It seems that operator wars are well in progress at the moment with
everyone fighting over Clearwire. Verizon Wireless has now joined the
fray and wants to lease Clearwire’s spectrum to strengthen its network.
Details are scant at the moment but the deal could see Big Red pay more
than $1.5 billion. However Verizon is not the only company interested
in Clearwire and things are getting complicated.
Another major US carrier Sprint presently owns 50% of Clearwire and
is vying to purchase the remaining stake so that its network is the one
that benefits from Clearwire’s spectrum (formerly used for WiMAX), and
of course it would bring the whole operation under one roof so to speak.
However there’s yet more competition in the form of Dish, which
recently failed in a bid for Clearwire and is now complicating matters
even further with a $2.25 billion offer to acquire Sprint, trying to
beat Softbank which is also attempting a deal for Sprint. Dish now has
plans to build a wireless network and has already acquired holdings from
FCC spectrum auctions but it’s a messy business with resources so
limited. We can’t see it getting any easier either as the only way to
gain spectrum is to win at auction, lease or acquire it and as the LTE
networks are expanded things will only get worse.
Dish has stated that its bid for Sprint is not dependent on Sprint
acquiring the other stake in Clearwire and also that its own bid for
Clearwire is still in the offing despite the fact that it was already
turned down. It’s certainly a tangled web at the moment and it will
certainly be interesting to see what pans out over the next few months.
Are you surprised to see Verizon in a bid to lease Clearwire’s spectrum? Which way do you envisage the operator wars going? Let us know with your comments.
Source: Wall Street Journal
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