Unless the law was revoked there is that little law that prevents foreign nationals from owning more than 30% of a communication systems. Heck Murdock had to become a US citizen before he was allowed to own the fox stations.
Yep, Tmobile is German owned but that has little to do with what I was talking about. Sprint is much more than a wireless provider, Sprint owns national hard lines that the federal government and national security agencies use (until the recent contract win by the baby bells). Owning a wireless carrier is one thing, owning hard lines, especially when there are really only 3 other companies with national networks, because of mergers, could be a major stumbling block for them. In addition, foreign ownership would prevent them from winning ANY government contract (whether or not the law says that, it will happen), and don't expect them to be allowed anywhere near anything that has to do with national security.
I just don't see the government allowing the merger, telecommunications, especially involving a national fiber optic network that probably carries 20% or more of all internet, data and voice communications nationwide is a serious loss of control of a major piece of infrastructure. It's one thing to let a foreign provider come in and build out towers and infrastructure in major metro areas and lease fiber time on one of the 5 national fiber backbones (or even build their own), it's another thing entirely to sell one of those existing backbones to a foreign country.
The government wouldn't stop SK Telcom from coming in a building new networks, but I do believe they would prevent the sale of existing infrastructure to a foreign company, especially one with such close ties to and partial ownership by a foreign government.
Trent, they could just be buying the wireless portion of Sprint/Nextel and leave the other parts such as backbone, long distance, and fiber an independent company. I really hope this goes through as Sprint is just sucking it up with coverage and customer service, at least in my area.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Trent @ Jul 26th 2007 5:26PM
Unless the law was revoked there is that little law that prevents foreign nationals from owning more than 30% of a communication systems. Heck Murdock had to become a US citizen before he was allowed to own the fox stations.
Cesar Cardoso @ Jul 26th 2007 5:51PM
Trent: AFAIR T-Mobile USA is a German-owned US carrier ;-)
Logik @ Jul 26th 2007 6:00PM
He became a citizen to comply with the requirement that, only US citizens could own American television stations.
Trent @ Jul 26th 2007 6:50PM
Yep, Tmobile is German owned but that has little to do with what I was talking about. Sprint is much more than a wireless provider, Sprint owns national hard lines that the federal government and national security agencies use (until the recent contract win by the baby bells). Owning a wireless carrier is one thing, owning hard lines, especially when there are really only 3 other companies with national networks, because of mergers, could be a major stumbling block for them. In addition, foreign ownership would prevent them from winning ANY government contract (whether or not the law says that, it will happen), and don't expect them to be allowed anywhere near anything that has to do with national security.
I just don't see the government allowing the merger, telecommunications, especially involving a national fiber optic network that probably carries 20% or more of all internet, data and voice communications nationwide is a serious loss of control of a major piece of infrastructure. It's one thing to let a foreign provider come in and build out towers and infrastructure in major metro areas and lease fiber time on one of the 5 national fiber backbones (or even build their own), it's another thing entirely to sell one of those existing backbones to a foreign country.
The government wouldn't stop SK Telcom from coming in a building new networks, but I do believe they would prevent the sale of existing infrastructure to a foreign company, especially one with such close ties to and partial ownership by a foreign government.
Bryan @ Jul 26th 2007 9:20PM
Trent, they could just be buying the wireless portion of Sprint/Nextel and leave the other parts such as backbone, long distance, and fiber an independent company.
I really hope this goes through as Sprint is just sucking it up with coverage and customer service, at least in my area.
omoks @ Jul 27th 2007 12:19PM
T-Mobile is not German owned its a subsidiary of Deutche Telecom which owns less than %40 of T-Mobile USA