Reuters is reporting that Sprint is close to picking a bidder for its wireless tower business. Bids of up to $1.2 billion have been made for the 6,200 Sprint towers.

Managing broadcast towers is more like running a real estate firm than a telephone company — with much of the time spent negotiating zoning permits to build on new locations. Sprint is wise to jettison those assets and lease space from other tower companies to transmit its wireless calls, analysts have said.

Sprint will use the cash to pay down debt. The deal was put on hold for a short time while Sprint negotiated with Nextel over the merger.