RedSpark

I prefer to lurk on Twitter to be honest.

The tweet states that 285 macro sites have been upgraded and that 41 small cell sites have been brought on air. That figure doesn’t seem to correlate with the number/color of dots on the map image.

As first spotted by @nexgencpu. Curious what the difference is between the red and blue dots.

Very nice. What’s the difference between the red and blue dots?

I agree with you to a point. 5G does serve a purpose, and if it helps address a saturated LTE network, then that’s great. However, my experience yesterday is a glaring example of how Sprint is not accomplishing the basics. Millions of customers ride the Northeast Corridor every year. That’s millions of prospective and current Sprint customers. A network not working when you need it to is the quickest way to lose a customer (or not gain one), and if you tell a friend/colleague who’s on another carrier that your device doesn’t have coverage to do something (and they do), why would they ever switch?

All this news about 5G is great, but I was on Amtrak yesterday for a day trip between Washington DC (Union Station) and Iselin, NJ (Metropark Station), and Sprint’s coverage while on the trip was atrocious. It repeatedly dropped to no 1x, 1x, 1 bar of LTE, or unusable LTE with more than one bar. (I have a fully updated iPhone XS and I reported the network issues where/when I could.) It makes me wonder if any of Sprint’s Network Team has tested/ridden the Amtrak Northeast Corridor and tried using their device(s). How can they expect anyone to get work done (or other personal usage) while on the trip with this level of network performance? Hopefully Sprint addresses this, because 5G only goes so far in acquiring new and keeping customers. Sprint needs to address these fundamentals.

Now available nationwide.

Glad to see this!

Sprint Closes Asset Sale, Inches Closer to T-Mobile Merger Inching along...

Here’s Sprint’s Unlimited Plan Pricing/Features: https://www.sprint.com/en/shop/plans/unlimited-cell-phone-plan.html The plans are differentiated by SD/HD/Full HD streaming, Hotspot Allotment, International Roaming Allotment and bundled services. It’s all on the page. Four lines on: Unlimited Basic: $140/Month Unlimited Plus: $180/Month Unlimited Premium: $220/Month Vs Framily: https://newsroom.sprint.com/sprint-redefines-the-wireless-family-with-the-new-sprint-framily-plan.htm 4 lines on Framily with the Unlimited Data add-on for each line is $60/Month per line, for a total of $240/Month. You should consider switching plans.

What happens after July 29th? Is it over at that point? Does Sprint get the breakup fee? Here’s info on that: As noted by Axios, Sprint and T-Mobile won’t have to pay a breakup fee if regulators from the FCC or Department of Justice manage to kill the proposed merger. However, according to documents the companies filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, T-Mobile would owe Sprint $600 million if the company decides to walk away from the transaction, among other circumstances.

Haha! Google is the king of abandonware.

I don't believe Sprint/SoftBank will die. SoftBank has simply never given Sprint the capital it needed to compete. Masa put Marcelo in there to slim the company down and prepare it for a merger. At the same time, Marcelo fed the market stories like this: https://www.cnet.com/news/sprint-ceo-give-us-two-years-and-our-network-will-blow-past-rivals/ (May 27, 2015) It's unfortunate that in the dogged pursuit of a merger that Masa passed on the 600 MHz spectrum to pursue a monopole deployment strategy, which everyone in traditional tower telecom (given their own inherent self-interest of course) said wouldn't work... and it didn't (costing $180 Million in the process).... and now Sprint is in the position of having to deploy 5G on a nationwide scale, without the economic benefits associated with having lowband spectrum to do it. Furthermore, Sprint's lack of lowband spectrum is one of Sprint's primary justifications for the merger with T-Mobile. The DOJ and the market at large shouldn't grant SoftBank a merger under these circumstances. Real competition is keeping 4 carriers on the market. Reducing the market to 3 competitors is a net negative overall in my opinion.

They bought Sprint with the intention of merging with T-Mobile, but as the majority owner in such a transaction. That’s not what’s happening now.... and SoftBank shouldn’t be bailed out on its inability/unwillingness to invest in Sprint by the DOJ or by the market.

Has SoftBank’s inability or unwillingness to invest in Sprint been put forth as a justification for the merger?

Exclusive: U.S. clears SoftBank's $2.25 billion investment in GM-backed Cruise $2.25 Billion would go a long way for Sprint.... I hope the DOJ sees this. This merger isn’t necessary.

Happy 4th everyone! 🇺🇸💥🍺 Hoping Sprint’s network does well on the National Mall for the 4th of July crowds in DC. I didn’t see any announcements about COWs. Perhaps Massive MIMO is covering the Mall better now?

Nice! Happy 4th! 🇺🇸💥🍺

Good progress! Happy 4th! 🇺🇸💥🍺

Bravo! 👍 I’ve been saying for a long time that Sprint needs to improve coverage where people spend time in transit: airports, bus stations, train stations. You can cover the most people that way, especially when they have idle time or need to use their device for travel purposes. You’re right on the mark here.

See this: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1560158/000119312513192860/d425100d424b3.htm Mandatory Offer to Purchase. The New Sprint certificate of incorporation as in effect at the effective time of the SoftBank Merger will provide that, in the event that the combined voting interest of SoftBank and its controlled affiliates in New Sprint exceeds 85% of the outstanding voting securities of New Sprint, then SoftBank or a controlled affiliate will make an offer to acquire all the remaining shares of New Sprint common stock at a price not less than the volume-weighted average closing price of New Sprint common stock for the 20 consecutive trading days immediately preceding such offer. (Page 18)

Interesting. Yeah, I guess they'll miss that deadline then.

I don't recall it saying "end of June" for the additional launch markets. Did you see this mentioned somewhere? https://newsroom.sprint.com/sprint-lights-up-true-mobile-5g-in-atlanta-dallas-fort-worth-houston-and-kansas-city.htm (Posted: 5/30/2019)

Looks like AirStrands are helping in Central New Jersey... If this is an improvement I wonder what the speeds were before this deployment.

The trade off for HPUE however is this: With HPUE, our outdoor 2.5 GHz coverage strength becomes nearly identical to our 1.9 GHz coverage. And indoors, where 60 to 70 percent of all wireless traffic is generated, HPUE enables our 2.5 GHz spectrum to achieve 90 percent of the indoor penetration that is currently achieved by our 1.9 GHz spectrum. The result? An even better experience for our customers with increased coverage, more capacity, and faster speeds. Sprint wanted to push as much of its traffic to Band 41, which had more carrying capacity than Band 25. Unfortunately the capex limitations for the past few years didn’t allow HPUE to reach its full potential. Here’s how HPUE performed in “real world” testing: In December, P3 engineers drove 36 miles around the Chicago metro area gathering about 4,000 test samples along a fixed route. They tested two Samsung Note 8 devices running in parallel, one with HPUE active, and one without, to provide a side-by-side comparison. P3 found that HPUE increased Sprint’s 2.5 GHz coverage by 24%. And as a result of spending more time on our faster 2.5 GHz spectrum band, average download speed jumped 49%. Sprint is a Band 41 heavy network. The goal was to make it more available and have devices on it more of the time. Unfortunately, not enough of Sprint’s towers were upgraded to support 2.5 GHz for it to have the impact it needed to have. The most recent Investor Update (Fiscal 4Q18) states that Sprint has 2.5 GHz on approximately 80% of its macro sites (Page 10), and that’s after a recent capex push.