Sprint announced earlier this month that it would build several thousand new towers – focusing on neighborhoods where network coverage has not kept up with population growth. This expansion comes after Softbank, the carrier’s parent company, promised earlier this year to increase its capital expenditure in the midterm by several billion dollars.
Sprint’s network spending will total between $3.5 billion and $4 billion for FY 2017, while FY 2018 may see spending jump $5 billion to $6 billion. This increased expenditure would wind down in a few years.
The announcement came during a question-and-answer by Sprint CFO Tarek Robbiati at a UBS conference. Sprint will look to improve capacity rather than expand coverage. In addition to the build-out, Robbiati highlighted three other indicatives. They were tri-banding towers – deploying 800 MHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.5 GHz on all its towers – massive MIMO and small cells.
Robbiati also confirmed that Sprint will not be reviving its aborted merger with T-Mobile, citing SoftBank CEO Mayayoshi Son’s desire to maintain control and the merger’s potential for regulatory problems. He joked, “We had extensive due diligence on both sides. We were dancing. It was really exciting. We exchanged a kiss on the cheek. And then our parents saw that and sent us back to our rooms.”
