cletus

Very excited to see this deal hopefully go through.

Softbank just signed a $200 billion deal with Saudi Arabia for solar panels. Not really telecom related but still wanted to post because it is Softbank. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-28/saudi-arabia-softbank-ink-deal-on-200-billion-solar-project

Yeah. Regressive not impressive.

nice to see activity here. Overall my speeds in Austin have improved with the exception of the airport which somehow has gotten even worse.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-11-28/softbank-is-said-to-seek-uber-shares-at-48-billion-valuation Well looks like SoftBank found another avenue for it's money..

I'll be the curmudgeon in the thread: My prediction is lower than expected/needed capex spending while continuing to showcase plans that are more "me too!" than "look at me!" (hulu for sprint vs netflix for T-Mobile). I do expect Sprint to slowly build out and densify more towers but to in general start falling behind the other players again. Sorry but they won't small cell their way out of the still existing backhaul and slow tower problem. It is great that Sprint has done so well cutting down operation costs but they can't cut themselves to a faster network. Oh and lastly I predict another year of 3G/barely serviceable LTE at the Austin Airport. I also expect plan costs to rise now that T-Mobile plan costs are also on the rise. marketwise I expect that 2018 will bring even more people cord cutting and looking for services such as DirectTV Now and continue to add to AT&T dominating this area with the AT&T+DirectTV Now bundle discounts.

In to win!

RIP Sprint, etc. Okay maybe not that bad but I still don't see a future of growth for Sprint unless they partner with Dish/Others like ATT and direct TV have done.

Sure. My counterpoint is there is a distinct difference between coverage and user experience. My experience overall the past 2 years or so is yes, coverage is improving but that makes the poor speed towers/lack of backhaul areas that much more jarring especially in urban centers. Comparatively, my AT&T service is much less ups and downs with a more consistent experience but I will admit the fastest speedtests on sprint are higher. Grass is greener/more expensive on the other side I guess.

Too bad the Sprint Iphone X deal is new subs only. I'd gladly upgrade my wife's iphone 8 to an iphone X for a few extra bucks a month but $22 vs $47 is quite a jump. Oh well. Her Iphone 8 works great!

Welp. Time to see what Sprint/Softbank can come up with. T-Mobile+Sprint would have been incredibly powerful and game changing and I really look forward to it. Without the investment into it's network to be more robust and keep up with the other players I don't see much more from Sprint other than meager subscriber gains and hovering between small profits and losses depending on accounting. Lower and lower capex is not a great sign for a network that needs a lot more work to be competitive. I see Tmobile and AT&T on the upward swing with Verizon shedding some numbers to them. For myself I see a higher likelihood that I will go from Sprint to AT&T. My work phone is AT&T and to be frank the coverage, speed, and quality of service are noticeably higher on that phone. Sprint is a good budget choice for me (with my corporate discount) but now that my promo period ($ per line) has ended I am going to reexamine the options. Edit: Maybe it isn't totally off? Sprint T-Mobile deal struggling with governance and pricing issues

Right, we agree. VOLTE isn't easily workable due to CDMA tower spacing. Sprint has to densify it's network and it won't get there with continual capex cutbacks. Small cells and magic boxes won't actually solve this either because of their small coverage area/power. The only fix is A) more towers or B)better frequency. edit: actually mathwise I am not sure even going from 800 mhz to 700 mhz (if T-Mobile and Sprint merge) would fully solve the issue.

Well, doesn't CDMA have a coverage problem with VOLTE? With the current CDMA tower spacing I don't think VOLTE is necessarily an easy overlay of any CDMA network, Sprint in particular. It might work for areas with good tower coverage but I haven't heard how the carriers will address this gap between CDMA voice range vs VOLTE range. If that is still the case CDMA will be here for a LONG time.

Again, It will only take them about a decade or two to get near AT&T and even if they chew up every Sprint customer (doubtful) they will still be millions of subs behind AT&T (the 2nd biggest). So then what? Instead of a Sprint-T-Mobile merger now, we wait 10+ years until we have 3 carriers except the lowest place carrier spent a A LOT more money, has a less competitive network spectrum wise, while the 4th place carrier (Sprint) probably ends up leasing/selling spectrum to the big two because no one else can afford it. Perfect. This is the only way I can see T-Mobile growing to challenge the big two.

Welp. Hope we all enjoy a defacto duopoly for the next 10-20 years.