Well, we have to say we saw this coming a mile away. For weeks, 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. Like I said before, I 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.
[via PhoneScoop]