Sprint expands wholesale business into DSL realm

Sprint, reacting to reseller demand for DSL for small/medium-sized business customers, is expanding its wholesale distribution business into the DSL space starting later this quarter.

Sprint will lease copper pair from the incumbent carrier and co-locate DSLAMs in select central offices and markets. From there, it will provide DSL service over its entire network, said Jeff Jones, DSL product manager for Sprint Wholesale.

By chasing small/medium business customers, Sprint avoids the pitfalls that crippled the CLECs’ DSL strategy, Jones said.

“Our target market is to sell our DSL services to large business or enterprise customers as well as small-business customers,” Jones said. “The predominance of the cost pressures that some of the CLECs faced were on the residential side.”

Sprint Wholesale is in 759 central offices in 32 markets today in the so-called NFL cities, thus it will be able to launch into a generally receptive market of facilities-based resellers who are eager to serve their customers’ DSL needs, Jones said.

“Certainly there is some shakeout, some consolidation in the industry, but certainly there are some opportunities left, and this will give some of these facilities-based resellers greater opportunity,” he said.