Fraydog

Comcast will not merge with Verizon. Just stop. That would create a mega corporation beyond all imagination. Not even a Trump administration would approve that. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-28/comcast-buying-verizon-it-doesn-t-like-wireless-that-much

The closest thing to a national cable company is Comcast. That said, they didn't really compete against anything except satellite up until cord cutting became commonplace. Sure you could mention U-Verse. That wasn't in enough places and a lot of times wasn't much better or different than X1. Then AT&T panicked and overpaid for DirecTV.

Cablecos will be losing revenue as the pay TV bubble deflates.

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https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Sprint-Charter-in-Merger-Talks-140639

Charter back in it. I see the problem with this is that Rutledge and Malone will want control over Sprint and will put Masa in the back seat. When Masa meets with them, that will be the air let out of the Charter/Sprint balloon.

Also, cable and wireless tech isn't exactly complimentary at this point, though Sprint could push Charter off QAM to IP for wired video, they might also need a better DVR because Charter's current DVR sucks compared to Dish' s Hopper, DirecTV's Genie, or Comcast's X1. Even my local cable company has a whole home DVR. Charter got rid of theirs! It isn't like a combined Sprint and Charter will be able to bully people into getting wireless like Charter does with cable and Rogers can do with cable and wireless up in the frozen North. Rogers has one less national competitor for one. Only way Masa can replicate that is for DT to take over Sprint and with Masa playing backseat driver while Legere and Hottges trying to negotiate something with Comcast or Charter.

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I went to check on MarketWatch using a Google search, but I'm not seeing any official report yet. Any links?

29 minutes ago, jebr said:

I don't see Sprint, even within the next 5 years, being a true "serious player" to Verizon, especially in rural markets. The cost to do so would be immense, likely for relatively little gain in the short-to-medium term.
In my view, Sprint's competitive path forward is to try and morph their network into the "value carrier" network. With T-Mobile's huge capex over the next few years on the 600MHz side, rates will likely have to go up to make the network profitable. If Sprint can focus their capex on densifying and making truly solid their urban/suburban network, ensure the highways between them are adequately covered, and keep strong roaming agreements to cover those remote locations that are well off the beaten path (enforcing roaming limitations as needed to ensure that it's not a huge cost sink,) I think Sprint can find a distinct path as the value carrier that will give you an inexpensive price compared to the other three but with a solid network where you need it most and backup to ensure you can still call/text anywhere there's cell service.

I live in a two player market and I'm almost out of contract and the only difference between this upcoming deal and the last one is that AT&T is an equal here as opposed to lagging. In other words, I have a duopoly as opposed to a monopoly.

What T-Mobile does is a wait and see due to no 700 MHz here, and the likelyhood that STL region will not experience full 600 MHz clearance until late 2019 at the earliest.

It's still better than the landline broadband choices here.

Edit: some of the areas around me and around STL are going to be doing some 600 MHz testing so maybe I've spoken too soon on 600 not coming here any time soon. Washington County, IL, which borders Randolph County to the NE, is doing 600 MHz testing. 

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I'm hoping Sprint goes to 1.5 billion per quarter on CapEx at least. If it's anything less than that, SoftBank isn't putting enough investment in.

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On another note, I'm not sure SoftBank has the 100 billion it would probably take to buy a combined Charter. Besides, if SoftBank was under capitalizing Sprint and yet found 100 billion for a pay TV business people are cutting the cord from, then what in the world was SoftBank doing with Sprint.

If that's what Sprint is being owned by, then give me Legere all day.

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Truth is, if Comcast came back to the table, I’d be OK with that. Sure, they don’t have a stellar reputation but Sprint doesn’t have a great reputation right now either. Comcast has the capital to spend. Does SoftBank care? 

Frankly, given SoftBank’s track record, maybe they should sell to someone. It doesn’t have to be T-Mobile. 

Masa buys Charter, he has an actual cash cow that could generate profit to invest in wireless. Plus, if he then decided to sell Sprint to T-Mobile later, he'd have Charter to package in with it. 

Dish's stock is up on this... lol

Sprint and Charter makes more sense, to be honest. 

Gives Sprint and SoftBank some landline assets and a very modest amount of content. Spectrum areas could be covered better with small cells. 

Trying to get T-Mobile through, while it would have been unreal as far as coverage and speed goes, was too much of a pain. 

I'm going to briefly emerge from my bunker to comment on this latest "Uncarrier" since I'm near a contract end and there's a large iPhone launch on the horizon.

T-Mobile doesn't need another Uncarrier. They need to fix their operations, specifically their ordering and customer service. I read reddit lately and it's thread after thread after thread complaining about all that. Coverage has, on their end, actually improved and I give them full credit for that. T-Mobile has 29 of 30 large metros covered with 700 MHz. I live in the 30th, of course. That said, how is Netflix, something I barely watch and quit subscribing to because it was less and less of a value with less compelling content to me, how is that a big gain? I'd have rather seen T-Mobile partner with YouTube TV, Sling, or PlayStation Vue. There's still a lot of demand for conventional channels out there.

Having to pay for Netflix is not a pain point on Verizon. To be honest, the pain point on Verizon comes down to price. That's it. Netflix is not much more of an appeal than GoFing90 is. That said, where I sit, Verizon speed has never been higher, so I don't see where Legere is saying "the Verizon network is slowing down" how are most customers going to tell the difference between 26 Mbps and 22? I sure can't. It's more of a pain point that HD is being taken away on Verizon where T-Mobile just charges more for it. T-Mobile One Plus takes unlimited prices up to VZ levels when they do not yet have VZ coverage.

I would have rather seen T-Mobile skip Uncarrier altogether for the rest of the 2017 while they wait to see what the Fatherland wants to do in regard to Sprint (and remember it isn't Legere's call, it's Tim Hottges that makes that call), and also fix the customer service and ordering while they continue coverage expansion with 600 MHz coming online.

On another note, Legere's spiel about satellite dishes is hilariously out of touch with how large geographical chunks of the country still get TV. I'm all for cutting the cord, but instead of insulting satellite, maybe realize there are some areas of the country where that's still a better method for TV than over the top, let alone mobile where it ends up being a shitshow due to spectrum constraints. I only recently got rid of satellite, and only because YouTube TV finally filled in the hole. I tried DirecTV Now, it was awful as far as reliability went. It can work for me, but then again I'm probably one of the few in Chester paying for a 100 Mbps cable connection. People on DSL are still likely having horrible luck with over the top. 

I wonder how T-Mobile is doing with clearing the 600 MHz block around St. Louis. It has to be a priority considering that this is the only major market left for them without 700 MHz. Right?

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The long comments are unreadable on Tapatalk. Of course it could be a deficiency of that program.

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T-Mobile's answer to the Verizon Unlimited is about to end.

 

http://pocketnow.com/2017/03/31/t-mobile-one-hotspot-promo?

I am not sure the coverage and the reliability is there yet for T-Mobile to stick at that price point. Of course the biggest discount is on the multi line plans. That said VZ has really approached the price points intelligently here. There's enough of a premium on their end but it isn't a big price gap by any means.

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Also, let's not forget that if HPUE was on in idle mode, that it would be a massive battery cost.

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The solution/answer is to not run speed tests.

 

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In a perfect world. With today's marketing climate, zero rating speed tests could encourage a better sample size more reflective of the gains in Sprint's network, and make Ookla tests a better benchmark for positive network progress. 

On a side note, my Mom, normally a Verizon customer, went overseas to Europe with a T-Mobile One SIM. It worked really well for her. I was able to use FaceTime, FaceTime audio, and texting to communicate with her flawlessly in the UK, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. That was a nice plan to use for $70 a month considering that she'd have trouble installing different SIM's in each of the countries I mentioned or paying steep roaming on VZ. 

https://promo.sprint.com/Registration/AAdvantageLanding

Anyone ever tried this promo? This would be interesting to me if I lived in a Sprint area currently. 

I recently read that T-Mobile would rather merge with a cable company (like Dish), thus possibly ending any Sprint-T-Mobile merge, I wonder if a merge with Charter Communications/Spectrum/Time Warner would be a better mix. I'm curious of the pros and cons.

 

On a side note, I always thought a while back that if Sprint were to rename itself, that Spectrum would be a perfect name, butl TWC took it.  

 

Either way, I'm curious, if not T-Mobile, then who would be a good merge fit for Sprint if Masa indeed wants to unload the company or merge it with someone else.

 

TS

Both companies aren't that far away from each other. Spectrum is HQ'ed in Des Peres, MO (STL suburb) and Sprint is based in Overland Park as we all know. The geography and cable/fiber in the ground make sense. I imagine Spectrum as a merged entity could use that fiber assets to put serious capability behind the spectrum assets Sprint brings.  

In fact, Spectrum as the name would make sense. 

People still roam on V?? LOL  (I haven't roamed on V for about 2 years)

 

All joking aside, if by 2019 V roaming is still a thing, I think Sprint will have other issues to worry about.

I honestly thought that on newer Sprint phones, Verizon roaming had to be deliberately enabled in the settings. Someone correct me if I am wrong here.

T-Mobile has to go get some spectrum for their constrained markets. Seems like they are getting hit hard in Chicago and LA from what I see even with 4x4 MIMO and 256 QAM.

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Thank the Good Lord above that this is a field test on COMMERICALLY DEPLOYED EQUIPMENT. Now I can only hope the CapEx ramps up in earnest so we can see this come over a far greater part of the network.

Also nice to see real progress on VoLTE. I'm hoping there's some sort of opt in this year. Finally Sprint management is talking good game on getting Sprint on a single network standard.

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Sprint added a handful of B41 mini macros to congested NV sites, but most of the actual improvement in the Ookla numbers comes from the new Sprint-hosted speed test server that popped up in New Orleans ahead of the gigabit demo. Latency is about 50% lower and throughput is about 50% higher in comparison to other nearby speed test servers.

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John Saw can't make Masa increase cap ex. And to be fair, Sprint has had to pull back from Cap Ex because of the debt obligations of the past, debt obligations that came because of the past errors of Forsee and Hesse. 

I realize people are frustrated with the lack of spending and the issues that Trip pointed out which Sprint can fix without cap ex. I just  hope people realize frustration can cause cognitive dissonance and see the root of the problem rather than merely mocking it. 

That said, I think that the engineering people can and should lay low talking about the spectrum haul until much more of it is paired with infrastructure capability. I certainly think that is a fair complaint. Likewise, complaining about spending on RadioShack/Tidal/Pokemon is also fair when that capital could have and should have went into network infrastructure. 

I hope Marcelo reverses course and pulls back on RadioShack. If the real estate is good for Sprint corporate locations, do that. If the real estate is not, let it be someone else's problem.