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

[JeffDTD]

I love the data bucket size that Sprint has offered. Its more than generous and an easy sell if a user has good coverage. It sounds like Marcelo and Son have realized that good coverage + value will win more users than "swiss cheese network +budget priced unlimited ". They're right.

I consider a single user who is sucking down more than 10-15gb a month to carry a *heavy* usage trend. Waaaay more than average and by no means entitled to " blow it out" because sprint was desperate or low enough to sell unlimited. At the same time, expect sprint to allow you to keep your unlimited plans, with asterisks. Throttling, more expensive new devices, etc.  Switching your streaming quality back to normal instead of HD and only streaming movies when you have wifi is not the end of the world and certainly not the way the current networks have been designed to service all users.  

 

And I guess Sprint could always pull more tmo or cricket tricks to maintain the illusion of unlimited. Could pull roaming coverage and enforce a permanently throttled speed after a certain usage point.  

[lou99/maximus1987]

If sprint pulls the unlimited plan it will be a huge bait and switch on their part. They promoted unlimited when the network sucked and it would be a miracle if you could use more than 5Gb a month given the network performance. Still a lot of us stuck with them because of the unlimited data and promise of a better network in the future . If the get rid of it after finally making their network usable, it seems unfair to people like myself who stuck by then through all of the 'pardon our dust' phases.

This mindset is erroneous: neither sprint nor any other company is loyal to you. They never said "til death we will provide unlimited". Marcelo's loyalty is to the shareholders and theirs to their money which they've invested.

 

Marcelo/Legere/mcadams/randall is not your buddy.

 

 

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[derrph]

This mindset is erroneous: neither sprint nor any other company is loyal to you. They never said "til death we will provide unlimited". Marcelo's loyalty is to the shareholders and theirs to their money which they've invested.

 

Marcelo/Legere/mcadams/randall is not your buddy.

 

 

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I agree but a lot of T-Mobile fans think John is their friend. As network quality changes in a good way so does the CEO and their overall plan with how maintaining it.

 

 

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[lou99/maximus1987]

I agree but a lot of T-Mobile fans think John is their friend.

 

 

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And they're the cult of Legere that AJ references. I had an exchange on twitter with a cult member who insists that legere is a true consumer advocate and would never raise prices as CEO of combined TMO sprint co. Why? Bevsuse he met him and 'he seems to be a good guy'

 

#delusional

 

 

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[derrph]

And they're the cult of Legere that AJ references. I had an exchange on twitter with a cult member who insists that legere is a true consumer advocate and would never raise prices as CEO of combined TMO sprint co. Why? Bevsuse he met him and 'he seems to be a good guy'

 

#delusional

 

 

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lol wow he really said that? I updated my last post but what he fails to see is when John took over it was free for all with data use and and abuse it. But as their network started to greatly improve he started making changes with the throttling or whatever you want to call it and then the 2 year unlimited data guarantee.

 

But that goes for all these cellular companies. As things improve your models change to maintain a good quality network. Prime example look at Verizon and AT&T good networks that don't offer unlimited and yet people will still pay for their services because of the quality. I just fear the day when John pulls unlimited. People will have a fit and call him a bunch of liars and every name in the book.

 

 

 

 

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[IamMrFamous07]

I wish I was a fly on the wall during Masa Sons and Marcelo's conversation. But in 18-24 months I see Sprint having 3x Carriers (60mhz) of band 41 deployed and FDD and TDD CA!

[lou99/maximus1987]

lol wow he really said that? I updated my last post but what he fails to see is when John took over it was free for all with data use and and abuse it. But as their network started to greatly improve he started making changes with the throttling or whatever you want to call it and then the 2 year unlimited data guarantee.

 

But that goes for all these cellular companies. As things improve your models changes to maintain a good quality network. I just fear the day when John pulls unlimited. People will have a fit and call him a bunch of liars and every name in the book.

 

 

 

 

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Technically he never said he would get rid of unl. What he said, at last uncarrier event, is the #uncontract: for NON unlimited plans, prices will never go up while for unlimited he said "that's a different animal" and gave a 2-year price price guarantee.

 

 

 

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[clbowens]

I wish I was a fly on the wall during Masa Sons and Marcelo's conversation. But in 18-24 months I see Sprint having 3x Carriers (60mhz) of band 41 deployed and FDD and TDD CA!

 

And hopefully as much "native" coverage as Verizon (through smaller regional carriers or whatever).

[maxsilver]

I love the data bucket size that Sprint has offered. Its more than generous and an easy sell if a user has good coverage.

 

I wish they would offer that for individual lines. I'd prefer to pay for my data -- but Sprint doesn't really have a fair price for data buckets for individual lines

 

Sprint only sells the $50 or 60/month for "Unlimited with throttling/prioritization/management/asterisks/whatever after 5GB". Which seems like a worse deal for everyone -- Users are incentivized to use as much data as they can, and Sprint is incentivized to slow their data down as much as possible or play stupid games with data (like double-compressing images)

 

 

 

Cricket's plans are the right idea. If Sprint just shamelessly copied Cricket's entire pricing + plan lineup, I would be thrilled. Kill "Unlimited" and replace it with reasonable data buckets and no overage fees. 

 

I'd happily pay $45/month for 5GB (w/ no overages)  or $55/month for 10GB (w/ no overage) over $50/month for "Unlimited-ish-depending".  That solves the whole 'fairness in data usage' issue and the iPhone vs Android price/data discrimination issue all at once.

[lou99/maximus1987]

lol wow he really said that? I updated my last post but what he fails to see is when John took over it was free for all with data use and and abuse it. But as their network started to greatly improve he started making changes with the throttling or whatever you want to call it and then the 2 year unlimited data guarantee.

 

But that goes for all these cellular companies. As things improve your models change to maintain a good quality network. Prime example look at Verizon and AT&T good networks that don't offer unlimited and yet people will still pay for their services because of the quality. I just fear the day when John pulls unlimited. People will have a fit and call him a bunch of liars and every name in the book.

 

 

 

 

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I used 20GB last month but only 5.5GB counted by TMO because they don't count speedtests and music streaming.

Of that 5.5GB, a big chunk is HBO GO, Netflix; I really thought I was a bigger hog than that.

 

As a TMO user, I wouldn't mind TMO drastically increase $ of unl IF they increased the base allotment.

Those people who use 100GB - considering music and speedtests aren't counted - definitely should pay more.

[derrph]

Technically he never said he would get rid of unl. What he said, at last uncarrier event, is the #uncontract: for NON unlimited plans, prices will never go up while for unlimited he said "that's a different animal" and gave a 2-year price price guarantee.

 

 

 

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Oh my mistake then. Even still he is making changes to his model as the network improves.

 

 

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[lou99/maximus1987]

 That solves the whole 'fairness in data usage' issue and the iPhone vs Android price/data discrimination issue all at once.

 

I wonder which accountant/actuarial (and how) computed that iphone users are worth $10 more per month than Android lol.

[cdk]

There is no need to pull unlimited.

 

Now to defend my statement, no unlimited plan is truely unlimited. Even on an unburdened site over a fixed billing period a device can only consume so much data. The practical bound for that number is even lower than the theoretical maximum.It is only a matter of pricing it appropriately.

 

Now would I pay that price, I am not sure.

 

 I wish they would offer that for individual lines. I'd prefer to pay for my data -- but Sprint doesn't really have a fair price for data buckets for individual lines
....
Cricket's plans are the right idea. If Sprint just shamelessly copied Cricket's entire pricing + plan lineup, I would be thrilled. Kill "Unlimited" and replace it with reasonable data buckets and no overage fees. 
 
I'd happily pay $45/month for 5GB (w/ no overages)  or $55/month for 10GB (w/ no overage) over $50/month for "Unlimited-ish-depending".  That solves the whole 'fairness in data usage' issue and the iPhone vs Android price/data discrimination issue all at once.

 

I do like that idea as well, or at least my understanding of it. If I use only 5GBs (or less) this month, I pay the price for the 5GB bucket, if I am heavy on my use of data next month and use 9GBs, then I pay the price for the 10GB bucket.

[utiz4321]

There is no need to pull unlimited.

 

Now to defend my statement, no unlimited plan is truely unlimited. Even on an unburdened site over a fixed billing period a device can only consume so much data. The practical bound for that number is even lower than the theoretical maximum.It is only a matter of pricing it appropriately.

 

Now would I pay that price, I am not sure.

 

 

I do like that idea as well, or at least my understanding of it. If I use only 5GBs (or less) this month, I pay the price for the 5GB bucket, if I am heavy on my use of data next month and use 9GBs, then I pay the price for the 10GB bucket.

To price is sensitive to the cost of delivering service, the perceived value derived by the consumer and the level of competition. The cost for sprint to expand capacity is reality let low compared to the competition because they still have vast amounts of undeployed spectrum. I think it is ironic a little that while the major cost for ATT and Verzion is maintaining the data network while for sprint it is about making a data network reliable enough to support VoLTE. That is a big driver behind the network densification, for sprint voice is the cost driver again.

[lou99/maximus1987]

Getting rid of unlimited, or even increasing the price, needs to be done tactfully

I think a good "drive the point home"-presentation should show the following:

1) total $ paid by non-unlimited people vs unlimited

2) total data used by non-unlimited vs unlimited

 

maybe (1) is not skewed, because of the $50/$60 unl plans, but (2) is definitely skewed towards unlimited

 

3) the cumulative distribution graph of data usage % for unlimited users

Using TMO's 97% prioritization rule as a guide, the top 3% use an insane % of the total amount of data used by unl customers.

If TMO or Sprint were to say "look: 97% of all users use less than X GB while in the top 3%, the median person uses Y>X GB", I think rational people would definitely accept X GB as the 'unlimited' ceiling.

[S4GRU]

 

 

Now to defend my statement, no unlimited plan is truely unlimited. Even on an unburdened site over a fixed billing period a device can only consume so much data.

OK. And if only 4 or 5 devices were consuming the maximum amount of data per sector, the site performance would suck for the other 100 users. So now a cell has to be added (cell splitting). A new macro site costs up to $250k. So how do you propose we share the cost of that new site just among the 4 or 5 device holders to get a true cost? There in lies the problem.

 

Since it is almost always high usage unlimited abusers who push a well performing site over the threshold and makes capital spend necessary, dividing out the costs just over this small pool would make their monthly cost $300-$400 per month. Not going to happen. So the ending result is everyone else pays.

 

 

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[lou99/maximus1987]

A new macro site costs up to $250k. 

Does this include a new physical tower?

If yes, how much does a macro site cost if it's put, say, on a building?

[kojitsari]

OK. And if only 4 or 5 devices were consuming the maximum amount of data per sector, the site performance would suck for the other 100 users. So now a cell has to be added (cell splitting). A new macro site costs up to $250k. So how do you propose we share the cost of that new site just among the 4 or 5 device holders to get a true cost? There in lies the problem.

 

Since it is almost always high usage unlimited abusers who push a well performing site over the threshold and makes capital spend necessary, dividing out the costs just over this small pool would make their monthly cost $300-$400 per month. Not going to happen. So the ending result is everyone else pays.

 

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

Would a throttling mechanism that kicks in on 'unlimited accounts' when they have hit a certain amount of burden on an individual site work?

 

Say they have 10gigs on one site and then they get throttled to 1 mb for 12 hours on that site. Technically enough to do everything but stream video, hell you can download this fine at that pace too, you just need patience, yet it would free up quite a bit of capacity for everyone else.

[S4GRU]

Getting rid of unlimited, or even increasing the price, needs to be done tactfully

I think a good "drive the point home"-presentation should show the following:

1) total $ paid by non-unlimited people vs unlimited

2) total data used by non-unlimited vs unlimited

 

maybe (1) is not skewed, because of the $50/$60 unl plans, but (2) is definitely skewed towards unlimited

 

3) the cumulative distribution graph of data usage % for unlimited users

Using TMO's 97% prioritization rule as a guide, the top 3% use an insane % of the total amount of data used by unl customers.

If TMO or Sprint were to say "look: 97% of all users use less than X GB while in the top 3%, the median person uses Y>X GB", I think rational people would definitely accept X GB as the 'unlimited' ceiling.

OK. It should be done tactfully. However, the end of unlimited is not imminent. That wasn't even said here. But what is happening is that Marcelo is throwing it out there letting people know that unlimited is not sustainable the way it is being delivered by Sprint now. And then there will be changes at some point.

 

Dan Hesse said the same things 2-3 years ago and people were losing their minds then. This is much ado about nothing. Sprint will keep unlimited as long as it helps them differentiate and keep/gain customers. When the cons outweigh the pros, they will make changes to unlimited. That will not happen next week. Just like it didn't happen 'next week' 2-3 years ago.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

[S4GRU]

Does this include a new physical tower?

If yes, how much does a macro site cost if it's put, say, on a building?

That is a leased location cost, so it matters little whether it is on a building or tower. The cost would be greater if the structure was built out too. Which is very rare for a wireless company these days.

 

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[maxsilver]

Does this include a new physical tower?

If yes, how much does a macro site cost if it's put, say, on a building?

 

A cell site costs on average $1,500 - $2,500/month for a length of 3 to 6+ years, depending on various factors (location, weight load, space requirements, amount / provider of backhaul, etc).  There are some outliers above / below that range, but this is a pretty good average.

 

This generally holds true regardless of whether it's 'new' construction or not, a physical tower or a rooftop, etc

[lou99/maximus1987]

When will small cells be needed

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/madden-where-will-small-cells-be-needed/2015-05-27

 

[cdk]

When will small cells be needed

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/madden-where-will-small-cells-be-needed/2015-05-27

 

 

I opened the article and thought the author was John Madden (not Joe) for a second!

[cdk]

OK. And if only 4 or 5 devices were consuming the maximum amount of data per sector, the site performance would suck for the other 100 users. So now a cell has to be added (cell splitting). A new macro site costs up to $250k. So how do you propose we share the cost of that new site just among the 4 or 5 device holders to get a true cost? There in lies the problem.

 

The cost can be calculated but it won't be cheap.

 

Since it is almost always high usage unlimited abusers who push a well performing site over the threshold and makes capital spend necessary, dividing out the costs just over this small pool would make their monthly cost $300-$400 per month. Not going to happen. So the ending result is everyone else pays.

 

 

It could be that high assuming the worse case situation. However someone using but not abusing (those abusing it just need to be termintated) unlimited won't put that strain just on a single site for 24 hours a day (and I doubt even an abuser could). A true unlimited plan might have a cost closer to $180-$240 per month.

 

Now would I pay that, no. I suspect most people wouldn't.

[utiz4321]

Cost in the future will need to be raised but until sprint's spectrum is fully deployed they can maintain the current price level.

 

With two 1900 carriers and one non-optimized 2.6 carrier lte is really good and consistent in a marked where sprint has a rather substantial market share. They still have at least two more 20 MHz 2.6 carriers, aggregations, optimization and b26 to deploy. Unlimited at these prices has a long runway.