Last week we reported on the monumental announcement that LightSquared is going to let Sprint build their 4G LTE network to the tune of $9 billon, along with $4.5 billion in “credits” that Sprint can use to pay LightSquared for access to said network, with the additional clause that Sprint can not use more than 50% of LightSquared’s capacity at any given time. One question that immediately came to mind was what was going to happen to the $7 billion deal that LightSquared signed with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) back in June 2010. We got in touch with NSN and had a brief, but revealing conversation:
IntoMobile tweet: @nokiasiemensnet can we get a comment about the Sprint/LightSquared deal, weren’t you supposed to build the network?
Email from Carol DeMatteo, External Communications, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, North America: Stefan – in response to a tweeted question regarding the LightSquared-Sprint news of yesterday, I wanted to provide some additional info:
LightSquared’s previously announced agreement with Nokia Siemens Networks covered a broad range of services now provided from Sprint Nextel. LightSquared does have an agreement with Nokia Siemens Networks for its independent Core network, which includes design, installation, testing and systems integration. In doing so, we will also play a central role in LightSquared’s rollout of 4G-LTE services.
This is an extension of the two companies’ partnership as Nokia Siemens Networks has been actively involved in helping LightSquared build its first markets and enabling base station development activity.
IntoMobile followup question: The original deal that was struck was valued at $7 billion. Under these new conditions, what is the new value?
Carol DeMatteo: The value is not being disclosed at this time.
We can’t help but think how this is going to impact NSN, who hasn’t exactly been doing too well thanks to Ericsson, the world’s largest infrastructure vendor, and Huawei, who is right behind Ericsson, but has the additional benefit of offering incredibly cheap equipment and services. Watch this space.