Sprint Asks Obama to Set Up $2 Billion First-Responder Network

I whole-heartedly agree that asking for taxpayers to foot the bill is not a very good thing at all at this time. From what I gather according to the article though, is that the government was looking to spend money anyway to create an emergency response network. This undoubtedly is very costly. Much, much more than 2 billion. Sprint currently is the owner of the IDEN network. This without doubt, is the system most government and emergency response teams already rely on and widely use for this kind of service. Sprint is financially stricken and on their own, cannot really afford to enhance the network to what kind of service that the government is seeking. They are however, already the major supplier of most of the equipment needed and currently used for these measures. So in actuality for the given circumstances, Sprint's request(as outlandish and stupid as it may sound}, is plausible and in the end may be much cheaper than what it would normally cost us taxpayers. They're just saying to the goverment "Look, we can enhance and meet the needs on the existing network technically and bring it up to snuff cheaper than building from the ground up"

As far as "disguising" a bail-out plan? Mmmmm, possible but I doubt it. I am quite sure this would be the first reaction that government would be thinking too would be highly risky right about now. There will be groups watching this kind of activity.(especially after the big bank bail-out fiasco}.

I fear either way, us taxpayers are going to get hit with the bill for what government is seeking.