Mr.Nuke

LTE covering 260 million people 2.5 LTE aka Band 41 covers 92 million Total Net additions of 590,000 subs Postpaid net loss of 272,000, prepaid net adds of 272,000 and wholesale net additions of 827,000 Operating Revenue of $8.5 billion, Operating loss of $192 million. Net loss of $765 million for the quarter, $284 million of that being severance packages. EPS loss of 19 cents per share versus analyst consensus estimates of 6 cents More cuts coming: 2,000 more previously unannounced layoffs People: "The company has launched a management review and will seek to grow its leadership talent with a combination of internal candidates, new outside talent and SoftBank resources" Postpaid deflections declined significantly in September with net losses slowing by almost 60 percent Postpaid gross phone additions grew 37% month-to-month in September 800 and Band 41 deployments are on track to meet goals for the end of the year. Capital Expenditures for next year are being revised downward to less than $6 billion. http://newsroom.sprint.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=11627

If you can get access to the base station the fiber hookup at the back is typically a fairly good indication. The bigger indication in our markets now is if a GMO is converted to a full build, fiber is there and the sites have been picking up LTE acceptances with two weeks.

The speed increases are likely a result of the NV base station equipment being able to handle bonded t-1 lines. Had the rural GMO sites actually had upgraded fiber or microwave backhaul in all likelihood they wouldn't be GMOs at this point.

It depends on what figures you are looking at. They didn't hit analyst revenue and EPS projections (lost money when they were projected to have a profit). The "merger budget" was a bunch of financing continent on a merger. This isn't money sitting around somewhere for network upgrades. Furthermore, we have no evidence that network upgrades are overcapitalized right now. You have access to the premier level schedules, things are progressing rapidly. I doubt Sprint's plans change in any significant way as a result of that statement.

It is curious that T-Mobile is the only carrier that never was able to get Nebraska numbers then. AJ may correct me, but we may have had the record for most wireless providers at once in Omaha in the early 2000's: Cingular-->AT&T, Sprint, Nextel, Qwest, Cricket, Us West (Airtouch--> Verizon), Verizon, Alliant-->Alltel--> Verizon, Us Cellular, and T-Mobile sitting on their protection network. It seems like their were plenty of numbers to go around here for anyone that wanted them.

Way to go John! http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/omaha-ne

I think we have a new one for you AJ in Omaha.

That is one way to look at it. The other way would be to consider that for basically the entire year the stock had been trading at a premium due to potential merger/buyout talk. That premium is gone today with the stock reverting to last December like value.

Iliad has bowed out of the T-Mobile bidding. I doubt Charlie is willing to pay what DT thinks their stake is worth either with no one left to bid against. Iliad's statement can be found here. http://www.iliad.fr/en/presse/2014/CP_131014_Eng.pdf

I cannot believe Legere has resorted to paying off deer in North Dakota. Glad you are ok...

Just to be clear this isn't exactly "new" news. These are the same cuts that were reported at the end of last week.

Add a 0. It was the 30th. http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprint-reports-third-quarter-2013-results.htm The past several years it has been the 4th week.

Apple doesn't give app developers the access they need for apps like Signal Check or LTE Discovery unfortunately. The dialer code is not only way to get the hex/gci, and serving cell/pci site information.

We have observed a similar pattern in Nebraska and Iowa as well.

Wecome to the site. Most of the Cedar Rapids sites were broadcasting LTE by last September (so over a year now). There are still some sites yet to be covered, but you must have had a device issue with the 5s or somehow have turned off LTE like bmoses said.

I see that you've donated which we appreciate and just want to make sure you find your way to the right spot here. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4711-nebraska-iowa-market-spreadsheets-and-maps/

Welcome to the site! As you find your way around you'll find this site is a tremendous resource for information on the Sprint network. Your fellow Central Iowans have an extensive map and spreadsheet about every Sprint site in the Central Iowa area at the sponsor level. I'm going to move this post to the regular Central Iowa thread.

Because Band 26 and band 41 have no correlation with each other. As Dkoellerwx mentions, Band 25/26 share a common panel at a site. Band 41 requires a separate panel. Any hold ups with San Bernadino vacating the 800 spectrum have absolutely zero effect on 8T8R or Clear Band 41.

Sprint is going to continue deploying 2.5 across the entire country. The 3-5 cities by 2016 (and I think this is still likely under promise over deliver) will have Tokyo like coverage. This means adding a significant number of sites and new small cell deployments to completely blanket cover a city. Again though, at the same time they will still be installing 8T8R equipment across the entire network during this time. They are still on track for 100 million POPs covered by the end of this year.

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments on my first article and to Robert for sticking around to clarify questions. I'm swamped this afternoon with work.

. by Seth Goodwin Sprint 4G Rollout Updates Thursday, September 11, 2014 - 11:20 AM MDT Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has only been on the job for 3-1/2 weeks, but dramatic changes have already been made. Claure took part in Goldman Sachs 23rd Annual Communacopia Conference this morning in New York City. During the course of an approximately 35 minute onstage interview, Claure’s strategy for Sprint going forward was publicized for the first time. Claure started by noting the advice he received as a first time CEO of a publicly traded company was “don’t make any changes for the first 100 days.” He continued “I just couldn't help myself. On day 4 we changed everything we do from the time we go to market.” In his first meeting with Sprint’s vice presidents in Overland Park, Claure asked a simple question. Why would anyone buy a Sprint phone? The question itself was somewhat rhetorical. As Claure noted to the audience “really there wasn't really any compelling value proposition [at Sprint]." He noted that Sprint was more expensive than some of their competitors while still “coming out of a pretty traumatic network experience.” As to Framily, Claure discussed that even he himself had a hard time understanding how the plan worked, and was less than thrilled that “We were marketing with a hamster talking to people." The Way Forward Insight into Claure’s strategy can be traced back to his time at Brightstar. Over a 15 year period, Marcelo transformed a company from selling cellphones out of the trunk of his car in Miami, to a full scale cellular logistics corporation with over $10 billion in revenue in 2013. This entrepreneurial spirit and underdog mentality is what he is seeking to replicate at Sprint. Plans In the wake of complicated plans and the success of family share plans at Verizon and AT&T, Claure identified this as Sprint’s first target. Within his first four days on the job, Sprint’s post-paid plan offerings were drastically overhauled. He emphasized Sprint’s commitment to match or beat AT&T and Verizon on price as well as surpassing them by doubling the data offered on comparable competitor’s plans. By the end of Week 1, a competitive individual plan was also released. By essentially concentrating plan offerings to two simple to understand plans, Claure sees the ability to market and sell these plans to consumers being easier going forward. He told store employees forget about the rule book “just go out there and be an entrepreneur… It is incredible when you empower your employees and allow them to be entrepreneurs the type of things that start to happen.” Network Claure is aware of the importance of the network. He specifically noted that he monitors network performance daily. Even with that, he is optimistic about where he's taking Sprint into the future. “The network is our product…We provide connectivity and the network needs to be good in order for customers to come.” He also was gracious towards what former CEO Dan Hesse had already accomplished on the network side before leaving. “He made a pretty bold move,” Claure said. “We basically went and did a whole rip and replace of our network.” Marcelo noted that most of the network hardware replacement is done. Something the S4GRU sponsor site statistics bear out. Without providing details, Claure underscored something we have been hearing out of Sprint for the past several months...that the deployment of LTE Bands 25 and 26 are being accelerated with 255 million POP's now covered by Sprint LTE. As we have discussed on this site numerous times, Spectrum is ultimately one of Sprint’s key differentiators. “We have over 160MHz in the 2.5 band. Our majority shareholders entire secret sauce in Japan was based on their 2.5 network.” Marcelo said 60 million POP's are currently covered by Band 41 LTE. These are former Clearwire WiMax sites that have been converted to Sprint’s Spark LTE. One of the more interesting aspects of this morning’s event was the change in Sprint’s 8T8R Band 41 deployment strategy. Marcelo elaborated, “We are going to move to a smarter model in terms of how we deploy our equipment” going forward. He discussed that when he arrived, Sprint’s plan was simply to deploy new Band 41 8T8R equipment across their over 30,000 sites. Which is essentially all their existing full build Network Vision sites. The problem with this strategy according to Claure is that this “takes us too long to be good anywhere.” The new strategy has 2.5 LTE (Band 41) deployments being concentrated in areas where the existing network is overburdened. In the second wave of the Band 41 8T8R deployment attack, Sprint will be “going strong after a few cities...focusing on a few critical markets and deploying an experience that hasn't been seen yet in the U.S.” Shifting the focus to areas that need the extra capacity first is strategically important. If implemented properly, getting Band 41 LTE sites deployed across all markets where they are absolutely needed for extra capacity will help make the network more usable for end users. “There is no need for us to plaster the nation with 2.5, because it is going to take too long,” Claure said. “Rather we’d like to get some wins early on.” The Near-Term Plan To Claure, ultimately price and the network is Sprint’s winning value proposition. He noted in the wireless industry, you can either compete on price as T-Mobile has been aggressively doing as of late, or you can compete on the quality of your network as Verizon or AT&T does. That left Sprint in a precarious position, “we were the most expensive and our network is a work in progress.” Claure added, “You are going to see us now be the value driver… And potentially in the market for a really strong advertisement network.” Claure concluded, “If you can have price and the really strong network; you have a winning value proposition." To compete on value in the near-term, expect Sprint to aggressively counteract competitor’s moves. Claure gave the example of T-Mobile announcing a guaranteed best price on a device buyback or trade-in. Later that afternoon Sprint countered, offering to do better than T-Mobile. Sprint was in part able to make this play due synergies with Claure’s former company Brightstar, now fully owned by Softbank. Brightstar is the largest player in the phone trade-in market in the world. Claure noted synergies between Sprint and the over 1,000 companies Softbank owns or does business with are a competitive advantage. He noted that the value proposition is Sprint’s optimal strategy at this point and concluded by saying Sprint must be the ultimate disruptor in the industry. You can say what you want about Sprint's past. But the future is changing. It's squarely in Marcelo's hands. And he's gaining momentum.

It just ended. That was very informative to see where he is coming from. I tried to summarize things as best I could with the bullet points in my post on the last page.

Always told not to touch anything in first 100 days when becoming a CEO, I couldn't help myself. Completely changed value proposition on day 4. Asked managers why would someone come to Sprint? The blunt answer is you wouldn't. More expensive, coming out of traumatic network experiences, Adverting a plan I had trouble understanding. Family share pack- Same price or lower price than AT&T or Verizon with double the data. Network needs to be good for customers to come. Applauds Hesse for bold move with rip and replace of network. Spectrum is the differentiator. Again accelerate deployments. I monitor the network every day. When I got here plan was lets deploy 2.5 across 30,000+ sites. Changing deployment to focus on areas that need it first. Where the network is over capacity. Then focus strategically on certain cities. No need to plaster the nation with 2.5, we need to get some early wins early on. Ultimately Price + Network will be a winning value proposition. With low margins cost structure management is key. Has entire department monitoring spending We tried to compete everywhere. When you do that you cannot win. Laser focus on certain areas that are winnable. Wants to be fast, flexible nimble. Talks about responding to T-Mobile's buyback program within a day. Advantage of having brightstar connection as BS is largest player in the world there. Took job because he loves the challenge of being the underdog. We have 16% of the market there is 84% of the market out there. Tremendous opportunity to make things more simple. Ads are confusing among competitors Tokyo and Softbank shows the power of 2.5, good capacity at reliable speed means there will always be customers that want your service Masa is a very unique person. Masa is a winner. Has long-term view on an investment. He never comes in on an investment and gets out. Masa's priority get more incoming customers than leaving. recent first couple of days of customer gains were first since Masa owned Sprint Certain things Softbank has we can learn from. Wants to get Masa a lot more involved than past. Past was sharing best practices alone. Masa is 100% committed to providing help we need. Masa had weekly meetings with top 25 Sprint employees. Ended that. Masa trusts me. We talk once a week though and I use him as my bouncing board Open relationship with employees. Used salespeople in stores to help with plan pricing. Scraped press release for family plan instead held bbq at headquarters with employees 600 plus emails from employees identifying problems in first day lowest customer satisfaction rate in U.S. 2.5 areas are seeing high satisfaction rate. Being the value player right now is the only choice. Talking about iPhone plan being unique and different than everyone else. Best value for wireless. reiterates strategic 2.5 deployment in key places. Softbank has investments/partnerships with over 1,000 companies. We'll always look for shareholder value partnerships Masa was determined to get T-Mobile. But it came to a point where the government said it wasn't going to happen Still believes in consolidation. But we cannot complain about that anymore. We've got to compete with what we have. We've got to be the new disruptors of the industry.

He is giving a presentation at a Goldman Sach's conference right now.

I sort of disagree with both of your points here. The first is Marcelo didn't say they are adding more customers than they are losing. The second is as Robert posted, NV 1.0 is substantially completed. Approximately 95% of Sprint's sites have been upgraded to the new NV base stations. Obviously backhaul is lagging in many places for LTE. But when Marcelo says in the article: That statement is largely accurate. Other than problem sites, by-and-large Sprint is done with the rip and replacement of their entire network. This comes down to how you want to define NV 1.0. If you define it as new base stations and equipment, the DC market is 90%+ complete. Furthermore, "launched" is marketing term. It isn't an actual indicator of deployment status for LTE in a market. Based on Sprint's original marketing percentages for sites completed/Pops covered in "launching" a market, D.C. is basically there.