RedSpark

Yeah. That's certainly possible. Hesse definitely had a different vision for Sprint. I guess Son had other plans. How much CapEx would be necessary to get 2.5 GHz on every site? I just can't get around Marcelo's remarks during the Conference that Sprint isn't constrained on CapEx.

Part of me wants Sprint's old gear to break so they have to replace it with all-new stuff....

http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprint-announces-early-tender-results-and-upsizing-of-its-cash-tender-offers-for-its-9000-guaranteed-notes-due-2018-and-its-8375-notes-due-2017.htm Sprint is paying down a substantial amount of debt. Good!

Here's the transcript from yesterday's Investor Conference: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4075474-sprints-ceo-marcelo-claure-presents-j-p-morgan-global-technology-media-telecom-conference Some interesting comments by Marcelo: "There's no reason why customers shouldn’t be buying online and customers shouldn’t be serve online." So why did Marcelo invest all that money into Radio Shack for more store locations? ---- On CapEx: Phil Cusick I guess, it’s only four years, I apologies. Seems like longer, so, and yet, we really haven’t seen that big push with capital and now you are talking about doubling CapEx this year. Is that enough? Is it -- can you really drive the business faster or is there still level of capital constrains that you feel like which don’t have the money to really drive as fast as we like? Marcelo Claure So that’s a huge misconception. We have never had a capital constrain as it relates to spending CapEx. What -- we were always challenge with, I says, is there really a need to spend as much as everybody else to create a great network experience and I think that’s a huge misconception of the industry that you set up a cap and I have seen even in -- within my team, you set up a CapEx budget and then people fight hard to go spend that money. And in many cases without need or they go by gear or they try to do unnatural things in order to basically hit that CapEx number. Look at the quality of our network and look how much money we have spent. We have spent the lowest amount of CapEx in -- and be able to deliver the fastest progress than anybody else. Now, why, because we spent a lot of money before through our network vision we were the higher spenders as it relates to the number of customers that we have. So we have set up a really good foundation, very good place now. We are going to do massive densification of our network. We plan to deploy millions of Magic Boxes. And what we told -- the way we look at it we should be spending plus minus $4 billion for the next three years and that should allow us to get where we want to get with the network. Is Marcelo being serious? I thought Sprint had no money for CapEx. Millions of Magic Boxes?

http://newsroom.sprint.com/blogs/sprint-perspectives/racism-has-no-place-at-sprint.htm "That’s why I’m inviting this woman and her husband to meet privately with me so I can better understand what drives comments and behavior like this. I’d like to share my views with her as well." "I also invite the customer she attacked, Juan, to meet with me." Wow.

Sounds like this was a real change for the better in terms of Network management.

Hopefully Sprint is able to pull out that Clear Gear and replace it with new equipment soon. I can definitely tell some areas of the city are better than others in terms of Band 41 speeds and coverage.

Why did it change? Did Hesse have an actual funding plan for 2.5 GHz to every site? Was Hesse's plan/strategy better? True, WiMAX did have to stay on longer and the small cells got delayed. IBEZ as well, but that finally seems to be moving. I guess no actual Macro expansion was included in this plan? Sprint was simply going to densify its existing footprint?

Thanks for clarifying that. Why did Marcelo overrule it? What assumption was Hesse operating under that 2.5 GHz to every site could be done? How would it have been paid for?

Project Ocean didn't happen? What about Project Cedar?

Didn't Hesse or Marcelo originally say that 2.5 GHz was going to be deployed on every tower? Marcelo then changed the 2.5 GHz deployment strategy to be targeted deployments... but it's unclear if the "2.5 GHz on every site" promise still stands.

Hope this gets sorted out soon.

Yes. You're right about that. To the extent it reduces indoor coverage complaints, it's a modest step though it doesn't address CDMA Voice like the upcoming Airave 3 will. I wonder if Sprint gets more complaints about outdoor or indoor coverage. I'd be curious to see the breakdown on that.

Hopefully this is moving along. 3CA needs to be pushed to all markets it can be. I recall there being deployment "delays" due to certain equipment in certain markets.

That's a CapEx issue. Maybe Magic Boxes will help some?

That's certainly possible!

Interesting comment by Marcelo: https://twitter.com/marceloclaure/status/866699009913651200

It's nice to hear about that progress. Sprint just has to get to the other side of its debt curve and pay it down enough to have some breathing room for CapEx. Perhaps we'll see more rapid improvements once more Magic Boxes get into the field.

Where did you read this? Here?: http://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sprint-to-deploy-lte-cat-1-by-end-july-cat-m-coming-mid-2018 "Sprint says it will complete its deployment of LTE Cat 1 technology across its nationwide network by the end of July, and it plans to begin deploying LTE Cat M in mid-2018 followed by LTE Cat NB1." Five months ago, Günther said during his Reddit AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sprint/comments/5ipysj/2nd_ama_here_we_come/ "70% of our LTE sites have 2.5GHz. We are doing both. A lot of parallel work going on here as you can see..." Seems to me based on the Coverage Map, unless there's a sudden acceleration in work pace or CapEx, I don't believe Sprint will finish deploying LTE to every tower by the end of July. Of course, I could be completely wrong on that.

Never race for pink slips or ownership of a company. :-)

Legere would probably win in a race. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Legere): "Legere was a nationally competitive runner in college and post college, and still competes in events with fellow employees. In 2004, he completed the Boston Marathon as a member of the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute Marathon Challenge team.[5] In May 2016 in support of competitive running, he purchased ad space on Nick Symmonds's shoulder for T-Mobile. [13]"

Ha! Not as much likely as it used to be.

So far, he's met with some Senators: https://twitter.com/marceloclaure/status/864975499747106817 https://twitter.com/marceloclaure/status/864976123045793792 https://twitter.com/marceloclaure/status/864977377742422018 And he's doing a run tomorrow morning! https://twitter.com/marceloclaure/status/864956567959072769

Planning ahead!