Mr.Nuke

An analyst asked a follow-up question about it and Claure said it begins immediately. We don't know what the actual agreement or extent of it is though.

Anything said prior to the press call today (and heck a lot of what was said on that call) is worthless at this point. We'll see what Sprint opts to do for their Q4/FY 2017 earnings this week or next week, but it would be nice if the analysts get a chance to ask Claure for more clarification on issues like this.

Much like the job creation claims we'll see how this actually works (if it does it all). At the very least, things aren't going to continue as "planned." It is highly likely that even if Sprint continues with their original capex spending guidance, that what they end up doing is going to be in large part dictated by the merger i.e. any work would be on sites green-lit as surviving post merger. Because... First of all this makes sense as it ultimately saves T-Mobile a bit of roaming expenses on Sprint's behalf if the merger goes through. That said, this as essentially the break-up fee fee screams to me as an acknowledgement that Sprint's network plans this year would've been different had the company not been involved in the merger process. "We'll let you roam where you need to with us for several years" while you recover and ramp up your own network spending.

At this point just wait we will have transcripts by this afternoon in all likelihood.

Day 1 as in now it sounds like, and in lieu of a breakup fee the roaming deal is 4 years in the event the merger fails.

What? And read the article for the math on how you get to a "$26 billion" deal.

It isn't suspicious. Rather it is a pretty good sign that the reports that merger talks are fairly deep are accurate. T-Mobile historically would've reported earnings this week or early next week, Sprint next week or early the following week. The fact that DT and SoftBank's earnings are coordinated for the 9th further backs this up. The last time merger talks were reportedly deep Sprint skipped their earnings release as well*. I wouldn't read that much into this other than it is pretty clear they're talking. Whether or not they can agree to terms is the key as it was the last time. *If a merger isn't announced by the 9th and pending the respective earnings calls for DT and SoftBank; especially with this time corresponding to an end of fiscal year and Sprint's situation going forward, I'd expect an earnings call or an analyst conference call for Sprint after the 9th.

Why not link the the actual report instead of a 2nd hand telling of said report? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sprint-corp-m-a-t-mobile-us-exclusive/exclusive-t-mobile-sprint-make-progress-aim-for-deal-next-week-sources-idUSKBN1HX3G6

Well that was a quick turnaround...

You may want to re-read that paragraph.

That is a fair compromise to getting rid of erroneous data, but I'm not going to go out of my way to re-map stuff annually.

That isn't for you to decide...

Tin foiling everything helps.

What does an announcement from over a year ago about potentially bringing back off-shored call center jobs/ expanding sales postions have to do with an announcement about layoffs a year later at headquarters? I don't expect everyone here to have a working knowledge of corporate finance, but at a fundamental level Sprint is a company that has been losing money for a decade. They're also stating that they're going to ramp up Capex and are showing signs with the recent spectrum backed debt and non-secured debt offerings that this is the case. Something has to give. Continued cost cutting is absolutely essential so long as the operating side of Sprint isn't making enough money to cover the company's financial obligations (especially with the company ramping up to spend significantly more the next several years).

Just for reference re: Lincoln... Sprint obtained a lease on EBS A2 that they didn't have before. This allows for a 20 MHz contiguous channel from BRS 1 to EBS A3 that Sprint had previously lacked in said market (giving the magic box the necessary high/low b41 seperation). https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsEntry/attachments/attachmentViewRD.jsp?applType=search&fileKey=1772442106&attachmentKey=20153479&attachmentInd=applAttach

What do the relay and lte screens look like?

That is what you are looking for. https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8915542,-87.6177293,3a,37.3y,217.09h,110.03t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1szlTWckf2NeOG11Y-Kuah0Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Or a few blocks over https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8925985,-87.6187761,3a,61.7y,30.12h,118.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1syTkfZJXcuqxInWygbjfZUg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

While Sprint has issued debt basically to payoff debt (and they'll continue to do it as long as they aren't turning a profit, 10 years running now), I highly doubt that is the case here. They actually retired debt early last quarter. Additionally, Sprint currently has enough cash on hand to cover their debt maturities through fiscal year 2018 (3/31/18). What they're likely doing (and what they said they'd be doing on the last earnings call) is building up money for the increase in CapEx.

It shouldn't be a huge surprise based on the last earnings call (Combes strongly hinted they were looking at the high-yield market, even further so when asked a question during the Q&A); but overall, I'd say it is a pretty positive development. It shows Sprint has regained access to the high-yield bond market at terms fairly commensurate to when they last participated 3 years ago almost to the date. Plus, if you expect interest rates to rise, which certainly doesn’t seem unreasonable, now is probably as good of a time as any to lock in what you can. The other slightly positive way of looking at things is that Sprint management and Softbank appear to be comfortable with the financial position of the company right now to do this. To the former, they strongly hinted they were going to do both. I don’t read anything regarding not being able to do something re: spectrum co. To the latter, there are plenty of reasons. The best of them being ideally the spectrum backed secured debt probably needs to be somewhat reserved for when it is actually needed. The solvency of the company to an extent was in question in early 2016 with some analysts estimating the company would run out of money unless something was done in the subsequent 18-24 months in large part due to $10+ billion in debt coming due in the following few years. The primary reason that Sprint was using spectrum backed debt vehicles, using 2.5 vendor financing options, selling future customer income at discount for money now, selling off phones and leasing them back, etc. is that the company was in such a giant liquidity pinch. This was compounded by the fact that the company effectively lost access to the high-yield debt market at the same time. In Early 2016, Sprint’s debt that had been issued at par was trading at about 75 cents to the dollar with coupons in the 6-8% range was yielding 12-13.5% (implying that would be Sprint’s future cost of borrowing on any new high-yield debt). Robbiati came on at roughly the same time and said the following at one of his first investor conferences, “Would you really want to tap into the high-yield market at 10%, 12%?” No. It doesn’t make any sense.” So, they went the handset leasing, spectrum backed security route, which again isn’t without it’s downfalls. When it happened in 2016 a Bloomberg article likened it to “borrowing against the tires to make car payments.” An equity analyst in a WSJ article said, “it shows what kind of bind Sprint is in, when you have to collateralize the plates and silverware.” Neither are exactly wrong. The spectrum backed debt has two advantages for Sprint. 1) The interest rate is significantly lower than the junk bond market and 2) it is a way for Softbank to get around some of their debt covenants and end-run-around inject money into Sprint. Both of those advantages come with some costs though. The spectrum is a finite asset and they already sold 14% of it off. Secured debt is cheaper for Sprint, because it is less risky for the lenders due to the fact their bonds are secured by the asset (in this case the spectrum). If Sprint were to hypothetically default or go bankrupt they in all likelihood lose the spectrum. The other bigger factor is that as illustrated in the paragraph directly above this one, there was a time less than two years ago when Sprint really had no other realistic borrowing options other than doing this. In a lot of ways, you’d want to preserve the capacity to do this again if you absolutely needed to in the future i.e. a “rainy day” when the market conditions aren’t favorable or the company isn’t in a financial position to obtain funding through more traditional sources. The junk-bond market isn’t going to last forever if Sprint cannot show an ability to generate actual free cash flows on a consistent basis. Furthermore, the more they collateralize assets for securitized debt the greater the potential they cut themselves off from the traditional unsecured debt markets due to covenants, seniority placement, and concerns about Sprint’s capacity to payoff non-secured debt in the event of default. It literally could be the difference between getting 80-90% of your money back versus pennies on the dollar. So the tl;dr of this is even if you can obtain debt cheaper by say offering 2.5 spectrum as collateral that isn't necessarily the better option. The whole reason Sprint was offering 2.5 secured debt or handset leasing vehicles was they didn't have access to traditional debt markets. It is certainly creative, cheaper borrowing that will have a place at S going forward. That said, tapping the high-yield market while Sprint can at relatively decent rates makes a heck of a lot of sense. They'll tap Spectrum Co again soon based on the earnings call.

Yeah that isn't how that works... And you posted an article that was obsolete a day later by the time you posted it. That typically isn't what a CFO does... $3.5 to $4 billion for 2017 which would mean at the low end that they'd be spending a minimum of $1 billion between the start of this year and 3/31/2018 (3 months), $5 to $6 billion is the current guidance for fiscal year 2018. That is consistent with what Masa Son said at the beginning of November.

Because Softbank is buying 15% of the company....

Where or what are you seeing to indicate you getting "LTE Plus?"

Some of the premier threads are tracking them on a local level i.e. the Columbus guys. Omaha is here. Like Tim said, in Omaha we are tipped off by a electrical permits, the city also added a GIS layer initially for the actual small cell permits but it hasn't been updated. Permitting is going to vary from place to place, and their is any indication at all.

No on both counts. Guidance for this year is $3.5 to $4 billion. Through the first 2 quarters they've spent $1.8 billion so they're on track there. Years in this context refers to fiscal years. For Sprint the fiscal year ends on 3/31, meaning next year would be a little under 5 months away.