JeffDTD

I guess Captain Howdy couldnt come up with any arguments to trump Son's assertion that Softbanks offer is superior, so he decided to get personal and spew gossip like the bridge burning earth scorching rancid shat eater he is ..... if softbank is denied permission to acquire sprint, I would love to see sprint buff charlie's offer and throw everyone with interest back on the table. Dish is not the "only" play sprint has in a post softbank situation I desperately want a smear piece on charlies legal history to be pushed by a news source or tech site. From spectrum squatting to the cablevision/amc drama last year that revealed dish had been lying about customer numbers and trying to force product partnerships in return for agreements. There are several decades of skeletons in his closet

That presentation killed it!! Slide #34 is my favorite.

Whoever buys Sprint, I'm willing to be reasonable. But I have terms: 1) Customer Service remains the same or gets better 2) Pricing remains competitive and sprint preserves its value proposition 3) For covered areas, the network is maintained The days of Sprint being the cash strapped underdog will be over if Sprint becomes Dish owned. And to that extent, I will refuse to make any excuses or take crap from an over-leveraged company owned by a maniac. In my eyes, Sprint has a chance at finally being free of its financial handicap and champion wireless competition. Should it choose a few extra borrowed dollars over that, I have absolutely zero tolerance for much of any of the shortcomings realized when Captain Howdy can't find 37 billion in synergies. Publicly , Ergen could be a real lunatic. He's a bridge burner. Basically "my way, or scorched earth". I could see him wreaking havoc on relationships with regional carriers as well as pissing all over Sprint's careful relationship with Verizon. Would be of absolutely no surprise to me to hear Ergen got pissed off because X phone manufacturer "refused to negotiate favorable device specs or pricing for Sprint" and likewise, X model phone won't be sold by Sprint. And the lovely thing about him is he likes to fight all his battles publicly.

I'd like to think this is evidence of Softbank's eagerness http://newsroom.sprint.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2576

Exactly what keeps me away from Tmo. I suffer through slow 3G at times, but I can always depend on having the ability to talk and text. In any rural area, a Tmo customer runs the risk of being broke down on the side of the road and having to wait for the generosity of a stranger to call roadside assistance.

I like that statement, because its a two way street. Tmobile is under no obligation to guarantee feature pricing on your rate plan and absolutely no obligation to provide or guarantee you the same coverage at your job, home, or new location. Sprint has released thousands and thousands of contract customers over the years for diminished coverage or network issues, lack of coverage after relocation, and rate plan or feature changes as a result of the t&c's of the contract. Further, lets say you have someone on a family plan who dies- think tmo is going to forgive the subsidy on their phone? Heck, right now theres a thread in this section of s4gru started by a sprint user looking for ways to reduce or wiggle out of his etf. My point is: for all the reasons people are accustomed to being able to exit wireless contracts, this new oh so free and breezy "uncarrier" has outsmarted every single one of them to its benefit, not the users.

Let em go get caught up in this. Perhaps it slows their next regional carrier buying spree

No "penalty", they are just obligated to pay Apple whether they sell them or not. If for some reason sprint ended up having to buy a surplus, it would simply drive the consumer cost of the phone down temporarily. Its not a big deal.

Hahaha the things said about those MS coast people once you get north of Jackson... I was a military kid, so I am not farm fed or magnolia braised. My family is from the coast, but i'm not the devil lol. Sprint's reputation will improve only marginally due to NV in its current incarnation. The majority of the people using the network here now are low income or prepaid. Cspire is also the biggest detractor of rural expansion. Its way cheaper for Sprint to allow preferred 3G roaming on Cspire than it is for Sprint to try to compete in a majority rural state.

Me too. I have quite the imagination and in that split second had this awful fear that Captain Howdy would come reigning down on us like a big ball of hellfire and damnation... kill this site, etc etc "You want unlimited data and more network vision!? Well I want a new yacht, your soul and more importantly, more money. Do you have any idea how expensive this world is ? Why don't you have a hopper!? "

And a big HELLO from Hattiesburg to you. Another member from the obesit- AHEM hospitality state is a welcome addition. There are very few of us

Are you loving the Iphone4s you have? Do you travel much? The biggest pro with Sprint vs. Tmobile for me has always been the robust roaming available with CDMA vs. GSM. That could be a non-issue in the areas you frequent, but I would strongly encourage you to seek out friends or family who have tmobile and ask if or where they have "no service" issues. For me, a move to Tmobile would mean weaker service inside buildings and huge swaths of "no coverage". Its also great to ask about real world HSPA+ speeds. I know that in some dense markets, they can be just as labored as Sprint's 3G. If your contract ends November 27th, I interpret that to mean you would still have a reduced ETF with Sprint until then. Do you love the Galaxy 4? That would be a solid purchase on either carrier, but if you're gonna go Iphone, I would think you might have a good bit of regret if you jump into a new contract this summer with an Iphone5 and a new release is 2 months out. When evaluating Tmo, also remember that LTE deployment will be exclusive to current HSPA+ areas Also, the T-mobile name isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Expect plenty more pink. The newly formed company may evolve the branding a bit, but they don't have the funds to implement a total makeover nor the justification.

Surely you don't believe Sprint is responsible for incompetent Amazon advertising? Confusion is a sales issue, not an inherent flaw. Considering Sprint has to pay Clear a small monthly fee for every active wimax device, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to modify the stock software to remove access to the wimax radio completely. Removing all mention of Wimax functionality would coddle idiotic customers a bit more. But you know what? The 4G confusion goes much deeper and is more prevalent than Sprint or the GS2. What do you make of the iphone4? Iphone4 customers on ATT are greeted by a 4G logo in HSPA+ areas, yet they will never have LTE access. So when an Iphone4 customer on ATT nestles up next to an iphone4 customer on sprint, does the sprint customer say to themselves "I wonder when my iphone4 will get 4G?" Is that Sprint's fault , regardless of advertising? My defense of the GS2 was only based on the radios and functionality. It is not a 'defective' phone. Android issues are more common after multiple OS upgrades for a number of reasons. I carried a GS2 for 11 months on Gingerbread with zero issues. I'm not everyone, but neither are the people ranting in the sprint community.

Is your "biggest issue" conceived under the assumption that customers are too inept on smartphone technology to understand or expect there to be a difference between a free device thats advertised as the "Galaxy S II" (not Epic 4G touch) and a device that costs $100-$249 and says "4G LTE? When you view this phone on sprint's site, it includes "4G WIMAX" under its "key features" and further down, tells you "4G WIMAX is not available in your area". Perhaps retailers aren't advertising or informing customers of this as well as the website, but c'mon.... its a free device and the disclosure is adequate. Its should be purchased by a customer wanting a huge, slim 3G capable phone with a fantastic screen and unlimited data. The very same conversation should be happening when a customer considers an Iphone4 (because its free) over an Iphone5. The GS2 is a big screen option for the Iphone4 customer (who loves free things) but hates that tiny screen. If we apply this logic to other carriers, ATT and Tmobile are wrongly selling HSPA+ only phones. As far as the S4, I'm dreading you buying it. Why would you buy something that you openly state disappoints you?

This coverage map obsession that verizon conditioned the wireless consumer to have years ago is always interesting to me. When I look at sprint native coverage for my state, if I werent a sprint customer already, it would scare me. Real world usage? Im in sprint coverage most of the time and I always have reliable roaming. I never go without coverage. Verizon's "extended network" approach , instead of using that "roaming" word worked so well on the public perception. As a possible answer to some of this, I remember a thread awhile back that discussed sprint adjusting the formulas used to show coverage strength and can confirm that in my area, there is more variability shown in the map. Places that use to say "excellent" now show fair/good, which is more accurate. Flipside, some places where it works perfect for me now show fair/poor and would make you think it was much worse than it is

Well of course there is resentment. Sprint courted atleast 5 potential suitors/strategic partners before settling on softbank. Dish was indeed one of those partners. When you are working through multiple offers and you say to them "give me your best and final offer" and the quote response is " company z would require a significant period of due diligence before considering any business combination with Sprint and that he believed that Sprint's then existing market price was in excess of his view of Sprint's fundamental value" OF COURSE it pisses you off when company z comes barrelling in at the 11th hour with zero regard for your selection process or your governance and tries to publically shame you into picking them instead. Charlie under estimated sprints capacity to succeed and thats his fault and no one elses. He wanted them to gravel at his throne and be able to jerk them around for months on end while he picked them apart and dangled his money at them. He misses his chance. Oh, poo poo Charlie. Poo poo. And whos to say that charlie wouldnt try to renegotiate his offer after he chased softbank away? Hes a mean poker player.....basically "give me what I want or im out". Thats absolutely his strategy in trying to stop fcc review. With softbank fcc approval, he could end up back in a multiple offer scenario. Without it, he has sprint over a barrel and ability to spew more vitriol around about softbank. Sidenote: I work for a corporation that handles the marketing and disposition of bank owned residential real estate in 30+ states. Cry baby buyers who lose in multiple offer situations and throw tantrums are all too common and a real pain in my ass.... all you can tell them is " you had your chance, you lost. We'll call you if the buyer who won doesnt close". The people who throw fits are almost always the people who had the worst offer of all.

I'll bring the spinach dip... and a big dart board with you know who's face on it.

Captain Howdy has taken his fantasy to the FCC now, trying to postpone the softbank/sprint approval. It amazes me that he seems to consider sprint incompetent in speaking for itself. He also plays no role in the approval of the softbank/sprint tie up. Just more rhetoric from the cap'n . http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-18/dish-asks-fcc-to-defer-action-on-softbank-bid-for-sprint.html

Ergen is wreaking havoc on sprint. Exactly what he wanted.

I LOVE THAT MOVIE.. thank you for making me smile... It would def take a visit from The Winchesters to put Cap'n Howdy the hell circus clown down.

Its not like he would die

Captain Howdy would say just about anything right now. If the verb he used was "aim", what he really means is "we might do it" , just like when someone asks you to go hang out with them and you say "oh, I don't know, I might come", really meaning "I'm 90% certain I won't be doing that". You think Sprint & Tmobile have been stingy about capital expenditures in areas where the return is not guaranteed? Captain Howdy is a penny pinching maniac. I expect him to go on a big media blitz in the next few weeks if he gets the feeling Sprint isn't going to take his deal, especially if we get FCC approval of the Softbank deal. SO, expect more rosy promises from Charlie. And in the event he sugar lips his way into being the Fuhrer of his new media dynasty, he won't bat an eye at throwing hot coffee on the first person at the table who asks him to consider something that doesn't guarantee him immediate return.