By Tim Conneally, Betanews
One year ago, Sprint affiliate iPCS sued Sprint over its WiMAX venture with Clearwire, claiming that Sprint violated exclusivity agreements and willfully withheld the 4G technology from affiliates like iPCS.
The Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois denied Sprint's motion to dismiss the claims by iPCS, which seek to block Sprint from "obtaining directly or indirectly the benefits of advanced technology without providing that technology and sharing its benefits with its affiliates."
Based in Illinois, iPCS has about 691,000 subscribers, and has battled against Sprint's mergers since 2005. The company deals in 81 United States markets mostly located within the Midwest (Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania) with a licensed territory containing 15.1 million residents.
When the $35 billion merger of Sprint and Nextel took place nearly four years ago, iPCS sued on similar grounds of exclusivity violation. Judge Thomas Quinn of The Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois ruled that the merger of Sprint and Nextel violated iPCS' exclusive right to own, operate, build, and manage the Sprint PCS network in its territory and mandated a Nextel divestiture in those markets. Following years of appeals, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling and gave Sprint until January 25, 2010 to divest.
Today, Timothy M. Yager, President and CEO of iPCS said, "We are very pleased that the Court has again ruled in our favor as we seek to have Sprint live up to its obligations under our affiliation agreements...We are confident that after the evidence is presented in this case the Court will uphold the business deal that we reached with Sprint over ten years ago to 'be Sprint' in our exclusive territories and offer the most advanced seamless wireless nationwide network to our subscribers."
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009