Sprint Schedules 2Q 2014 Earnings Release

[GoBigRed79]

BGR is pretty much nothing but a tabloid tech blog anymore.  

[jamisonshaw125]

That article is toxic. The amount of stupidity in this world country is absolutely astounding. 

[dedub]

eh yeah, I'd remove the link just to avoid giving them more traffic

[sbolen]

Well I already bought a crapload of Sprint this past year ranging from $6.08 to $7.69 . I just do not have any more cash unless I sell off my other stocks.

 

S is tanking, presumably on the comparisons to TMO. I'm buying more, now that it's $7.30. The turnaround will be there... gotta go through the darkness first, right? 

 

Ahhh yes. BGR waited until it could compare Sprint to Tmo: http://bgr.com/2014/07/31/t-mobile-vs-sprint-prices/

 

It couldn't write a hit piece on just yesterday's news alone.

 

That article was awful. The comments were worse. However... I'll just leave this here for the community to write on this nice woman's sign:

 

[JimBob]

S is tanking, presumably on the comparisons to TMO. I'm buying more, now that it's $7.30. The turnaround will be there... gotta go through the darkness first, right?

Today's drop is due to T-Mobile receiving a buyout offer from French telecom Iliad. I could not resist and sold some of my other stock to buy Sprint again at $7.26

[njjdnt]

S is tanking, presumably on the comparisons to TMO. I'm buying more,

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/6219-frances-iliad-offering-to-buyout-tmobile-us/

[sbolen]

Today's drop is due to T-Mobile receiving a buyout offer from French telecom Iliad. I could not resist and sold some of my other stock to buy Sprint again at $7.26

Just saw that story. Crazy.

[maxsilver]

 

• Cut capex by at least a billion dollars
• Lowered guidance on net adds, cash generation, and churn
• Pushed out potential positive net adds to 4Q (likely due to near-guarantee gains for Christmas)
• Deprioritized 2.5GHz deployment for 2014 in favor of 800MHz
• Stated intent to deploy 2.5GHz in "capex-efficient manner" (read: substantially less deployment than originally planned)

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know if I agree with these two points. Sprint repeated many times yesterday that they are still going to cover 100 Million customers with Band 41 by year end. There was no change in schedule in that regard. I simply think Sprint is being a bit more open about their 800MHz LTE deployment since it is currently easier and moving faster than the 2.5/2.6GHz deployment. Neither is in in favor at this point.

 

I mean, they clearly admitted their slowing down something.

 

You can't cut capex without pulling that money from somewhere. Either they're slowing network deployment,  cutting cell sites, or cutting backhaul (or some combination of that). It seems more likely to cut some 2.5ghz than anything else.

 

This is pure conjecture, but I'd guess this capex cut also likely means those nice dense Clearwire sites are up on the chopping block too.

[S4GRU]

Where is the source of cutting capex?  Additionally, even if they are cutting capex from $8 Billion to $7 Billion in 2014, that doesn't mean much.  It may even be because equipment suppliers cannot even produce the equipment fast enough to burn $8 Billion, so they have revised projections.  This is absolutely nothing to be concerned about at all.

 

And is the $1 Billion cut over the next two years?  If so, that would mean $15B instead of $16B.  This is just not a sign of the sky is falling.  Masa could easily get another billion if he needed to.  This is a sign of something else that is not understood at face value.

 

Robert

[Conan Kudo]

Where is the source of cutting capex?  Additionally, even if they are cutting capex from $8 Billion to $7 Billion in 2014, that doesn't mean much.  It may even be because equipment suppliers cannot even produce the equipment fast enough to burn $8 Billion, so they have revised projections.  This is absolutely nothing to be concerned about at all.

 

And is the $1 Billion cut over the next two years?  If so, that would mean $15B instead of $16B.  This is just not a sign of the sky is falling.  Masa could easily get another billion if he needed to.  This is a sign of something else that is not understood at face value.

 

Robert

The $1 billion in capex cut for the next 12 months (mentioned in Sprint's 10-Q) alone isn't too worrisome, but the fact that Sprint management is telling analysts that 2.5GHz is going to be deployed in a CapEx efficient manner (which it should be doing anyway) implies that they are revising deployment charts and cutting back deployment of 2.5GHz materially.

 

Of course, cutting 2.5GHz is likely to hurt Sprint the least, especially if the cuts are largely oriented around culling more sites instead of transitioning them to LTE TDD.

[S4GRU]

The $1 billion in capex cut for the next 12 months (mentioned in Sprint's 10-Q) alone isn't too worrisome, but the fact that Sprint management is telling analysts that 2.5GHz is going to be deployed in a CapEx efficient manner (which it should be doing anyway) implies that they are revising deployment charts and cutting back deployment of 2.5GHz materially.

 

Of course, cutting 2.5GHz is likely to hurt Sprint the least, especially if the cuts are largely oriented around culling more sites instead of transitioning them to LTE TDD.

Ehhh. I wouldn't read too much into that. My company also challenged me to do the same amount of work in a more cost effective manner. Like working in clusters going from one location to the next, and keeping crews and equipment deliveries clumped together. Makes things go faster and spend less money, but requires more planning and management effort.

 

Sprint did not not plan and manage NV1.0 very well and did it about as loosey goosey and haphazardly as possible. I applaud the Masa/Saw laser like focus on managing outcomes instead of just putting out fires.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[lilotimz]

 

Of course, cutting 2.5GHz is likely to hurt Sprint the least, especially if the cuts are largely oriented around culling more sites instead of transitioning them to LTE TDD.

 

Remember ~5000 existing Clear sites will be decommissioned in the next year along with WIMAX being taken off the air sooner or later. That should save quite a good amount of money.

 

Not to mention there are some minor 8T8R equipment shortages right now thanks to the deployment speed...

[bigsnake49]

The $1 billion in capex cut for the next 12 months (mentioned in Sprint's 10-Q) alone isn't too worrisome, but the fact that Sprint management is telling analysts that 2.5GHz is going to be deployed in a CapEx efficient manner (which it should be doing anyway) implies that they are revising deployment charts and cutting back deployment of 2.5GHz materially.

 

Of course, cutting 2.5GHz is likely to hurt Sprint the least, especially if the cuts are largely oriented around culling more sites instead of transitioning them to LTE TDD.

Or deploying band41 around large urban centers first then spreading out from there. I feel like 800MHz LTE/1x is more important right now. Plus it makes no sense to me to install B41 equipment right now and then go back in couple of months and install 8T8R panels. 8T8R are in short supply so urban centers should get them first and suburbs much later.

[caspar347]

Whelp, I was right.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/31/5954969/t-mobile-q2-earnings-profit

I hate it when I'm right.

[GoBigRed79]

Whelp, I was right.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/31/5954969/t-mobile-q2-earnings-profit

I hate it when I'm right.

Yeah..pretty fair write up though.  Did not really trash sprint and even pointed out that most of the profit was from the licensing deal with VZW and not from new subscribers.  

 

 

It's worth noting this quarter's strong financial performance was driven largely by licensing deals with Verizon, which paid T-Mobile $731 million to acquire spectrum. Subscriber growth added to revenue, but not profit. In part that may be because the Uncarrier program, which offers to pay customers early termination fees, incurs a heavy expense up front, with the hopes of holding onto those customers for the long haul.

 

 

All four major US wireless carriers had strong second quarters. Sprint also reported a small profit and said that it had trimmed its losses, with only 181,000 customers leaving over the last quarter. Verizon and AT&T both reported subscriber gains and healthy profits, par for the course among the market leaders.

 

[caspar347]

Yeah..pretty fair write up though.  Did not really trash sprint and even pointed out that most of the profit was from the licensing deal with VZW and not from new subscribers.  

True.

[jamisonshaw125]

Yeah..pretty fair write up though.  Did not really trash sprint and even pointed out that most of the profit was from the licensing deal with VZW and not from new subscribers.  

It was nice to see the last sentence. No torching sprint. It was a nice little pat on the back to sprint for actually improving. Thank you Verge. I was getting tired of reading negative articles from almost every single other blog/website.

[S4GRU]

It's OK to report bad news. It's just the editorial anti Sprint garbage called news like the BGR piece. There is a lot of negative info in Sprint's 2Q Report that's worthy of discussion.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[EvanA]

Looks like we have a new T-Mobile troll "Drew" over at fierce wireless. He's even worse than S. Ali.

[jwang]

If Sprint is slowing down B41 deployment a little bit, I think they are doing the right things.

The small towns and suburban don't need B41 badly. They need B26 to fill the coverage plus the 800 voice.

 

I think they realized they don't need B41 right away everywhere. When John Saw talked about 2x B41 carrier, I don't think they need deploy 2nd B41 carrier in any twon with under 30,000 population in 2015. You can save the budget to put 2nd B41 carrier in big metro like NYC or LA. But don't bother to spend tons of money in next 2 years to deploy that kind of capacity for small towns.

 

Today I tested the XLTE (the place I live is one of the launched market) on my verizon Note3 in lunch time in driving and sitting in local Costco. In the place less than two miles away from town center, I got 1.86mb/s down and 2.99mb/s (0.1mb/s in first test) up in lunch hours for LTE connection. But I am okay with it because I can still check my email and some webpage and apps. Those people who trash Sprint all the time can also trash Verizon to give this kind of speed for their advertised XLTE.

 

The usable data is the key with sub 100 pings. Focus on LTE800 and voice800 plus all over the places and put first carrier of B41 in all mid size and big cities in the rest of 2014. It's the right call from new network team led by John saw, at least in my opinion.

[jwang]

The $1 billion in capex cut for the next 12 months (mentioned in Sprint's 10-Q) alone isn't too worrisome, but the fact that Sprint management is telling analysts that 2.5GHz is going to be deployed in a CapEx efficient manner (which it should be doing anyway) implies that they are revising deployment charts and cutting back deployment of 2.5GHz materially.

 

Of course, cutting 2.5GHz is likely to hurt Sprint the least, especially if the cuts are largely oriented around culling more sites instead of transitioning them to LTE TDD.

 

 

They definitely can turn a lot of sites off especially those clearwire sites colocated with Sprint sites.

For B41 8T8R they should focus on mid/big metro in 2nd half 2014. And give small towns 800 voice and B26 LTE only for this year. Small towns or suburban badly need coverage provided by 800 voice and B26 LTE.

 

They are working toward to deliver usable data everywhere. That's the right way to go. Verizon is not going to give above 10mb/s speed in all its LTE coverage and they won't spend one more cent to do so. But Verizon does great job to deliver usable data almost everywhere or in the coverage bigger than any other 3 carriers. That's what makes them so profitable.

 

Unlimited data or speed above 50 or 60mb/s is not what those most valuable customers care about. Those how go to Tmobile to use LTE like it's home broadband are considered as customers with least or negative value to the company at ATT/VZW.

[EvanA]

 

 

If Sprint is slowing down B41 deployment a little bit, I think they are doing the right things.

The small towns and suburban don't need B41 badly. They need B26 to fill the coverage plus the 800 voice.

 

I think they realized they don't need B41 right away everywhere. When John Saw talked about 2x B41 carrier, I don't think they need deploy 2nd B41 carrier in any twon with under 30,000 population in 2015. You can save the budget to put 2nd B41 carrier in big metro like NYC or LA. But don't bother to spend tons of money in next 2 years to deploy that kind of capacity for small towns.

 

Today I tested the XLTE (the place I live is one of the launched market) on my verizon Note3 in lunch time in driving and sitting in local Costco. In the place less than two miles away from town center, I got 1.86mb/s down and 2.99mb/s (0.1mb/s in first test) up in lunch hours for LTE connection. But I am okay with it because I can still check my email and some webpage and apps. Those people who trash Sprint all the time can also trash Verizon to give this kind of speed for their advertised XLTE.

 

The usable data is the key with sub 100 pings. Focus on LTE800 and voice800 plus all over the places and put first carrier of B41 in all mid size and big cities in the rest of 2014. It's the right call from new network team led by John saw, at least in my opinion.

Nobody said they're slowing down deployment of band 41, the earnings report simply said that will be deploying it in a "more capex efficient manner." The 100mil pops goal and 2nd carrier addition timeline have not changed.

 

Also, going off the STL market premier info, band 41 is not being deployed to more suburban areas/rural areas for the first round. They aren't deploying to small towns initially, that would be dumb.

[lilotimz]

Nobody said they're slowing down deployment of band 41, the earnings report simply said that will be deploying it in a "more capex efficient manner." The 100mil pops goal and 2nd carrier addition timeline have not changed.

 

Also, going off the STL market premier info, band 41 is not being deployed to more suburban areas/rural areas for the first round. They aren't deploying to small towns initially, that would be dumb.

 

The STL info released does not account for all cell site locales. It's only a snapshot of a certain region. It does not encompass the whole market. Both rural and suburban areas are being deployed alongside urban areas as we speak and we have documented proof of it. 

[jwang]

Nobody said they're slowing down deployment of band 41, the earnings report simply said that will be deploying it in a "more capex efficient manner." The 100mil pops goal and 2nd carrier addition timeline have not changed.

 

Also, going off the STL market premier info, band 41 is not being deployed to more suburban areas/rural areas for the first round. They aren't deploying to small towns initially, that would be dumb.

 

 

Good to know that.

 

So is the B41 roll out just a simple overlay on NV completed sites? Can I assume 1st B41 8T8R carrier will be deployed much faster than B25?

[EvanA]

Good to know that.

 

So is the B41 roll out just a simple overlay on NV completed sites? Can I assume 1st B41 8T8R carrier will be deployed much faster than B25?

Correct, band 41 is an overlay. The overlay adds 8T8R panels, RRHs, and basestation equipment. It will definitely come quicker than band 25 because it's not rip and replace situation.