Mobile
Sprint To Purchase $1 Billion Of 4G LTE Gear From Ericsson
Announces New Credit Agreement With Deutsche, Others
By Gary Krakow
Things seem to be falling into place for Sprint today.
In addition to announcing a possible date for the end of the old Nextel Direct Connect service – and the freeing-up of those frequencies – they've also announced that they've secured the funds to begin building-out their next-generation data network.
Sprint says they've entered into a $1-billion credit agreement with Deutsche Bank and other lenders.
And, now that they have the new credit line they've also announced they're going to use that money to buy new 4G equipment from Ericsson.
Sprint's current 4G network uses the WiMAX format. The new 4G network will run LTE (just like the AT&T and Verizon are already using.
And Sprint's LTE network will run on the 800 MHz frequencies they own. The ones currently being used for their legacy, 2G Nextel phones.