Sprint executives have said previously the carrier will explore all possibilities for a deal, and it seems that’s exactly what they’re doing.
Though the market has been abuzz lately with talk of a potential Sprint hookup with fellow U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday Sprint is also in deal talks with cable companies Charter Communications and Comcast. The discussions were described as “exclusive” for a two-month period, which means alternative efforts with T-Mobile have been put on a temporary hold.
The news was also published by Reuters in its own report.
According to the WSJ report, the conversation is focused on coming to an agreement for the cable companies to offer wireless services on Sprint’s network. Both Charter and Comcast currently have MVNO deals with Sprint’s rival, Verizon, and the cable pair recently agreed to work together on wireless efforts. Another possibility is that the cable players could take an equity stake in Sprint, helping the wireless carrier with network investments, the WSJ article noted.
The news sent Sprint shares on the rise by 3.8 percent in pre-market trading Tuesday morning, while T-Mobile stocks took a nearly 4.5 percent dive.
BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk noted Tuesday that a cable play in wireless makes sense to help the former mitigate threats to its hold on the video and broadband segments.
“We believe the continued improvement in LTE’s capabilities through network densification and carrier aggregation poses a threat not only to the cable industry’s video business, but also to broadband,” Piecyk wrote. “More importantly, wireless data offers a huge incremental revenue opportunity for the cable industry that would leverage their existing fiber investments and re-position these companies to address the changing habits of their customers.”
But the deal could also offer benefits to Sprint, mainly by providing a fiber footprint to expand the carrier’s small cell deployments. An MVNO deal with cable operators could also boost Sprint’s economic position in separate deal talks with T-Mobile and parent company Deutsche Telekom, he added.
Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Jennifer Fritzsche noted Sprint has a history with the cable industry – the latter were original equity holders in Sprint PCS, she said.
In terms of deal size, Fritzsche didn’t venture a figure, but did point out that Wells Fargo believes the carrier’s 2.5 GHz spectrum trove is “more valuable than the current stock price is reflecting.” That assertion is supported by the Straight Path bidding war, she said, which illustrates the carriers’ “strong desire” for high band spectrum.
“In our view, mid-band and high-band (north of 2.0 GHz) spectrum becomes all the more relevant in a 5G world,” she wrote.
