Sprint strikes more deals with rural roaming carrier to stay afloat
In an increasingly competitive US mobile landscape, Sprint has forged some new roaming deals with rural carriers in an attempt to remain afloat. Reports indicate that the nation’s third largest carrier, which is set to be surpassed by T-Mobile later this year in terms of total subscribers, is planning to announce a new batch of individual agreements aimed to expand Sprint’s coverage in areas where the carrier doesn’t have any towers of its own, and where it doesn’t intend to build out its network in the foreseeable future.
This comes after a previous announcement in June, in which Sprint said that it was working with a dozen small carriers that cover 34 million people, in addition to its existing deal with the Competitive Carrier’s Association (CCA).
These types of deals don’t just benefit Sprint, though. Many smaller carriers are grateful for the more favorable terms they receive when roaming on Sprint’s network, as well – oftentimes this saves them money over roaming on Verizon or AT&T.
For its part, Sprint says it has saved around $1.7 billion by making these new roaming agreements instead of building new towers.
[Reuters] Thanks, Bill!
