Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

[Nickel]

Was hoping to see more post paid net adds but anything positive is excellent and I imagine next quarter will be huge! Nearly a million adds total is awesome! A little confused why they are referring to this as the 3rd fiscal quarter? I would have thought we'd be at Q4 by now no?

They use quarters differently then most, I think because of SoftBank but I can't remember.

[joshuam]

Most companies follow fiscal years that don't match the calendar year. The U.S. Govt fiscal year is Oct-Sept.

[marioc21]

Was hoping to see more post paid net adds but anything positive is excellent and I imagine next quarter will be huge! Nearly a million adds total is awesome! A little confused why they are referring to this as the 3rd fiscal quarter? I would have thought we'd be at Q4 by now no?

 

 

Sprint changed its financial reporting to match SoftBank's after the acquisition was completed. They used to follow the calendar year, but now they report on a fiscal year basis. 

[marioc21]

The audio of Marcelo's financial presentation is available here: http://www.veracast.com/webcasts/citigroup/imt2015/42213581229.cfm

[marioc21]

Most interesting thing I picked up from his Q&A was that they are net port positive against T-Mo.  So for all of Legere's shots, Sprint is taking more customers from T-Mo than giving away.  So that's a plus. 

[centermedic]

I think it is generally pretty fair to rank sprint down at the bottom of lte coverage and speeds in a great many markets. The key to sprint having a competitive network has always been the deployment of lte across all three bands (adding more cells would help too) and they are not even close to completing this. Until then sprint's network will continue to under perform the competition.

Not sure how you can make that observation unless you have first hand knowledge and experience in the 50 biggest markets. So much of what most folks know about other markets is based on anecdotal word of mouth information or clearly faulty data. Network performance tends to be variable to the point that it may perform poorly one minute and then gangbusters the next. A non biased well vetted data set over a sufficient amount of time and geographical area is the best bet to obtain an average level of performance for any given area and provider.

[lou99/maximus1987]

Most interesting thing I picked up from his Q&A was that they are net port positive against T-Mo. So for all of Legere's shots, Sprint is taking more customers from T-Mo than giving away. So that's a plus.

That conpletely contradicts what Legere said that sprint port ratio is 2.2

[marioc21]

That conpletely contradicts what Legere said that sprint port ratio is 2.2

 

Marcelo's comment was regarding total net ports.  That means prepaid and postpaid customers.  Seems like Sprint is doing a good job of taking prepaid customers from TMo. Maybe Legere was just referencing postpaid customers.  

[maxsilver]

Most interesting thing I picked up from his Q&A was that they are net port positive against T-Mo.  So for all of Legere's shots, Sprint is taking more customers from T-Mo than giving away.  So that's a plus. 

 

Sprint claims it's net port positive against T-Mobile, and T-Mobile claims it's 2.2 net port positive against Sprint (according to FierceWireless from the call).

 

However, in the actual released results, Sprint claims 0.03 million postpaid adds and T-Mobile claims 1.30 million postpaid adds. Sprint's gaining more prepaid adds than T-Mobile (410k vs 266k), but T-Mobile's postpaid additions tower over that significantly.

 

I'm inclined to believe T-Mobile's port ratio is probably more accurate, based on the actual numbers from Sprint's Press Release vs T-Mobile's, unless some new information comes to light.

[milan03]

Sprint claims it's net port positive against T-Mobile, and T-Mobile claims it's 2.2 net port positive against Sprint (according to FierceWireless from the call).

 

However, in the actual released results, Sprint claims 0.03 million postpaid adds and T-Mobile claims 1.30 million postpaid adds.

 

I'm inclined to believe T-Mobile's port ratio is probably more accurate, based on the actual numbers from Sprint's Press Release vs T-Mobile's, unless some new information comes to light.

Marcelo seems to be talking about prepaid port ratio. Not postpaid.

[maxsilver]

Marcelo seems to be talking about prepaid port ratio. Not postpaid.

 

Ah, ok. That sounds more accurate.

 

If you scope it to exclusively prepaid users, that port ratio could easily be accurate (based on both of their released numbers).

[marioc21]

Sprint claims it's net port positive against T-Mobile, and T-Mobile claims it's 2.2 net port positive against Sprint (according to FierceWireless from the call).

 

However, in the actual released results, Sprint claims 0.03 million postpaid adds and T-Mobile claims 1.30 million postpaid adds. Sprint's gaining more prepaid adds than T-Mobile (410k vs 266k), but T-Mobile's postpaid additions are more than triple Sprint's prepaid adds.

 

I'm inclined to believe T-Mobile's port ratio is probably more accurate, based on the actual numbers from Sprint's Press Release vs T-Mobile's, unless some new information comes to light.

 

 

Marcelo seems to be talking about prepaid port ratio. Not postpaid.

 

Marcelo was referencing TOTAL net ports.  That includes postpaid and prepaid.  T-Mo's number was strictly postpaid.  Looks like sprint was able to pry away significant prepaid customers from them.  

[utiz4321]

Not sure how you can make that observation unless you have first hand knowledge and experience in the 50 biggest markets. So much of what most folks know about other markets is based on anecdotal word of mouth information or clearly faulty data. Network performance tends to be variable to the point that it may perform poorly one minute and then gangbusters the next. A non biased well vetted data set over a sufficient amount of time and geographical area is the best bet to obtain an average level of performance for any given area and provider.

It is easy. Look at rootmetric. you don't need first hand experience.

[centermedic]

It is easy. Look at rootmetric. you don't need first hand experience.

IIRC Root metrics data collection model has come under some fire.

[utiz4321]

IIRC Root metrics data collection model has come under some fire.

Sure. And individual wireless experiance on a given network is highly subjective. But when can talk about an average experiance. Root metrics and other sources are not perfect but valuable resource to discribe such an experiance, especially when combined with a reasonable expectation of how a given band would work on a given cell site density it is easy to conclude that sprint either needs more cell sites, all three bands deployed or both to have a network that is competitive with their competitors.

 

This is reflected in the root metric data. In areas where sprint is further along in the deployment of b26 and b41 their network performs more in-line with the competition.

[jeffcarp]

IIRC Root metrics data collection model has come under some fire.

If that is true, it would be important to know by who and for what reason.

[JossMan]

I don't know if this is being discussed anywhere but I found an article saying that CEO Marcelo Claure said that the carrier’s management is currently evaluating the 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings, and might be interested in selling the airwaves.

 

Article found here.

 

[joshnys8913]

Well this was a interesting find about Spark dated today 1/8/15

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2015/01/08/sprint-2-5-ghz-spectrum-sale.html?ana=yahoo

[cletus]

Yeah I can't blame them for considering selling some of that spectrum when it is valued so ridiculously high.

[joshnys8913]

Yeah I can't blame them for considering selling some of that spectrum when it is valued so ridiculously high.

yea, but it would be nice for them to give more sites Spark (41) first before selling lol

[clbowens]

Well this was a interesting find about Spark dated today 1/8/15

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2015/01/08/sprint-2-5-ghz-spectrum-sale.html?ana=yahoo

I hope they don't sell TOO much of that spectrum though.  They should keep enough to have at least 4 B41 channels in each market.

[joshnys8913]

I hope they don't sell TOO much of that spectrum though.  They should keep enough to have at least 4 B41 channels in each market.

thats what I am saying keep enough for each market then sell it

[clbowens]

I hope they don't sell TOO much of that spectrum though.  They should keep enough to have at least 4 B41 channels in each market.

That could also increase our available of B41 coverage.  Say if they sell it to VZW and they deploy it to all the places they have their LTE coverage currently.  Then Sprint signs a B41 roaming agreement with VZW.  Or the roaming agreement could be part of the deal.

[joshnys8913]

Look on the good side, Sprint is STILL ahead of T-mobile    and shockingly this came from Cnet (which I notice they usually dont talk good about Sprint much I have noticed). 

http://www.cnet.com/news/sprint-battles-back-by-adding-almost-1-million-customers-last-quarter/#ftag=YHF65cbda0

 

Also part 2: Best growth in years!! 

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2015/01/08/sprint-subscriber-growth.html?ana=yahoo

[WiWavelength]

I don't know if this is being discussed anywhere but I found an article saying that CEO Marcelo Claure said that the carrier’s management is currently evaluating the 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings, and might be interested in selling the airwaves.

 

Article found here.

Yeah I can't blame them for considering selling some of that spectrum when it is valued so ridiculously high.

 

Sprint has to consider the "value" of keeping nearly all of the massive BRS/EBS 2600 MHz bandwidth to itself and away from competitors versus selling, profiting, and letting those same competitors help Sprint grow the band 41 domestic ecosystem.

 

AJ