irev210

Just a fair warning to SERO users out there -

I put my plan in seasonal standby for a few months, went to take it out, and they can no longer add back my SERO Premium 500 plan.  Apparently they deleted it from the system on August 1st.  It's been replaced by SERO Unlimited for 60/month.

There is a bunch of conflicting info on what triggers a change but just a heads up.

Had a good run on postpaid sprint.

Honestly it's pretty trivial compared to some of the stuff they get up to. Using your device that you already own and would have owned anyway isn't the big issue, nor is leaving you to pay the monthly. The kicker is that you are basically on call 24 365. No overtime or on call pay for us 'exempt' workers. I still work way less than when I was self employed or ran a company myself. At the end of the day if I wasn't happy I would walk. There's plenty more jobs out there and if you don't like those you can work for yourself. 

I work for a good company, they actually do treat me well in general but they do ask some stuff like the cell phones, personal vehicle use and basically being on call all the time. The flip side is when the company does well we get a real cut of the profits. Plus if they gave us company phones they would likely be selected by the bean counters so we would have flip phones on net 10 wireless.

 

Work has nothing on our old HOA for insane policies though

Agreed. Besides, if you really didnt want to pay for cell service, you would just get on a RingPlus plan.  Anyone that is exempt can afford a basic cellphone plan, even if they have to pay.  I am pretty sure t-mobile still gives 200/month for free away.  That would allow people to conduct work email at no cost.

Again, these are exempt positions with fairly decent pay and in theory, should have some job mobility.

Postpaid

Yes, very much agree that postpaid growth is down YoY (890 vs 1,008).

I am curious to see if they can keep momentum up in later Qs - key metric to watch.

It's no more than just bragging. they gained 600+ the last 3 months, so that's 200k+ per month.  I think it's just common sense.  You should compare tmo numbers this year vs. last year. It's actually less.  Food for thoughts.

Please expand - compare what numbers?  What's less?

Market Cap?  35.6 billion vs 31.6 billion

revenue?  9.2 billion vs 8.2 billion

gross margin? 56.1% vs 50.4%

EBITA margin? 26% vs 20.6%

Free Cash Flow? 419 million vs -30 million

are you just talking about net income and earnings per share that are down?

net income margin of 2.7% vs 4.3%

and

EPS of .30 vs .43

There are lots of numbers... not one number means the most.  If you look at the pretax income, it's up to 431 million over 374 million from  2Q15

The biggest difference is the increase in income tax expenses which unless you spent a lot of time modeling out what their tax rates were going to be, sort of a moot point.

The easy conclusion is that T-Mobile is absolutely crushing it.

This!! It is people taking their gains, but this is a big part of it. T-Mobile posted pretty remarkable numbers today.

Expected - lots of shorts to cover yesterday, which pushed it higher than otherwise "natural."

I think a lot of it is being driven by T-Mobile's earnings call.

T-Mobile said that July's subscriber gains are already ahead of sprint's 2Q new users.

Looks like Verizon just ended unlimited data. Sprint will most likely see a huge influx of subs, I'm just worried they are the wrong type of subs that would slowly deteriorate the network with abuse.

99% of verizon customers are on limited data plans

of the 1% that are unlimited, what % go over 100GB?  1% of that?

Say the 1% of the 1% decide to leave.  Say half go to T-Mobile and half go to Sprint, once they use over ~22GB, they just get tossed onto a managed network anyway... what's the issue?

It's not a big influx of people... I doubt it would put a dent in sprints network.

NIMBYs are a large part of the problem. All it takes is one person. In the example given in the article where a man saw a pole erected in front of his business, all it would take is him to tell one person who could make a big deal out of it causing cancer and whatnot. A lot of suburban areas that could use small cells will push back a lot on the deployment of these.

 

Additionally we do not know the permitting process of Verizon, etc. I know Crown Castle's DAS system (which I believe MetroPCS used) was deployed over a pretty long period of time. I'm not certain when VZW even began deployment of small cells in NYC so we couldn't keep track like how we can with Sprint.

As far as I can tell, the permit process can require certain levels of camouflage to pass muster but cancer/heath reasons are not valid.

As someone who lives in Boston, you can probably see all of the pole mounted antennas already in our area.  There are a TON.

Not worth porting over our numbers just for 2 weeks though. 

Just curious - why would you port?

Just sign up for 1 month, then drop Fi.  Turn on call fwding then just dump the plan/number when you are done.

Pop the sim card in, you pop the sim card out, then you shake it all about.

Thank you for the suggestions! 

 

I did some research and it appears that 3 offers very reasonable service, 12GB of data for £20 which isn't bad at all, and roams in all the countries I'll be visiting with the exception of Germany.

 

As for T-Mobile USA, no point since Sprint offers the exact same plan with the exact same countries supported. 

Why not Google Fi - $10 per gig regardless of which country you are in.

I just had a friend do a Euro tour who is a google fi subscriber, loved it - said data connectivity was if he never left the US, regardless of where he was.

Now they are offering upgrades to the 5GB plan.

Free 5GB every month - no idea how long they'll be in business but no complaints from me.

My next phone will be either an LG G5, Nexus 5X, or an HTC 10.  Given all I've heard about all three, I'm leaning toward the HTC 10, but am also waiting to see it in person and what others have to say.

 

- Trip

The N5x is pretty slow/laggy.  I can't figure out why.  I wouldn't recommend it.

The LG G5 is much better than the N5x.

The GS7 and G5 are both pretty nice.  Waterproofing of GS7 and USB-C port of the G5 are the respective advantages between them.

The HTC 10 looks great, I really want to test it out but I cant help but feel Google/HTC will deliver a very similar device with stock nexus loaded later this year with Android N.  That'll be my next device!

The negative reviews are a bit surprising.  Just using the phone it seems fine.

The design of the phone is not the best and the dual camera is sort of gimmicky.

The quick swap battery capability is neat and the build quality seems fine to me.

That via online upgrade/preorder?

Yeah - I look forward to getting it.  I was going to get a galaxy s7 but the lack of USB-C really bothered me since I already convered everything to USB-C with my Nexus 5x.

LG G5 looks great - can't wait to test it out.

Got the email from Sprint that my order is on the way.  Tracking isn't live yet but if I had to guess, I'll get it tomorrow.

https://secure.sprintbuyback.com/cns/device_list

Thanks, so this is neat - so I can trade in my moto e from verizon and get $150 back?

How do I go about doing that?

How does the $150 trade-in work?  Where do you see if you have a $10 value phone?

I wish sprint was a bit more clear on their promotions, $576 sounds pretty good and if I can get $150 for an old crappy phone to net me down to $426 that would be a great deal for the G5

Can anyone help?

Pretty much agree with all this. Wireless carriers would be better off getting rid of unlimited and focus on competitive ways of selling data allowances. For example, I like how Google only charges you for what you buy, thus making any gimmick 'rollover' promotion from at&t or T-Mobile pretty useless and stupid. We should all pay for what we use, that includes not paying for any excess data we don't use.

Or what rinplus has done. Very innovative.

Kinda cool deal today - 3k minutes/3k texts/3GB data

3GB is pretty solid

So I purchased a sprint galaxy s6 off Swappa, and ran into problems activating it. Sprint corporate store said it was still someone else's phone, another agent on the phone said it was on someone's account, another agent said it was not, and two other chat agents said it was clean and just not registered in the database. So apparently all that is necessary is to add the imei to the database.

 

First of all, why did the store and the first agent say it was in use? Second, why does it take 7 - 10 days for the number to be entered into the system? I've read online that managers can simply input the number into the system with a software tool called DNA2, and the phone is activated in minutes. Is there any truth to this?

 

Largely, I've tried to ignore the anti sprint douxhebaggery, but I don't understand the inconstancy and the complication over something that seems so simple. I know this had been a problem in the past for nexus devices and other unlocked phones, but I figured that by now it shouldn't be an issue.

 

Has anyone run into this problem before?

Yes, when I sold my Galaxy S6.  I paid full price directly from Sprint for a Sprint GS6 and had it unlocked by Sprint.  The entire time it was on my account, it worked fine.  However, when I took it off my account and activated my Nexus 5x, Sprint in its infinite stupidity, deleted the IMEI from the whitelist since it was unlocked.

I had to call a number of times and have a ticket created to add the IMEI back to Sprint.

I don't understand how the IMEI from a Sprint Galaxy S6 wouldn't already be in their database.

 

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

When you unlock the phone and take it off the sprint database, the IMEI gets wiped from the sprint whitelist.

I don't understand why it wouldn't be in the system either. It was technically listed as refurb, which may have something to do with it, but I don't see how that would modify the imei and leave the old username and phone number intact in the software. It is pretty suspect, and I have considered getting my money back, but the seller has completed many sales and has a 5 star rating, so I'll see how it pans out after the 72 hour timeframe I was given from sprint.

Because sprint is very nasty about unlocking sprint branded devices once you take them off their network.

Call Sprint tech support and have them submit a Click-It Ticket.  At least that is what they did for my Moto X Pure Edition and that took care of it.

Yup - exactly correct.

I've read stories of Sprint dropping the ESN from their whitelist when the device is activated on an MVNO such as Boost or RingPlus.  This sounds like that type of scenario but usually a click-it ticket adds the esn back to their whitelist.  Not really sure why Sprint would want to make it more difficult for users to join their network after going prepaid, but it is what it is.

Yeah i dunno about the MVNO thing - I thought it was a locked vs. unlocked handset thing.

We do?  We know how the complicated 600 MHz incentive auction is going to play out?  I think that it has the prospects to and hope that it does fail spectacularly.  We just are throwing way too much spectrum at a problem in the hopes that the free market will solve it.  I have been saying that for years.  And if the auction does produce little more than a whimper, I may never stop laughing.

 

AJ

I very much agree with you that we should lease spectrum like Japan does.

A wildcard could be Comcast or dish but I can't imagine that tmob isn't going to talk away with a fairly large chunk covering the majority of the US. At a minimum, anywhere they can't get 700 now, they will have to buy 600.

At any rate, should be interesting to watch.

Not really nationwide.  But it is getting there.

 

However, what is the purchase price?  I bet the spectrum holding companies are making a nice profit.

 

T-Mobile, if you want to be the pied piper, you have to pay the piper.  Or, more accurately, pay to be the piper.

 

And will these Lower 700 MHz expenditures affect participation in the problematic 600 MHz auction?

 

AJ

To a degree.  Say it costs 20% more to overlay additional cells with PCS and AWS vs. deploying 700 for coverage.  At the end of the day, that's all the spectrum is worth.  Given that T-Mobile is the only natural buyer at this point, the price of 700 is effectively capped.

So, they sell and move on.

As for 600, with sprint out, you know exactly how that's going to go.

Any word on an unlocked version?

There is a saying in the business world, Protect the Base. T-Mobile has done an excellent job of taking their existing network and upgrading it without spending a lot of money. Because that network base is strong, they can easily reduce expenditure and upgrade other parts of their network with that money. Sprint's now in that position with Network Vision pretty much 100% complete. NGN will help in-fill gaps, but the core network is now up to par. 

 

Consider for a moment all of T-Mobile's marketing in those non-urban areas, particularly against Verizon. They are banking on Verizon's universally slow response and general smugness. In those markets, Verizon enjoys a lion's share, and even with a small percentage porting over, the loss isn't felt, or could be offset by new customer growth. In simple numbers, if they have 10 customers and 3 port out, 1 will probably come back when they realize coverage isn't up to par. Net loss is 2 customers who are willing to put up with gaps in coverage or other limitations to save money.

 

The bigger question for T-Mobile will be what their plans to copy Sprint and densify their network. They already said small cells were not on their roadmap, so what is their plan to handle capacity? Right now the solution is to have enough spectrum used so capacity is not an issue, as long as you're in an area with sufficient cell sites. What will happen to all those B2 GMO markets? Will they eventually get upgraded to support B12 if available? Or will T-Mobile wait till the 600mhz auction is over, spectrum is cleared up, and then upgrade those sites? In that time, Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T won't be sitting idle either. We'll see potentially 3x20CA on Sprint sites, Verizon with their AWS and possible PCS refarm, same with AT&T.

 

That's the big question for 2016.

I looked at capex and you are definitely right, over the past 5 years (ending in 2014) it seems like TMUS has spent about 10 billion and sprint at 19 billion?  Pretty amazing, I am wondering if my numbers are wrong?

And doesn't it look, based on porting ratios, that T-Mobile is really capturing AT&T subscribers?  It's port ratio with Verizon is actually the lowest.

For the past five quarters, AT&T has replaced Sprint as the primary share donor in the U.S. wireless market. T-Mobile emerged as the main beneficiary of AT&T's losses by proactively marketing low-priced, flexible service plans. T-Mobile's share of postpaid phone subscribers among the top four U.S. carriers rose to 13.6% in 4Q from 12.1% in 4Q14, while AT&T's share slipped to 30.7% from 32% over this period.

Seems like TMUS will have to embrace small cells... but knowing how they roll, they wont announce anything until they are well under way deploying and have figured out a way to market the new network strategy.

I have a feeling their churn will remain the same or move very slightly either up or down. The fact of the matter is that for every customer who ports out of AT&T or Verizon in those areas where T-Mobile is providing token coverage may leave, but is offset by customers who port out of AT&T and Verizon in the urban markets.

 

Throw in the free LTE routers and femtocells that T-Mobile is handing out to customers and you get a lot of users who are willing to settle on coverage to save money.

I agree - others out there tend to think T-Mobile is selling an empty cannon and people are going to leave in droves when they become unsatisfied with their experience.

The metric to watch for that is Churn, which has only been going down or staying flat.

If T-Mobile can add subs so can Sprint - I am not sure why Sprint can't add subs like T-Mobile can.  To me, it's purely marketing at this point.