marioc21

did they say which markets other than Baltimore?

 

 

Robert, besides Chicago and Austin, which are the most likely candidates for the "end of August" launch time-frame?

Nope. Baltimore was the only one specifically mentioned. Could be more minor ones like all those in Texas.

Sprint had to get it. Especially, once Verizon got it. I think they saw a huge exodus of customers all leaving because they didn't have it. Sprint couldn't afford to lose those customers.

According to Sprint, Baltimore will launch in August.

 

Confirmed today on the earnings update.

I think the exact phrasing was "by the end of". So it'll probably be closer to August 31 than August 1.

If you want the details see this thread:

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1607-time-for-another-round-of-wireless-carrier-earnings-announcements/

Otherwise here are some non-financial items noted during Sprint's earnings call this morning.

4 additional cities, including Baltimore should see LTE go live by end of August.

Also, for you qwerty slider phone lover, Dan Hesse noted that Sprint would get the Motorola Photon Q soon. It'll be LTE and world phone capable.

http://www.androidce...g-earnings-call

And we're done.

iPhone:

Significantly better churn performance than other devices. Lower calls to care. Lower service and repair. Fewer returns. Still early though. 40% of new customers were new. Credits rate plans for drawing new iphone customers in.

Hesse:

Unlimited is still significant differentiator. Going for simplicity. Have not seen any change in customer behavior due to "shared" plans put out by VZ and ATT. No reason to make any changes to Sprint's plans right now.

Stay tuned for update on tablet plans for Sprint. Can't disclose anything right now.

On NV:

Several hundred sites that are waiting for backhaul right now before they are turned on. Several other sites had vendors waiting for antennas to arrive that were backordered. Started key cities early on this year and have more cities gearing up. Confident that they'll hit 12,000 site target for 2012.

Addition: Totally missed this on the call. Apparently there are some towers they can't work on yet because there are birds nests there. Not sure why you can't just kick the birds out. That's what I do to the robins who keep trying to build above my front door.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/26/sprint-lte-delay-birds/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+%28Engadget%29

Q&A Time.

Less than $800 million in debt coming due in 2013.

From call: Now estimating NV impact for 2012 to cost $300 million less.

Due to:

• Fewer nextel losses.
  
• Improved backhaul costs
  
• Better lease rates on towers.
  

2013 outlook unchanged.

From earnings call: Sprint expects to launch 4 additional markets, including Baltimore by the end of august.

From the earnings call. Sprint is going to focus on improving financials in 2012 vs growing the customer base. That must be what investors are liking this morning.

http://finance.yahoo...-121636241.html

Maybe not. From the call and presentation one of hte key goals for 2012 is customer growth and revenue growth on Sprint platform.

Investors are liking Sprint's results apparently. Here they are by the way:

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1607-time-for-another-round-of-wireless-carrier-earnings-announcements/page__gopid__34754&do=findComment&comment=34754

The stock is up $0.60 in pre-market. I wonder if it'll carry over when the market opens up.

And finally the moment we've all been waiting for. Here are Sprint's 2nd quarter financial results. The press release is here:

http://finance.yahoo...-110000421.html

The highlights are as follows:

• Total revenues of $8.8 billion for the quarter.
  
• Net loss of $1.4 billion or $0.46/share. Loss includes $782 million in depreciation related to NV and Nextel shutdown, $184 million in lease exit fees on nextel towers and $204 million in impairment costs to clearwire investment.
  
• Sprint generated $209 million in free cash flow for the quarter.
  
• The Company had $8 billion in liquidity. $6.8 billion in cash and cash equivalents as well as $1.2 billion in available credit lines.
  

Wireless highlights

• Sprint platform added 442,000 net postpaid subscribers. Nextel postpaid lost 688,000 customers. Total net loss of postpaid customers was 246,000.
  
• Sprint recaptured 60% of Nextel customer losses.
  
• Sprint platform churn down to 1.69%.
  
• Sprint added 141,000 net pre-paid customers and 388,000 wholesale customers.
  
• Sprint had over 56.3 million customers at end of 2nd quarter. 32.6 million postpaid, 15.4 million prepaid and 8.4 million wholesale and affiliate customers.
  
• 3.1 million postpaid and 1.4 million prepaid on Nextel remaining.
  
• 1.5 million iphones sold. 40% to new customers.
  

Network Vision Points

• 9,600 Nextel sites are now shutdown. Earlier that previous guidance.
  
• Leasing is completed on 12,700 sites.
  
• Zoning requirements are completed for 13,900 sites.
  
• More than 6,300 sites are under construction or will start soon.
  
• More than 2,000 sites are on-air.
  
• 12,000 sites expected to be completed by end of 2012.
  

The earnings call will be held at 8:00 am EDT. Here's the link for anyone that wants to listen in.

http://services.chor...rint120726.html

If you want to look through the presentation slides, the are already posted as well. Here you go:

http://investors.spr...&fid=1001167674

Correction: earnings call starts at 8am.

The problem, I believe, is that Sprint does not want to take on Clearwire's debt load until it has a much sounder financial footing. It may not have the luxury to wait that long. These price declines are predicated on the belief that Clearwire will hit a funding crunch in 2013. There's still a lot of time between now and then.

The contract-subsidy model is broken. But it is reality. So, keep this in mind:

• Every month, you are paying ~$15 of your wireless bill toward your subsidy.
  
• Every month that you are eligible for a fully subsidized upgrade but do not take advantage is ~$15 paid with no benefit to you.
  
• Every month that you further postpone upgrading just pushes back your subsequent upgrade date by another month.
  

My recommendation is to do as Robert has done. Get married and have several children so that you can use their fully subsidized upgrades, staggered about one every six months.

 

 

AJ

The problem with this strategy is that eventually the wife and kids start demanding to use the upgrades on themselves! What's up with that!?

And today's announcement comes to you from AT&T land. Let's see some highlights:

• $31.6 billion in consolidated revenue. (All of ATT operations)
  
• 18.8% growth in wireless data revenues
  
• Postpaid churn of 0.97%
  
• 1.3 million total wireless net adds, 320,000 postpaid adds. Total subscribers of 105.2 million.
  
• 5.1 million smarphones sold. Smartphones are 77% of postpaid device sales. 61.9% of ATT customers now own smartphones. 1/3 of all postpaid subscribers now on 4g devices. (Probably includes faux G devices.)
  
• 3.7 million iphones activated. 22% were new customers to ATT.
  
• Wireless ARPU up to $64.93
  
• 2/3 of smartphone subscribers are now on a tiered data plan.
  

Here are press releases:

http://www.bgr.com/2012/07/24/att-q2-2012-earnings-profit-iphone/

http://finance.yahoo...-113000149.html

Their earnings call will be held at 9:30am EDT and can be heard here:

http://phoenix.corpo...EventId=4776744

Sprint is up next on Thursday morning followed by Clearwire in the afternoon.

It looks like the spectrum story making the rounds today is taking a toll on the stock today. It's down $0.20 at the open to $3.46.

With sprints earnings report coming out thursday(7/26) I personally believe that this little streak that their stock has been on is gonna end so I think I will sell off what I have since I bought shares at an average price of 2.46 earlier this year. Hopefully their earnings report is a lot better than what analysts have been predicting.

It'll probably be bad. I'm just hoping for some positives like postpaid growth, continued ARPU growth, progress on NV deployment. Would love to hear news about new roaming agreements or network sharing agreements, but I'm not holding my breath. Ultimately, i'm holding for the long term. Not much money at stake since it's only a few shares and the purchase price was low.

Here's mine in reverse chronological:

Smartphones:

Samsung Epic 4g Touch

Samsung Epic 4g

Palm Pre

Motorola Q

I'll add flip phones once I remember what they actually were.

Flip phones in reverse chronological order:

Sanyo MM-8300 (got as insurance replacement for A740)

Samsung PM-A740

Samsung SPH-N400 (my first phone with mobile data)

Nokia 6120 (I'm not sure about exact model number)

I go to Richmond 4-5 times a year for business. I know that Alexandria is in the same general area of Richmond. Richmond is about 30 miles from DC not 110.

I realize I'm doing this just to prove a point, but I can't help myself. I'm really not trying to difficult. I just can't let this go. I live in Richmond. I grew up in the Springfield area. My parent's still live near Springfield. I'm driving up there this weekend. It's not 30 miles.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Richmond,+VA&daddr=Alexandria,+VA&hl=en&sll=37.540766,-77.436104&sspn=0.225404,0.382805&geocode=FXXTPAIdcGti-yntyZlXCRGxiTHFPELibT7Yvw%3BFWMdUAIdd1to-ynxq6STPk22iTEsAcHbhib11w&oq=alexandria&mra=ls&t=m&z=9

If a mod is available, feel free to lock this thread as it has served it's purpose. Plus I appear to be doing a good job of derailing it.

I looked at the map and it looks like Richmond area will have sits with LTE up and running when the market launches. The map shows sites that Alexandria will have sites up in running which is right by Richmond

Are you talking about Richmond Hwy? That's route 1. I'm talking about Richmond, VA. That's about 110 miles south of Alexandria. That might be our point of confusion.

Seems like you'll have every planned and ready to pull the trigger.

Surprised that Epic 4G Touch and the Galaxy Nexus are selling at the same price.

Maybe. Although Abyss19707 has me intrigued. Does your phone connecting to eHRPD give any signal as to whether NV is being deployed? I so I would just wait. My OG epic with CM9 is getting me by.

And if not and I decide to buy an Epic touch I still have to it get cleared by the wife. As always she has veto power.

I'm more of the "buy an new phone every 6 months" type of person(generally selling my current phone covers most of another phone in good condition).

You could look into Sprint re-sellers like Amazon & Wirefly, which they might have it for free or a penny.

I wish I could be a new phone every 6 months kind of person. Sigh. Not in my budget though. but the Epic Touch is already approaching $0. Best buy has it for $50 I have a $50 best buy discount that I haven't used. And Sprint's offering to buy my old epic 4g for $54 so that would cut the price in half if I got it directly from them.

I was recently in Richmond and it is actually part of the DC/Baltimore market I beleive. I was connectd to an eHRPD network which tells me that LTE is coming ery soon to the market. I recommend buying on off contract f you really want the phone. You can get a used model on eBay for about $200-$300. You would still be able to get an LTE in the following monthes if LTE does come to Richmond this year.

That comes as news to me. I'm pretty sure Robert's market update articles for Washington, D.C. have never included Richmond. I'll have to go back and check.

Update:

http://s4gru.com/ind...chedule-update/

See according to the post, the D.C. market only goes to about Stafford maybe Fredericksburg. Richmond does not seem to be included. And then there's separate articles for Norfolk. I think we're just out in cold for a while. Maybe there's some backend stuff that's already been set up, but I don't expect any tower here for a while. If it did turn out that we would get LTE this year then I would not buy a new phone until then.