Sprint teams up with LightSquared to deliver 4G LTE network

By gbrzone, 29 July, 2011, No Comment

Sprint has inked a 15-year deal that will help shape the 4G LTE future of both companies

Sprint has announced a new 4G LTE deal with LightSquared that will span a whopping 15-years.

Rumors of a deal brewing between the two companies has been rumored for quite some time.

Under the terms of the agreement, LightSquared will be pay $9 billion over the next 11 years to leverage Sprint’s nationwide network and accelerate its own 4G LTE network. Sprint will also get $4.5 billion in credits toward LTE and satellite service to piggy back on LightSquared’s network when needed.

Naturally, LightSquared will also be able to roam on Sprint’s 3G network.

All-in-all, the deal will save LightSquared $13 billion on costs that would have gone towards building out their own network.

So who’s the loser in all of this? Well, Sprint’s WiMAX partner Clearwire was basically tossed under the bus, and the whole situation doesn’t bode well for WiMAX in general.

Though it was pretty easy to see that this move was coming. Sprint knew that LTE was the future and WiMAX would only take them so far.

Forbes notes that Clearwire shares plunged 49 cents to an all-time low of $2.28 on the news.

Thanks to the Sprint deal LightSquared expects to have 260 million Americans covered with 4G LTE by 2015 – one year ahead of schedule.