jamesinclair

From the article:

Sprint began offering a lease option last year, and in an interview Monday, Sprint Chief Executive Marcelo Claure said the carrier will move entirely to that model by the end of the year. That means paying full price or leasing will be the only ways to acquire a new phone from the carrier. Sprint says that 51% of customers who purchased a new phone last quarter used its lease option.

By end of the year they better mean December.

If 51% are leasing then 49% of customers are potentially about to become annoyed and inconvenienced. Is that what Sprint really wants to do right now?

I dont think Sprint is in a strong enough position to take a dump on longtime loyal customers. Verizon can take a piss on their customers and they will beg for more. Sprint is not Verizon

Wow... So what does this mean for people on Legacy Plans: Everything Data/Unlimited My Way ?

 

Those plans literally subsist on 2 year contracts or a Leasing with a Loyalty Service Credit.

I have a legacy plan.

They extended my contract from 20 to 24 months, which IMO was a violation of the terms but whatever, thats another discussion. My renewal is September 1st.

If I am unable to get a 2-year contract on September 1st I will be very, very upset. Especially after the football was moved away from me.

Masa would move the top level people to San Carlos where he's at a good chunk of the time before Miami. In fact, Sprint and SoftBank already downsized presence there after it became clear T-Mobile wouldn't happen any time in the foreseeable future.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/japans-softbank-downsizes-presence-in-silicon-valley-1428465947

 

Heres why I think Sprint will move to Miami  (not in order of importance)

1) Marcelo loves Miami. According to Wikipedia his family lives there, but that may not be accurate

2) Marcelo founded Brightstar, HQ located in .... Miami

3) Brightstar?

"Japan's SoftBank Corp said it had agreed to pay $1.26 billion for a 57 percent stake in privately held cellphone distributor Brightstar Corp as it looks to boost its bargaining power with handset makers.

SoftBank, which owns 80 percent of No. 3 U.S. mobile operator Sprint Corp, said that under the agreement its ownership of Brightstar would increase to 70 percent over the next five years, or upon certain unspecified events."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/18/us-brightstar-softbank-idUSBRE99H0NA20131018

4) Marcelo loves Miami so much hes investing in a new MLS team there

5) Marcelo wants to increase focus on the Hispanic market, including hiring more Hispanic

employees. Miami, believe it or not, has a large qualified hispanic workforce, quite possibly larger than Kansas

6) We now know Softbank does not care for Kansas

7) We also know that politically, Kansas is currently being run like Sprint circa 2006. Without wading into political talk, the fact is, the way the school system has been handled is making recruiting into Kansas difficult. There is no sign of that changing in the near future.

8) If Sprint/Softbank are interested in expanding into Latin America, Miami has the most flights to Latin America than any other city.

I'm not sure you know the scope of Sprint's campus in Overland Park. It's huge. You can bet that Overland Park, Kansas City and the state of Kansas will put up a fight if Sprint even thinks about relocating. 

I could see them moving most of HQ to Miami and leaving certain areas behind in kansas. Maybe Kansas is a good place for the emergency technical teams because the central location allows for short flight times to everywhere in the network. Maybe Kansas has a glut of accountants and theres no reason to move that kind of back end stuff anywhere

Come on.  Apples to oranges.  Kansas City is an important metro area.  But it is not the New York City metro area.  And the New Jersey suburbs of New York City house many Fortune 500 companies.  Kansas City has almost no Fortune 500 companies -- except for Sprint.  Sprint leaving would devastate the metro area.  Basically, an entire square mile in Overland Park would become a ghost town.  That would be a perfect example of corporate social irresponsibility.  No, if SoftBank tries to pull that stunt, Masayoshi Son can go to hell.

 

AJ

Nobody wants to see anybody lose their jobs, but Marcelo's one and only duty is to his stock holders, not the people of Kansas.

The fact that no other company is HQed there hurts Sprint. Companies all locate together because it allows them access to a larger, more qualified labor pool. Thats why tech is all in Silicon Valley and Washington, finance in NYC and Charlotte etc etc

If Sprint is having trouble recruiting, then they need to move.

---

As for radio shack, mine was just converted to an AT&T store. It was amazing, I saw them going in to remove shelves and start painting one day and exactly 11 days later it was open for business. Never seen something like that move so fast.

It looks good, much nicer than the 3rd party Sprint store they kept 2 blocks away.

Masa has denounced Sprint ideas as stupid and denounced their "sleepy, Midwestern culture."

$10 Marcelo is pushing for a move to Miami

Especially because its going to be hard to recruit strong candidates into Kansas with the current political team.

Yeah, I get what you're saying and that does make sense. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe they're trying to give incentive to those on non-LTE/World phones to upgrade. That's certainly not of any comfort to a consumer such as yourself. I don't know about the yahoos that they have running their social media accounts. Maybe an email where you could explain your grievance in more detail might be a better option.

Yeah I really hate the twitter limitations, extremely hard to make a coherent point.

However, the fact that it is public, IMO, means a better chance at a resolution.

My point in tweeing Marcelo was simply to raise the point that CDMA phones are being left out of a feature that they can support because the new plan bundles the romaing aspect (which they cant support) with the free calls from USA aspect (which they could do). I think that was an oversight that can be corrected.

The fact that Sprint made so much noise about the Aquos and yet it was not a world phone is major bs, but thats a whole other topic which I am not attempting to address here and on tiwtter because that ship has sailed. 

The issue is being that Sprint is having a tough time negotiating new agreements on international CDMA, as roaming companies internationally are removing CDMA networks.  And Sprint cant afford to pay the market rates for CDMA roaming internationally.  Soon you won;t be able to roam in CDMA anywhere anyway.

I understand that. I am not talking about roaming, I am talking about making a call from the USA, to Mexico.

Is there any technical difference between me making a call from NYC to Mexico City on a Galaxy 6 or a Sharp Aquos?

I can't see why there would be.

Not sure why you're complaining the aquos is not compatible.. Its cdma + LTE only.

 

In the other countries they're roaming via gsm /umts(Wcdma/hspa) or lte networks.

 

Im not talking about the roaming part.

The thing is that the plan offers free calls FROM the US to Mexico....that doesnt require GSM at all. I would like to make calls using the Aquos from the US to Mexico.

I am simply trying to point out to Marcela that by bundling the ability to call Mexico from the US for free with the ability to roam, CDMA phones are left out for no good reason.

I believe they could add a seperate CDMA-only check box that would enable CDMA phones to take advantage of the parts of the plan that are technologically possible. Thats all Im asking for.

So I tweeted Marcelo and customer care reponded:

Me: Sad that sprint exclusive Sharp Aquos phone not compatible with free calls to Mexico plan (Open World). Feeling left out

Them: Sprint One World refers to traveling to those countries. http://sprint.com/international  to view our intl LD plans @marceloclaure

Thats really embarassing. They got the name of the plan wrong AND they dont know what it offers! I

Sprint still has an issue with their customer service where it takes 2-3 weeks from anouncement until the reps are trained. When IVR came out I was lectured about how there was no such thing as free international data.

Ha!  My first Sprint plan in 1998 I think was 120 anytime minutes, no N&W or anything like that, obviously no data and it was $40 a month.  And that was considered good pricing. 

Was it considered roaming if you travelled to another state?

It came out in mid-June. Why is it hilarious though?

It reminds me of the plans way back in the day that offered 20 minutes.

So this is super annoying.

The plan offers free calls to Canada and Mexico right?

Well, not available if you have a CDMA only phone. Eugh.

Also, this is new I think, and hilarious

Cuba 20 Plus - $10.00

Yup, 20 minutes.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/7/9116493/verizon-is-doing-away-with-contracts

 

 

Getting rid of contracts and going to shared data is an unexpected move from Verizon.. I thought they would hold on to contracts until the end of time.

Wow screw you Verizon.

On the plus side, Sprint can now differentiate themselves by having contracts forever

WOW!

So glad that Tmobile got the ball rolling and even happier than Sprint was able to match them so quickly. I remember in earlier discussion people here saying it would never happen due to partners...and yet here it is!

Disappointed that free unlimited 2g is gone in Europe, but $30 for a GB honestly isnt that bad. And free texting is the big thing for me anyway.

So Ive been forgetting to call...

Called right now. Total call time was under ten minutes, including phone menus!

I simply said "I was told I might qualify for a wifi router due to service issues" and he knew exactly what to do. Said Id get it in 48 hours AND he said he took off $40 from my bill due to the call service issues! (I didnt ask at all)

Very good phone customer service experience.

I asked them where the charges came from.  The sprint rep said it looks like you were connected to 3G at some point and that is where the charges came from.  And then when he said that it hit me that at one point, I saw my phone display the "3G" icon vs. the "GSM" icon.  I just assumed that even though it said "3G" that my speeds would be throttled to 2G speeds.  So the Sprint rep put me on hold and about 5 minutes later, the sprint rep told me that they will credit my account for the amount charged.

 

I should have known about it and just set my phone mode to GSM/UTMS and avoided the fiasco.  Basically the Sprint rep told me that normally when people are going to travel internationally, they advise calling their phone number to give you the run down steps on how to prep your phone to use the International Value Roaming data plan to avoid connecting to non GSM networks.

This is why I made sure to call twice (see the OP) to guarantee if I was charged Id be credited. I was told it would be impossible to incur a charge,

Also, if you look at the OP, youll see my phone also displayed 3G at some point, along with H+ and E

I find this whole naming system to be really dump. X Style, Play, Pure? Its confusing.

It also doesnt help that not only are the sizes all different, but so are the specs. I dont like the Iphone but Apple has the naming system right.

Anyone know if the battery is removable?

Do these phones have pedometers?

I would not recommend the Aquos. It was a pump and dump release

I think Sprint is a big sponsor for the Gold Cup soccer tournament being played right now. 

Yes, tons of Sprint ads on Univision during the tournament.

Unfortunately the Kansas City MLS team has their jersey sponsorship tied up until 2022.

But I would certainly love for umproved service at the Red Bull stadium

Anyone see that AT&T jacked up all their activation fees? Highway robbery.

It's not really a fair comparison considering ED 1500 isn't available to new subscribers now, while this deal is.

Im not saying that, Im just saying I always look into these new anouncements for every company and have never found one that could woo me away from my plan.

4 Lines @ 10GB each  for $30 per line...    or $40 per line for 20GB? 

 

http://explore.t-mobile.com/simple-choice-family-plan-with-10gb-data

 

Reminds me of Cricket.  Could cause some similar competition. 

Meh, once you add the phone costs, my Sprint ED1500 plan with corporate discount is still a better deal.

The Sprint free data thing is limited to GSM anyway. I dont see why adding free voice limited to GSM would be an issue as well.

Most users are on Iphones or premium androids that have GSM right?

I am very glad to see Tmobile do this. Cant wait for the rest to eventually follow.

It is aggravating that Samsung held that as an AT&T exclusive. Lots of people on the other carriers would buy that instead of the GS6. I hope Samsung is happy with whatever payola they took from AT&T. [emoji107]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Samsung loves to make very short-sighted decissions

No. Data should count as data. Period.

 

 

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I dont see it being any different than having a limited minute basket, but unlimited minutes to your pre-selected friends and family (AT&T), or Sprints very own Unlimited Moble to mobile.

Should voice always be counted as voice?

I agree that the uncarrier pricing is complete bs, but te other uncarrier stuff has been great to the industry.

We only get free international 2g because Tmobile did it.

The not counting streaming music in the data is also really cool.

I havent seen a single pricing innovation thats been good for the customer, coming from any company, but at least weve gotten some good features.