With its joint venture with four cable operators nearly one year old, Sprint Nextel is trying to kick-start its relationship with the entire cable industry, expanding the role of JV president John Garcia.
Garcia will now oversee not just the wireless-phone JV with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Advance/Newhouse Communications and Cox Communications, but Sprint deals to provide backbone-network access for voice-over-Internet-protocol telephony offerings from other cable companies.
In an interview Friday, Garcia said the moves were made to make Sprint’s cable strategy more efficient. In his expanded role, Garcia will report to Sprint CEO Gary Forsee, as well as the cable JV’s six-member governing council. He had previously been reporting only to the governing council, made up of representatives from the four MSOs.