Sprint loses $20 billion government contract to rivals
By Brian White 
posted Mar 30th 2007 2:19PM
posted Mar 30th 2007 2:19PM
The US government and Sprint Nextel have hung up their respective gloves and Sprint has claimed a big loss, as the government has apparently kicked Sprint's telecom-providing butt out the door. Sprint, which has provided various telecom services for the feds for 18 years, was displaced by AT&T, Verizon Business and Qwest as part of the largest telecom contract ever cobbled together by the government. The newly-coined "Networx Universal" contract has a period of 10 years and makes provisions for wireless voice, video and data services to 135 federal agency across 191 countries. That's what we call a contract, and a stout one at that. Until then, Sprint may still be in the running for another contract for providing secure, IP and managed network services to the U.S. Government. That contract will be awarded in May, but in the meantime, losing $20B has gotta sting.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the NSA spying thing.
I wonder if this means they'll be freeing up some of the Government-only US GSM 900Mhz spectrum so we consumers can finally get a piece of the global phone market instead of the throwaways we currently receive from Nokia and SE.
Matt, I think "we the people" might have an easier time giving birth to a porcupine that is on fire than to wrest control of anything from the government.
@2
Since sprint only uses iden and cdma, (government uses mostly iden for ptt), I highly doubt any gsm spectrum would be freed up.
So whats the early termination fee on a contract that size?
ya know, after all the problems sprint has had in the last year with the ESPN thing and losing so many customers and now this...i almost feel bad for the company! i mean even through they are competition, its sad to see the competition being kicked while their down. i feel pretty soon they are going to be a horse with a broken leg....ker pow!
who hoo!!! DIE SPRINT DIE!!!