In 2010, in partnership with its subsidiary Clearwire and the nonprofit organizations Mobile Citizen and Mobile Beacon, Sprint began providing affordable broadband service to 429 schools, 61 libraries and 1,820 nonprofit organizations ultimately providing Internet access to 300,000 Americans. Sprint plans to upgrade the entire network to LTE.
Clearwire, which Sprint acquired, used WiMAX technology for its network, which has now largely fallen out of favor. Sprint is in the process of turning down the WiMAX network in favor of its LTE network, which could potentially lead to data limits being imposed on those using Mobile Citizen and Mobile Beacon system.
Mobile Becon and Mobile Citizen recently filed a emergency injunction to try to stop the shut down of the WiMAX network.
“The costs of being disconnected are too great,” said Katherine Messier, managing director of Mobile Beacon. “There are schools that rely on our service as their primary means of Internet access and risk being turned off in the middle of the school year. We’re hearing from disabled adults that rely on our service to order groceries, pay bills, and monitor their prescriptions and medical information online. We are asking the court to preserve their lifeline to the world.”
Last week 40 non-profit organizations sent a letter to Sprints CEO Marcelo Claure, alleging the Sprint plan to switch its older system to all LTE now threatens to cut off service for these organizations.
Sprint maintains however, “This is a contract dispute. Simply put, the reality of this situation is that Sprint is bringing more advanced, higher quality broadband service to market, not turn it off,” Sprint spokeswoman Stephanie Walsh said.
“Sprint has gone to great lengths to work with all WiMAX users to transition WiMAX accounts to LTE, for the express purpose of improving the consumer broadband experience, not shutting it off,” Sprint noted in a statement. “And we have been very successful at transitioning the majority of these accounts. But the transition cannot take place without the cooperation of each licensee.”
Todd O’Boyle, media and democracy program director at Common Cause, said “Our goal, in sending this letter, is to make sure none of the organization’s that use this program are left worse off than before.” Data caps and the possibility of increased rates could be characterized as being worse off. Other co-signers of the letter are less generous with their view of Sprint’s actions. Holmes Wilson, co-director at Fight for the Future, an Internet activist organization, said, “It’s Kafkaesque. All these deserving groups continue to have accounts, but they’re getting cut off on a technicality. Sprint can fix this: they just need to stop dragging their feet and do the right thing.”
Walsh argued otherwise, “Sprint has worked very proactively and diligently to transition all affected partners and customers. Sprint gave notice to these licensees in the summer of 2014 regarding the November 2015 decommissioning date – well over a year ago. And we have continuously publicized this date throughout 2015. In fact, we have already transitioned the vast majority of our other EBS licensee community to the new LTE network, and their users are already enjoying the benefits of the higher quality broadband service. … Like the vast majority of our other EBS licensee partners, Mobile Beacon and Mobile Citizen could have transitioned their end users to the new and superior LTE network months ago.”
