Sprint to put at least USD 1 bln more into 5G in 2018, but continue to cut jobs

News Wireless United States 5 FEB 2018
Sprint to put at least USD 1 bln more into 5G in 2018, but continue to cut jobs
Sprint said it will lift its network capex by at least USD 1 billion this year in a bid to launch mobile 5G in the first half of 2019, LightReading reported. CEO Marcello Claure said the company is working with Qualcomm and others to achieve this goal. The plans were announced during a conference call following the release of the company’s fiscal third quarter results. The CEO said there will also be more job cuts and that the company will continue to look for ways to reduce its costs and expenses. 

The CEO said Sprint will be able to deploy 5G nationwide on the 2.5 GHz band in 100 MHz channels. Claure added that Sprint has a commitment from a "leading Korean" device vendor that it will have a 5G device ready within its 2019 timeframe. 

Capex for fiscal 2017 was guided at USD 3.5-4 billion range. For fiscal 2018, capex will lift to USD 5-6 billion. The company’s fiscal year will start in April. Sprint will put money into upping the number of macro cell sites by 20 percent, and support its 2.5GHz, 1900MHz, and 850MHz bands on nearly all of its existing macro sites. Currently, around half of its macro sites have tri-band support. The CEO added that Sprint plans to deploy more than 40,000 outdoor small cells, and "more than 1 million Magic Boxes," to improve in-home coverage. 

Sprint also expects to update sites with Massive MIMO this year. This will serve as a bridge to 5G," Claure said. Sprint will also leverage its partnerships with Altice and Cox Communications to expand its backhaul capabilities for LTE-Advanced and 5G. Sprint CTO John Saw said some capex spend could be on "dark fibre" for backhaul needs. 

For the quarter, Sprint said revenues fell to USD 8.239 billion from 8.549 billion the year before. The net profit, thanks to the recent tax reforms, went up to USD 7.16 billion from a loss of 479 million. The one-off benefit from the reforms amounted to USD 7.1 billion.

Categories:

Mobile

Companies:

Sprint,  Qualcomm,  Cox Communications,  Altice Europe

Countries:

United States

Tags:

Staff, Sales figures, Cooperations & alliances, Wireless, Internet Access, Corporate strategy

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