Sprint, Qualcomm in Talks to Deliver TV to Phones

Sprint Corp. is in talks to use a Qualcomm Inc. network to deliver live television to mobile phone customers.

Chief Operating Officer Len Lauer said Tuesday that Sprint also was interested in bidding for spectrum in a government auction expected to take place next year to ensure that it could deliver next-generation services to its subscribers.

Sprint has enough airwaves for its current menu of services and plans to begin building a faster network to boost its capacity this year and next year. But its airwaves could become overcrowded if services such as mobile video or high-speed Internet catch on with consumers, Lauer said.

“If it takes off with us very well, you start to become spectrum constrained,” Lauer said. “If wireless data continues to move the way it has, you get out toward the end of the decade and you start to run out of spectrum.”

Lauer made the comments a day after San Diego-based Qualcomm said it planned to use broadcasting spectrum licenses it owned to build a wireless network in 2006. It plans to deliver live TV to phones through partnerships with existing mobile providers.

Sprint already delivers media such as video news clips to mobile phones, but Lauer said it would make more sense to use live TV from a specialized broadcaster rather than hogging its own airspace, which also needs to support voice phone calls.

“It’s better utilization of broadcast spectrum than it would be of using the cellular spectrum that we and other carriers have,” Lauer said. “We are talking to Qualcomm about it, and there are other competitors who also have similar models.”

Qualcomm’s service would complement rather than compete with Sprint’s own video service, Lauer said, because Sprint plans to sell customized content whereas Qualcomm expects to deliver the same live shows to everybody.

Sprint shares rose 36 cents to $21.39 on the New York Stock Exchange. Qualcomm shares rose 32 cents to $40.88 on Nasdaq.