Sprint Outsources Network Operations to Ericsson, is LTE in Their Future?

The story here is very 'inside baseball' but bear with us just a little bit as we try to work through Sprint's most recent announcement.  The essence is that Sprint is handing over all network operations to Ericsson - which is to say:

Ericsson assumes responsibility for the day-to-day services, provisioning and maintenance for the Sprint-owned CDMA, iDEN and wireline networks

Sprint keeps ownership of their network assets -- but honestly they have less of a stake than you might think there since they sold off a bootload of towers one year ago and leased service back.  6,000 Sprint employees will become Ericsson employees (and we wouldn't be surprised to hear about layoffs in the near future), but customer service and technical support will remain in-house. Apparently the deal has been in the works for a long time.

For Sprint customers, here are what we think the implications are:

• the potential for better network quality as Ericsson has been doing this sort of thing all over the planet for a very long time
• the possibility that Sprint's 4G plans will include both WiMAX and LTE.

The first point is exciting but a little scary (Ericsson could botch it up, after all).  The second point is, well, surprising. Verizon and AT&T are both committed to moving to LTE (which is a GSM technology at heart, basically), but many had wondered whether Sprint would try to push out WiMAX handsets.  InformationWeek implies it's a possibility, as does gigaom. Then again, Sprint CTO Barry West wasn't too keen on the technology back in April.

If nothing else, it's something to watch.  Sprint seems to be turning themselves into more and more of a services middleman instead of a traditional cell carrier.  They're spinning off physical assets faster than a dervish -- WiMAX went to Clearwire (with Sprint as a 51% investor), lots of towers went to TowerCo (with Sprint leasing service), and now the maintenance of their core network technology has gone to Ericsson.

It all lowers Sprint's operating costs, sure, but the relentless march of technology is very good at cutting out the middle man -- and Sprint is looking more and more like the Middle Man of wireless service.  We're not going to call them an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) in all but name, but we're not going to say you're wrong if you do.