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

[Ascertion]

That video just gave me more confidence, like a pep talk after a 3-8 season but you still feel like your going to at least get the wildcard to have a shot at the championship. When they said talk less and do more. That was a standing ovation.

The video answered a lot of questions but they still want to stay quiet on the network upgrades so the competition does not know? You can say broad things like "X markets will see over 5,000 new sites, macro and small cells by the end of 2016." Meh, I am glad they finally answered the service disruption question. That was what most people were concerned about in regards to the site relocations.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5X

[RedSpark]

The video answered a lot of questions but they still want to stay quiet on the network upgrades so the competition does not know? You can say broad things like "X markets will see over 5,000 new sites, macro and small cells by the end of 2016." Meh, I am glad they finally answered the service disruption question. That was what most people were concerned about in regards to the site relocations.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5X

 

Competitive intelligence is a very important thing to keep in mind here. Sprint clearly doesn't want to give away any information that a competitor can take advantage of to the detriment of Sprint, and even the most seemingly innocuous piece of info can be a gold mine for the competition to know in terms of deducing Sprint's resources or strategy. These competing companies have multiple people on staff, or retain outside experts to do competitive intelligence modeling based on every single utterance a Sprint Executive makes.

 

These Sprint executives are clearly well aware of this, and I'm glad Sprint is being smart about how this is handled.

[derrph]

That video gave me so much more hope!

 

 

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[EvanA]

 

 

BingeOn looks like it has been a disaster for their network.

If you think BingeOn hurt their network you're sorely mistaken. At least for now, BingeOn has resulted in an INCREASE in network speed and capacity. Reducing all video streams to 480p saves tons of bandwidth. Their rapid subscriber growth has had a big impact on network speeds. Sub growth has outpaced their network upgrades, resulting in reduced performance.

[RedSpark]

Apparently, Marcelo just sent out a letter to employees explaining the reasons for moving up the Earnings Call:

 

When I looked back at what we accomplished with our network over the past year, I’ve got to tell you, it’s clear to me that we have a really good and positive story. I’m excited because no other wireless carrier made greater improvement than we did, and this gives us such a solid foundation to make our network even better. That’s why I found it so frustrating – to tell you the truth, I was really angry! – when the media reports came out with rumors about our network plans.

Last Friday, Re/code published an article saying that we were going to take $1 billion in operating expenses out of our network, and move our equipment off towers we lease. This led to more speculation by other publications and analysts, and some of them jumped to inaccurate conclusions. Some were saying we are going to make our network worse and they questioned the strength of our company’s finances for the longer term. With all of these rumors flying, we’ve seen a steep drop in our stock price.

I’m a big believer that we need to address something like this head-on, so I want to talk about it with you. And we also will tell Wall Street analysts, investors and reporters next week because we moved up our quarterly results announcement from when it was initially planned. We will be working through the weekend so we can get everything ready in only a few days. Usually we spend more than two weeks working through the final details for reporting our results. But we don’t want to wait this time because we are going to set the record straight!

 

Via the Sprint Subreddit

[RedSpark]

That video gave me so much more hope!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

If you're that much of a believer, buy some Sprint stock! Investing is based on "hope" you know....  

[derrph]

If you're that much of a believer, buy some Sprint stock! Investing is based on "hope" you know....

That I do know lol.

 

 

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[Ascertion]

Competitive intelligence is a very important thing to keep in mind here. Sprint clearly doesn't want to give away any information that a competitor can take advantage of to the detriment of Sprint, and even the most seemingly innocuous piece of info can be a gold mine for the competition to know in terms of deducing Sprint's resources or strategy. These competing companies have multiple people on staff, or retain outside experts to do competitive intelligence modeling based on every single utterance a Sprint Executive makes.

 

These Sprint executives are clearly well aware of this, and I'm glad Sprint is being smart about how this is handled.

Only if they created a map of sites they're going to upgrade in the next few months. Similar to how they had the roadmap for Nextel removals. AT&T was following the map and sending ads to former Nextel subs. That was dumb, however, I feel like reassuring the consumer has more beneficial impact on Sprint than staying quiet. Something broad like this post today is good.

 

It emphasizes that their consumers experiences are important, and that they are working on it. People are skeptical, after the whole WiMax/Network Vision fiasco.

 

If you think BingeOn hurt their network you're sorely mistaken. At least for now, BingeOn has resulted in an INCREASE in network speed and capacity. Reducing all video streams to 480p saves tons of bandwidth. Their rapid subscriber growth has had a big impact on network speeds. Sub growth has outpaced their network upgrades, resulting in reduced performance.

I think the unlimited data for all users until March is what's hurting the network the most. Once that ends, I fully expect speeds to pick back up.

[nexgencpu]

I think the unlimited data for all users until March is what's hurting the network the most.  Once that ends, I fully expect speeds to pick back up.

I doubt the speeds will increase in bigger cities. Maybe smaller towns might see some improvements, but here in NYC, its brutal. Sprint without the second carrier have slowed down to sub 5mbs average, Att has been horrible here. Tmobile used to be a heck of alot faster, now its closer to 5-10mbs. Only Verizon has held up well, but even their speeds have taken a big hit.

 

It's crazy to think 10mbs during business hours in Midtown is actually as good as it gets.

[Calvin200]

This far into a project with the equipment already being designed and made, what could be left of a secret?

[jeffcarp]

I doubt the speeds will increase in bigger cities. Maybe smaller towns might see some improvements, but here in NYC, its brutal. Sprint without the second carrier have slowed down to sub 5mbs average, Att has been horrible here. Tmobile used to be a heck of alot faster, now its closer to 5-10mbs. Only Verizon has held up well, but even their speeds have taken a big hit.

 

It's crazy to think 10mbs during business hours in Midtown is actually as good as it gets.

Honest question: what day to day usage of a phone needs more than 10 megabits per second? I'm not at all trying to be antagonistic here I just don't understand how people use their phones to need more speed than that today.

[Ascertion]

This far into a project with the equipment already being designed and made, what could be left of a secret?

Funding for the actual installs. AT&T had major network plans either last year or the year before and stopped half way through because the cost of upgrading was much higher than anticipated.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5X

[jeffcarp]

This far into a project with the equipment already being designed and made, what could be left of a secret?

I think they're referring more to the densification strategy with small cells?

[tyroned3222]

Will sprint have to continue offering the 50% promo to win customers?

 

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[RedSpark]

Will sprint have to continue offering the 50% promo to win customers?

 

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Sprint previously extended it because it was working. And not every one of those customers ultimately chooses the 50% off plan from the offer page or when in the store. It starts a conversation and gets people in the store or on the website. Some of those customers wind up choosing the $70/month Unlimited Plan instead ($60 for each additional line if they want to add friends/family to it), which isn't discounted.

 

It's a good question. We'll see.

[nexgencpu]

Honest question: what day to day usage of a phone needs more than 10 megabits per second? I'm not at all trying to be antagonistic here I just don't understand how people use their phones to need more speed than that today.

My point is not how usable 5, 10 or even 20mbs is (I think 99% of users would be totally satisfied with 10mbs average) But rather what will those numbers look like in another 6 months to a year. 

 

We know Att is busy deploying WCS, Verizon is king of small cell and Sprint has 2.5, what will Tmobile do? I think 600Mhz will do nothing for them and unlicensed spectrum would take mounds more density.

[Ascertion]

My point is not how usable 5, 10 or even 20mbs is (I think 99% of users would be totally satisfied with 10mbs average) But rather what will those numbers look like in another 6 months to a year. 

 

We know Att is busy deploying WCS, Verizon is king of small cell and Sprint has 2.5, what will Tmobile do? I think 600Mhz will do nothing for them and unlicensed spectrum would take mounds more density.

The only thing they really can do is refarm Edge to B2 LTE for additional capacity.  I'd have to look up how much PCS T-Mobile has in NYC, though.  I agree that Sprint's capacity plans are golden for now.  I would personally like Sprint to announce their 5G plans soon.

[tyroned3222]

Sprint extended it because it was working. And not every one of those customers ultimately chooses the 50% off plan from the offer page or when in the store. It starts a conversation and gets people in the store or on the website. Some of those customers wind up choosing the $70/month Unlimited Plan instead ($60 for each additional line if they want to add friends/family to it), which isn't discounted.

So do you think they will continue to offer it?

 

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[tyroned3222]

The only thing they really can do is refarm Edge to B2 LTE for additional capacity. I'd have to look up how much PCS T-Mobile has in NYC, though. I agree that Sprint's capacity plans are golden for now. I would personally like Sprint to announce their 5G plans soon.

It read in an article that sprint could mimic 5G speeds with opening all of there carrier aggregation pipes...any truth to this?

 

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[Ascertion]

It read in an article that sprint could mimic 5G speeds with opening all of there carrier aggregation pipes...any truth to this?

 

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3xCA, and 4x4 MIMO is probably more than capable.  Sprint mentioned late last year they plan on experimenting with up to 5xCA soon, so we'll see what happens as it gets closer.  If it's as simple as adjust backhaul and installing a carrier card, it may be an easy transition, especially if they have NGN going full throttle.

[JimBob]

Apparently, Marcelo just sent out a letter to employees explaining the reasons for moving up the Earnings Call:

 

 

Via the Sprint Subreddit

Awesome! 

 

[RAvirani]

3xCA, and 4x4 MIMO is probably more than capable. Sprint mentioned late last year they plan on experimenting with up to 5xCA soon, so we'll see what happens as it gets closer. If it's as simple as adjust backhaul and installing a carrier card, it may be an easy transition, especially if they have NGN going full throttle.

Not just 4x4, 8x8 right?

[laqn1283]

I believe the main reason that Marcelo is so quiet about NGN is because of the network equipment leasing vehicle.  It is very likely network equipment vendors will likely accept some cash as payment for sprint's capital expenditure but also accept some of the payment as long term lease.  Both vendors and Sprint have every incentives not to reveal the vendors because they don't want other providers especially Tmobile (who does not have that much cash either) to request vendors to extend them similar treatments.  

[jeffcarp]

My point is not how usable 5, 10 or even 20mbs is (I think 99% of users would be totally satisfied with 10mbs average) But rather what will those numbers look like in another 6 months to a year.

 

We know Att is busy deploying WCS, Verizon is king of small cell and Sprint has 2.5, what will Tmobile do? I think 600Mhz will do nothing for them and unlicensed spectrum would take mounds more density.

From what I am reading, I am not seeing the typical user experience being 5 mg in a market that has LTE Plus completed so I'm not sure it's a valid concern to worry about what the future will be like. I think the future will be LTE Plus with speeds as far as I am seeing that are significantly greater than what you are describing.

[nexgencpu]

From what I am reading, I am not seeing the typical user experience being 5 mg in a market that has LTE Plus completed so I'm not sure it's a valid concern to worry about what the future will be like. I think the future will be LTE Plus with speeds as far as I am seeing that are significantly greater than what you are describing.

Not to sound condescending or anything,

 

But, did you actually read my post?