Bloomberg is reporting that Comcast was victorious in its defense of a patent claim that could have had a dramatic impact on the VoIP industry if upheld.
This is very timely as for weeks I have been hearing via the tribal drums network that the cable MSO's are looking at buying Sprint Voice and IP Mobile telephony are big parts to this in my view and some other key economic reasons.
While the Forbes story makes Comcast the likely suitor, my intel says once the Time Warner spinout of Time Warner Cable occurs, the top cable operators, including TW, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, Charter and anyone who wants to play, will buy up Sprint.
Why? Well for starters Sprint's technology presents the best competitive challenge to the biggest supplier of network infrastructure to the cable MSOs. AT&T.
While Level3 may be selling against AT&T for that reason now, at the end of the day, Level3's lack of a wireless play, something they are working to change, makes them a connectivity partner, not a full blown solution to the MSOs. Sprint with their merged Nextel play makes them an ideal, and better partner today, and once the math is done, the MSO's will come to the conclusion that combined they now represent one heck of a large portion of the revenue dropping to the bottom line at Sprint.
Given the recent changes at the top of some Sprint divisions, including mobile, it's also obvious that the board is making room at the top for new blood to come in, which also makes it an attractive target.
I'm also hearing that the cable MSO's are growing restless at how fast, or I should say, how not so fast the Sprint team is implementing the CDMA gameplan for a fourplay. It's become to many, really foreplay and their candidly getting tired of Sprint not coming to play for real with what they need. The dark horse here could be T-Mobile whose USA assets could be bought up by the consortium as well, giving the MSO's a real CDMA, TDMA and GSM offering which would put them squarely in a position to go against Verizon and AT&T.
Last but not least is Sprint's WiMax efforts with Intel. The cable MSO's are all looking for a way to go out of market with connectivity plays. Between the spectrum and the potential future efforts Sprint has on deck, this is another attractive reason for the cable guys to make the acquisition.
More speculation comes from the Kansas City Star.
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