Additionally, the company purchased some of the smaller carrier's subscribers, and will take over "certain liabilities."
The final price is $480 million in cash, with no stock involved.
Sprint will use the spectrum to boost its new LTE network and the 585,000 subscribers (from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Missouri) will all become Sprint subscribers in the coming year. U.S. Cellular currently has 5.8 million subscribers while Sprint has 55 million, making it the third largest carrier in the U.S.
For its cash, Sprint gets "20 MHz of PCS spectrum in the 1900 MHz band in a number of locales, and 10 MHz of PCS spectrum in the St. Louis market," reads the announcement.
As with all telecom deals, the move requires regulatory sign off, but the DOJ and FCC should likely see no issues.
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 7 Nov 2012 19:18
