removes sprint's responsibility to obey all local ordinances regarding land/cell phone towers and the cost of maintenance, while ensuring service.
Also with the way Sprint is losing things left and right......they need to find some way to start gaining something in return.