Sprint Nextel hopes to use $2 billion of President-Elect Barack Obama’s proposed bailout fund to construct a National Emergency Response Team for mobile communications.
The nation’s third-largest wireless company said it could deploy this within a year and said the money would last for five years. Its plan would include at least 100 satellite-based cells and 100,000 ready-to-go phones at 40 pre-determined locations.
Sprint’s plan also would create jobs, the company stated in two letters to the Obama transition team. The letters were sent on Dec. 19, 2008, and on Jan. 6, but only recently made public.
In addition, “to stimulate the economy, the FCC should be directed to complete its four-year-old special access proceeding and issue a final order ensuring just and reasonable special access rates no longer than September 30, 2009,” Sprint asserted.
