jwang

Are these stores converted from radioshack stores?

All ATT want to do is to keep Cricket spectrum and its CDMA network away from Sprint. ATT doesn't really care about Cricket customers.

Getting 3 bands on every site is not enough, we need have the monster like China Mobile to team up with Sprint to add 200,000 sites into the coverage map for 1st round and another 200,000 sites to put coverage in every office building in top 10 metro and all elevators in top 5 metro and all subways and all shopping malls. That's the answer of China Mobile gave to all doubts about the 2500mhz LTE in their monster roll out from last year. They are adding 2nd 200,000 sites in China now. You won't have any problem about penetration and less coverage on 2500mhz because you will have micro sites to cover major office buildings in all top metros including elevators over there. But FCC just doesn't want to have the consumers here have a strong NO.3 to compete with twin bells.

Harrisburg and York are in Shentel hands. And we know they did a great job to roll out LTE. Lancaster is in the hands of Alcatel but it has priority focus on Philly or Allentown. Sometimes I hope Lancaster will be assigned to Shentel to deploy LTE.

It will end up with bigger advantage in Verizon and ATT. I can't imagine what the 600mhz auction will be. Maybe it will top 100 Billion.

FCC is the one to blame for all the mass in US market. In many country, the spectrum was assigned in a much better way. So telecoms sell service and third parties sell phones. And phones can switch network by just switching sim card. In US, phones are locked to certain network when they were manufactured. Even ATT/TMOBILE phones can switch to each other's networks, but Verizon/Sprint won't. All in all, FCC did a great job in last decade.

Insider transaction didn't necessarily mean what may happen to the company. PCS has its president/CEO/high Execs sold tons of shares before those shares got transformed to TMUS shares. We all knew if they keep them their share value will be more than doubled in 2013. But they did it for some other reason or someone told them to do so. And I don't think softbank will buy out S shareholders to take S private. If anyone remembered how much trouble Tmobile had to buy PCS, taking it to private will bring all those sharks like Paulson/Cooperman to fight Softbank for higher bid. Why spend the big money they can invest on network to feed those mutual fund?

Not a plan for everyone. There are people who have no interest and time to deal with ebay to save $200 over 2 years.

In US, just NYC/CHICAGO need this kind of density. So it won't be too crazy for them. In Japan, they may have 10 cities need this kind of deployment. But their current priority should be deployment of 8T8R in big metros and B26 across the nation.

My question is does Sprint pay backhaul vendors by fiber bandwidth? Otherwise why don't lay down the top bandwidth from beginning.

The network upgrade should be the other focus next to the price competition. Sprint needs an aggressive/nasty network chief to accelerate the NV roll-out speed. The culture in their KC headquarter should be transformed to be aggressive and mean. The new management team has to remind the workers there repeatedly they need work harder otherwise the company will be out of business. The environment was just too comfortable when Hesse was there. At the end Marcelo let us see some hope there.

Sprint may report loss of customers again but it could be modest. And it could be the last quarter before it turns to net addition of customers from 4th quarter this year. Commercial won the attention but the price point will win the business. If Sprint can keep the edge of price over Tmobile, it will turn positive on customer base in the 4th quarter for sure.

Tmobile result came in with nice figures. But it could be the peak of their momentum then there is downturn waiting for it. Marcelo turned Sprint aggressive to compete on price to crackdown Tmobile on price point from late Sep. We shall see everything to be clear in 4th quarter. They really should abandon the Tmobile merger plan and spend the merger budget on network from 1st half of this year. But all in all, Marcelo is the right pick and Sprint is on the right track now.

I think all of us are different from each other more or less. Selling the old one to pay for the new one ($649 of the basic 16GB iPhone 6), compared to pay $480 (for basic model of 16GB iPhone 6) in two years for lease and get another one with same deal. To some people there is not a big difference. The iPhone for life plan won't be liked by everyone as no plan will be. But surely it will bring a lot of customer as it is easy to understand and simple. And it is an option for the people in US. In China and Japan they don't have this kind of deal. I would bet that at least 5% of the 600 million users of China Mobile would appreciate this kind of deal for iPhone. It is equal to 30 million users. btw I will stick with the galaxy note series as this is the best for me.

Marcelo is the man who can turn it around. It makes perfect sense they should focus b41 roll-out in big metro urban area. In the small town (50,000 people) I live we need B26 instead. B41 in my town is not must-have. Give us B26 and give NYC/LAX as much B41 as possible. Also thanks to Robert. It's a good day for Sprint and all S4GRU members. We got a captain who worries every day about how to accelerate the deployment and fight to get customers back.

If they can add another 3000 sites for top 30 markets from 2015, that will close the gap of coverage a lot. Definitely they can beat Tmo for sure with additional sites counted in.

they are cutting prepaid to $35 a month for 1GB data today. Tmo is not going to get their price edge this time.

Verizon rolled out 2GB $60 subsidized plan in order to tackle Sprint/Tmo. Sprint $60 unlimited unsubsidized is not enough to counter attack. Marcelo is waiting Legere announces something new at their Sep.10th uncarrier event then Sprint can hit Tmo and big two in once. I believe Sprint won't skip the chance of capped data options for individual plans.

I agree. Just like no pharma company wants to make a medicine to cure cancer completely because all of them and hospitals/doctors/insurance companies will make much less money if a cancer patient took pills and going back to health. A lot of money can be made if the patient spent last 2 years going through many operations and medicines before death coming. There is really no incentives to make a medicine to cure cancer completely for general public there.

Actually while competing with each other both Tmo and Sprint are competing with Verizon / ATT aggressively. Sprint new plans are for every one. Especially the $60 unlimited plan for those Verizon / ATT customers who don't travel much but need more than 6GB a month is very attractive, if Sprint has a good coverage and speed where those customers live and work. I would seriously give a thought to switch my other line from Verizon to Sprint, if Sprint gives out a capped 3GB individual plan for $45. I really don't need unlimited data and use around 2GB every month. I pay $70 some a month for 6GB to Verizon under contract. I have no problem to pay my phone upfront or monthly.

Sprint has very clear strategy from the day they dropped the merger plan. They are pressing down the margin and turn-around the growth of T-mobile. It brings concerns of potential buyers of T-mobile. It means any potential buyer of T-mobile has to change their business case and re-do the financial analysis. In mean time, Sprint is preparing more exotic phone line-up by bringing sharp and sony into its offering this fall. Sprint is working to make both device and network more attractive to users. T-mobile is sending invitation of their uncarrier event scheduled on Sep.10th. I guess T-mobile tries so hard in past weeks to respond in order to make Sprint stop escalating the price war. The event on Sep.10th must give even better offer. However, they underestimate determination of Softbank to make no one dare to buy T-mobile. That's why Marcelo has not given out any capped data plan for individuals after the $60 unlimited was announced. Softbank/Sprint are waiting for T-mobile to react. Then give them another hammer. Without the need to buy T-mobile, Softbank has a lot of money to help Sprint grow its subscriber. We may see 4th quarter as first quarter to have net growth in post-paid smartphone users.

are they working on 2nd carrier of B25 in the city?

Sprint should consider to throw out individual plans of $40 / $45 / $50 for 3.5GB / 4.5GB / 5.5GB. Except it will take care of the rest of Tmobile data tiers after Sprint almost destroy Tmo's unlimited plan, those who consider the Verizon $60 2GB plan or big two's 3GB/5GB plans will find out Sprint give more data and in mean while can save them $10 or more a month. Sometimes 3GB or 5GB data is just a number, many ATT/VERIZON customers like me not even use more than 2GB a month. But people will consider to switch if they found hey I can get at least 50% more data and smaller bill. So release the kraken so it will start pull customers from all major competitors to switch to Sprint. I believe Sprint is waiting for big two to react before they throw out more individual plans. But if big two choose to wait and see, Marcelo may choose bring out new plans right before iPhone 6 announcement. And at the end, they also need run that promotion to pay ETF of those new customers to help them switch to Sprint. That will for sure pull customers in but it will hurt their wallet also.

Hope Iphone6 get tri-band radios this time. (even I never want to own an Iphone but hope they can bring iphone users to tri-band asap).

The density of sites in China is much higher, considering the population density is very high too.