Amazon cell service? Company reportedly interested in buying Boost Mobile

The Amazon Fire Phone! (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

You buy everything else from Amazon, so why not cellular service? A report from Reuters claims the retail juggernaut is "considering" buying Sprint MVNO Boost Mobile.

Sprint and T-Mobile are currently in the process of a big merger, and one of the concessions required by the FCC is the divestiture of Boost mobile, Sprint's low-cost, prepaid carrier. With Boost up for sale (for up to $3 billion, according, again, to Reuters), Amazon is evidently considering jumping into the cellular business.

As an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), Boost Mobile doesn't own its own network. Instead, it resells Sprint's network, so in the future it would still rely on the merged T-Mobile/Sprint network for service. Buying Boost would reportedly score Amazon a sizable (7-8 million strong) customer base, along with a six-year license to operate on and resell service to the new T-Mobile/Sprint network. Amazon might want to take things even further than a simple MVNO operation, though, as the report says Amazon would also be interested in any wireless spectrum that the merged companies would need to sell off.

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