RedSpark

I wonder if there’s going to be an LTE upgrade push over the next month here in the DC market to better prep it for VoLTE.

Getting the feeling something more definitive about it was said at that Town Hall earlier today.... ?

Wondering if any additional details came out of this Town Hall today?

Sprint announced a deal with Cox earlier this year: http://newsroom.sprint.com/sprint-and-cox-announce-multi-year-business-partnership.htm I wish they’d work out a deal with RCN for the DC Metro area: DC: https://www.rcn.com/hub/about-rcn/where-we-service/dc-metro-service-areas/ Overall markets: https://www.rcn.com/hub/about-rcn/where-we-service/

They’re up! http://newsroom.sprint.com/sprint-reports-inflection-in-wireless-service-revenue-with-fiscal-year-2018-first-quarter-results.htm Network progress: Completed thousands of tri-band upgrades and now has 2.5 GHz spectrum deployed on nearly two-thirds of its macro sites. Added thousands of new outdoor small cells and currently has more than 15,000 deployed including both mini-macros and strand mounts. Distributed more than 65,000 Sprint Magic Boxes, bringing the total to more than 260,000 nationwide. Much more detail in John Saw’s writeup today as well: http://newsroom.sprint.com/sprints-next-gen-network-build-gains-momentum.htm

Earnings Call on August 1st: Quarterly Results posted at 7:30AM ET Earnings Call is at 8:30AM ET Webcast Link: https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=1772279&sessionid=1&key=EB29375512A06184DD8698FBAC0B6420&regTag=&sourcepage=register

My guess would be Charter, Comcast and Dish. For Shareholder X: Would Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway or John Malone of Liberty Media (depending on their holdings) be possibilities?

That’s quite a read! Nice find. Crazy story how this all came together.

The major bump took effect last quarter? This is what it said in the Investor Update for Fiscal 4Q17 (Page 16): Cash capital expenditures were $2.7 billion in the quarter compared to $1.6 billion in the year- ago period and $3.2 billion in the prior quarter. The year-over-year increase was driven by higher spending on leased devices as well as higher capital expenditures for network equipment. Sequentially, the decrease was driven by seasonally lower spending on leased devices. Leased device capital expenditures now include purchases in both direct and indirect channels. Looking at the Financial & Operating Information for Fiscal 4Q17 (Wireless SoP Tab at the bottom), when it’s broken into “Network and Other” and “Leased Devices”, it doesn’t seem like much of an increase in network capex to me. Am I reading this right?

Bummer. I guess we’re in for a wait here then. Do you think it’s more likely at this point that when the clearwire gear is ultimately pulled that it will be replaced with Nokia Massive MIMO equipment (now that it’s passed through the FCC) than 8T8R? Is Sprint applying the same “save site” analysis to Massive MIMO deployments?

True. You’re right. There has been some noticeable progress in certain areas of DC, and I’ve been able to map that walking around town. It’s still frustrating though because I can readily tell where the money hasn’t been spent to pull out the old clearwire gear or where I’m on congested Band 25 outside of the Downtown core area because they haven’t upgraded a tower with Band 41 yet. We’ll see what they say this week.

It’s encouraging to hear that things are still happening. Reason I’m skeptical of what we hear is that we heard promises from Marcelo for years about passing the competition. A bit salty that DC isn’t part of the upgrades yet, but it is what it is.

Hopefully Sprint demonstrates a similar commitment to its own capex during its Earnings Call this week. However, I think the fact that T-Mobile will be the anchor network and that Sprint’s sites are going to be cherry picked as “save sites” has already factored into Sprint’s capex plans. I’m concerned we won’t see much until this merger closes... or is rejected outright.

I’ve given up trying to rationalize Sprint’s social media strategy and implementation. They simply don’t have a clue what they’re doing. Management on top is totally incompetent or indifferent about it. One look at how T-Mobile does it shows how it’s done properly. A substantial amount of money was probably spent on these videos that essentially nobody is watching. Someone was paid to upload them in a channel that has zero subscribers. The poor implementation of this runs up the chain to the decision-maker.

What a waste. This new channel has zero subscribers and the view counts in the single digits and low double digits shows that essentially nobody is watching these videos. Looks like an internal Comms Project run out of a walled off fiefdom or a poorly run project outsourced to some consultant for purposes of the merger. Stuff like this is so dumb.

Posted in the Washington DC Premier Thread.

That’s true.

3G/2.5 GHz is what I was told. Didn’t ask if it was a Clear co-located site. I was told that according to network tools, our towers in DC are really a hodgepodge. We have some that are 3G only, some that are straight LTE (25/26) and some that are LTE plus. This alone is indicative of limited capex in recent years, but the fact that nothing in the area even shows as pending according to the tool has me further concerned that no substantial upgrades to the Sprint network in DC will actually occur until after the merger is denied, if that’s what winds up happening.... and we could be 6-9 months or more from that.

8T8R in the Woods? An S1000 at an old radios/sprint shack location?

What I was told by an employee with access to network tools is that the tower has 2.5 GHz and 3G only. The 2.5 GHz is offline and there’s no fallback is to Band 25/26. The tower is at the intersection of 16th St NW and Scott Cir NW. No notes after Mid-May. It seems to have been forgotten about. No pending upgrades in the area. Also, only one tower in 20814 is pending an upgrade according to the network tools. The Band 25 Site on Suburban Hospital is getting Band 26. Seems pretty quiet for a “build surge.” Maybe we’ll get more info during the Earnings Call.

Unexpected development here...

I also held off on the iPhone X and got the 8 instead. Aside from concerns about Gen. 1 glitches, many apps weren’t updated for it yet. You couldn’t have multiple profiles for Face ID. It also lacked HPUE and support for Band 71. I plan to get the new X this year with my annual upgrade.

Good point. I wish stuff like this didn’t have to come to having executive escalations. This is pretty ridiculous.

Done! Thanks.

Appreciate the suggestion. Support has actually been helpful. I’ve been reporting it daily in the app for weeks now. I’m not sure what Marci can do in this situation if it turns out to be a directive from the local market team to let the tower sit for merger/budget reasons. Sprint knows the site is down. It appears so in their tools. It just seems that it’s been abandoned for maintenance purposes, and with the merger on the horizon, fixing it might not be a priority or even possible given pre-merger policy. Of course, I could be completely wrong on this and Massive MIMO panels could be going up to replace it or another site nearby. I’m not optimistic...