Sprint acquires MMDS license holder

Sprint acquires MMDS license holder
KANSAS CITY — Sprint Corp. will gain a wireless component for its highly-touted Integrated On-Demand broadband network, through the acqusition of American Telecasting Inc. (Colorado Springs, Colo.), announced Tuesday (April 27). ATI, a specialist in Metropolitan Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS), holds licenses covering a potential 10 million households in Denver, Portland, Ore., Seattle and Las Vegas.

Sprint will offer $448.8 million in a mixed cash and debt-assumption offer. MMDS, known informally as "wireless cable," is a service occupying bands between 5 GHz and 10 GHz. Originally used only for one-way private broadcast of cable signals, MMDS has been promoted as a wideband Internet access service, though its capacity is not as great as the 28-GHz LMDS service. ATI and other companies promoting MMDS have been in a financial slump in recent months, and the Sprint acquisition follows similar MMDS service acquisitions, such as MCI WorldCom's purchase of CAI Wireless Systems Inc.