Sprint Nextel sells off "nearly all" of its towers to TowerCo for $670 million
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 24th 2008 11:43PM
posted Jul 24th 2008 11:43PM
[Via InformationWeek]
posted Jul 24th 2008 11:43PM
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I am not a fan of Sprint, but the "Whatever you say, sir" comment was silly. It sounds like smart business to me. Why own all those towers when you can lease them instead? I think this is what most of their competitors already do.
This article doesn't surprise me considering Engadget's constant Iphone/GSM hardons. I guess Engadget must be desperate for hits. If the author would have done any sort of research he would've found out that 3300 cellsites are not "nearly all" of Sprint Nextel's cell sites. At last count they operate over 24000 cell sites. Oh yeah, I won't be the first and I won't be the last to say: if you look up "bias" in the dictionary you'll find Engadget's logo right next to it.
lol you guys are completely right and im foolish because i get almost all of my info from engadget mobile and even only looking at engadget stuff i can see they are always hating on sprint for no reason.
THANK YOU!!!!
The Nextel deal gave Sprint near 20,000 TOWERS alone - and, I should throw in that Sprint has been diligently adding CDMA to those towers, and getting prepped to turn off the iDen.
THANK YOU from me too!
When there isn't news about a new CDMA phone coming out for a few months, Engadget seems to actually forget that there is such a thing as CDMA. CDMA doesn't matter because there aren't any CDMA iPhones. Watch their HTC Raphael reporting, for example. They initially admitted it was CDMA and then prompty forgot. Now it's only known as the HTC Touch Pro -- the GSM flavor.
Also notice how they conveniently didn't mention this part of the article:
"The company has seen a bit of a rebound lately, particularly with the hot-selling Samsung Instinct. Sprint is expected to announce an improved customer turnover rate for the second quarter."
I took your suggestion of looking it up, and found that you were 100% right. Thanks!
so did sprint just become a big mnvo? i guess they probably still own the spectrum... but i dono what do you guys think?
No they did not become an MVNO. Instead of owning the towers they built they sold the physical structure/land to TowerCo and they are leasing it back. Basically the same way most businesses lease their office space.
Oh fuck you thats not nearly all of them that scared the shit out of me to when you said that!
Now I shall have to research which offshore company owns TowerCo... All of our companies in the US are turning their backs on us.
Crisis averted. So far domestic.
it makes no difference where a company is from in a global economy, welcome to 2008
@ Scott
Hah. Yeah. Keep on believing that one.
I'd like to add that Sprint added approximately 3,300 cell sites to its network in 2007 alone. Id hardly say that 3,300 is "nearly all" of their towers, Cingular "at&t" leases quite a few of their towers from Tower Co as well.
This only reminds me of Bright PCS, owner and operator for Sprint in our area. The end result, extremely late EVDO rollout, poor EVDO coverage, and lack ambition to expand.....
There's a night and day difference between TowerCo owning towers and an affiliate like Bright PCS. Affiliates are like carrier mini-Me's. They might look similar, but they are their own company.
" Whatever you say, sir."
Lol... my thoughts exactly.
Engadget seems to take joy out of portraying every article on Sprint in a negative light. "Whatever you say sir” Was that really necessary? The selling off of a carrier's towers is commonplace in the industry and seems to occur every couple years. None of the major carriers currently own the bulk of their towers any longer. The carrier's inventory builds up every few years to a level that justify the sale. Eventually they use sales like this to recapture their capital investments in order to reinvest in new locations. Let's also not try to cloud the issue by implying that towers are synonymous with an actual cell site. This sale is just the tower and not the radios.
This is not news. Rewind to 1998 when all the carriers started selling their assets and ownership of towers to companies like Crown and TowerCo. Carriers were all building thier own towers, lets see, 2-6 carriers per market, there would have been towers on every street corner, so thats when tower mgt companies started to appear. They lease space on the property and "tower" to each carrier....and they manage all of the cell-site stuff.
Anyway, this is typical, companies sell and lease all the time to bolster the coffers, then when it makes sense, they buy the assets back to show growth, welcome to the world of public companies, EPS, and balance sheets.
I would only hope Sprint is savvy enough to use the money to grow parts of their business that will afford more revenue growth and help them throw the shovel out of the hole....the market needs a fourth leg to the tripod
I like the way engadgetmobile praises anything GSM/iPhone/at&t,while Time Warner cuddles up with Sprint. I have said it before, Cable/WiMAX is the network solution for the future. Watch how all cable equipment will have WiMAX chips in them, this will help improve coverage and while in your home or certain areas we will be able to route your data by the fiber network or the WiMAX network. Engadget embrace the reality and stop hating on your daddy jejeje.
Didnt you hear?
AT&T is BUYING the Engadget division of Time Warner - so its only natural that Engadget praise its new parent.
If its on Engadget it MUST be true right?
Back on topic, Sprint is doing a little better, their new plans for usage combined with data are going to prevent a lot of turn over from unexpected overage. Samsung Instinct, while not the most perfect phone is definitely a nicer phone then most offered by Sprint in a long time. There is a reason its sold out. The fact that Sprint is selling its 3500 towers (which Sprint has more then 20k), is not news, nor is it something anyone needs to worry about. Likely to free up cash, to focus on plans, customers, data, and becoming the next winner of the JD Power Customer Service award.
Engadget needs to do more research, be unbiased toward CDMA - Im a GSM boy at heart, but love data and voice quality on CDMA more. Dont see me bashing.
in all honesty this is a great move There bringing in a large sum of cash and theyll pay less than half of what they use to in order to keep these towers maintaned GREAT MOVE
Please read the article before posting. It states:
"The flagging carrier sold off "nearly all" (around 3,300) of its wireless communication towers..."
This means they sold off their TOWERS, not all of their co-locations agreements. By selling your TOWERS you create short-term liquid capital gains in the form of cash. The long term effect is that you are losing your rights to receivable income on the towers if someone else wants to co-locate on your tower.
Here is an analogy comparing towers to houses: You can buy a house just for you at $1,500.00 in expenses per month. If you decide to rent out part of your house, you could charge $1,000.00 rent per person you share it with. IF you keep expanding on your house each time someone else wants to live there, you cut your expenses and soon you make a profit.
Conclusion: Sprint is no longer a home owner- they just rent their home and can no longer enjoy the benefits of owning their property, and their long-term net worth is now lower because they couldn't take a mortgage out on it if they needed to down the road.
Who are you talking to? No one took it the way you think they did.
Please read the article before posting. It states:
"The flagging carrier sold off "nearly all" (around 3,300) of its
wireless communication towers..."
This means they sold off their TOWERS, not all of their co-locations
agreements. By selling your TOWERS you create short-term liquid
capital gains in the form of cash. The long term effect is that you
are losing your rights to receivable income on the towers if someone
else wants to co-locate on your tower.
Here is an analogy comparing towers to houses: You can buy a house
just for you at $1,500.00 in expenses per month. If you decide to
rent out part of your house, you could charge $1,000.00 rent per
person you share it with. IF you keep expanding on your house each
time someone else wants to live there, you cut your expenses and soon
you make a profit.
Conclusion: Sprint is no longer a home owner- they just rent their
home and can no longer enjoy the benefits of owning their property,
and their long-term net worth is now lower because they couldn't take
a mortgage out on it if they needed to down the road.
Is engadget going to ever get off of ATT's nuts?? It's so sad they are swinging so hard from the company with the absolute worst network in America. If Sprint had the iphone (which apple approached first)...they would still hate on Sprint. Its so sad...GET OFF ATT's NUTZ!!! THEY DONT CARE ABOUT YOU and THEIR NETWORK SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVERY story they write about Sprint always has false information in it.
ya apple definitely went to verizon first...
I was told Apple approached T-Mobile first, because T-Mobile already had a larger, faster build of EDGE, in addition a seamless HotSpot network. Dont know if you guys ever used an SDA before - seamlessly connects to HotSpot when it comes in range.
T-MOBILE was the first - for a GSM version. Sprint might have been the first for an overall phone version - meaning before Apple went GSM approach.
Sprint is crashing and burning, this is a last attempt to stay alive. Selling the towers is stupidity, the real estate alone is worth holding onto. Sprint will be gone soon and the sale of their towers is a prime example of why. ToweCo will sell these towers in the next few years and in the end Sprint will have screwed themselves.
yup. and i will be laughing heartily at you with my htc dream in my hand, and my $30 sero plan.
I actually think that this is a great idea, but only if WiMax (Xohm) is still on plan for 2010 roll out. If so this is a good way for Sprint to make some quick money and slowly make the CDMA network smaller. If WiMax (Xohm) in not on the horizon then this idea it their death blow. Just waiting for the right time to invest into Sprint but there has to be no Nextel.