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Jim Barthold
Sprint Corp. last week added two more MMDS wireless providers, Videotron USA and Transworld Telecommunications Inc., to burgeoning holdings that already include American Telecasting Inc. (ATI) and People's Choice TV Corp. (PCTV).
Sprint bought Videotron USA from Le Groupe Videotron Ltee., Canada's second largest cable operator, for $180 million, getting wireless access licenses in the Silicon Valley, as well as Tampa Bay, Fla., and Greenville, S.C.
Transworld cost $30 million and brought wireless licenses for San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, Calif., and Spokane and Seattle, Wash.
"They own a percentage of the licenses that Videotron owns. In order to get 100% of the licenses, we bought them as well," said Sprint spokesman Russ Robinson.
Sprint has access to 24.2 million U.S. homes and will use MMDS technology to bypass local phone companies for voice and data services.
"When you go in and install DSL (digital subscriber line) you have to co-locate in the central office and then you have to lease the local loop from the local telephone company," Robinson explained. "With the wireless solution you don't have to do any of that."
MMDS technology, he said, fits well with Sprint's existing PCS networks.
"We have PCS towers all over the place, so we put our microwave transceivers up there and you're in the network," Robinson explained.
Sprint's buys are part of the Integrated On-Demand Network (ION).
"We are converting to a data network," said Robinson. "We haven't bought any circuit switches in the last three years. Spring ION is a transformation of our company. It's long range, because it takes a while to convert a whole network to just data, but we're running digital voice and we're headed toward a totally digital world."
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