Wall Street is betting Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. will soon revive talks on a blockbuster merger, but a recent surge in demand for wireless assets has Sprint exploring other ways to unleash value.
Sprint's parent SoftBank Group Corp. believes the company's vast trove of wireless spectrum, which can be used for faster 5G services, has been undervalued, a view bolstered by AT&T Inc.'s lofty $1.6 billion purchase of Straight Path Communications Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
Executives have been bandying about ways to better reflect the value of Sprint's airwave licenses, even entertaining the notion of spinning off some spectrum into a separate, publicly traded company, the people said. A deal with T-Mobile or another party would have to properly compensate Sprint for its airwaves, they said.
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