“Billionaire Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc. is close to a deal to paySprint Nextel Corp. (S) as much as $20 billion as part of a network construction and sharing accord, said two people familiar with the talks.
The tentative agreement, spanning 15 years, would allow Falcone to roll out LightSquared more quickly and let the companies share network-building costs, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions aren’t public.
Sprint has pledged $5 billion to upgrade its network over the next three to five years to allow it to use disparate bands of spectrum on a single base station. Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said in May he had held talks with Clearwire Corp. (CLWR) about possibly hosting its network on Sprint’s infrastructure.
LightSquared agreed last year to Federal Communications Commission conditions that it offer service to as many as 100 million Americans by the end of next year and 260 million by 2016. The company is on schedule to introduce commercial service by early next year, Jeff Carlisle, regulatory affairs executive vice president, said on a conference call yesterday.”
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