mittenmitten

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Customer additions are worth spending profits on, customer retention over tethering isn't. People aren't going to leave Sprint because they don't get a tethering allotment. People WILL join Sprint if the price is right.

Legere is double dipping into profits by throwing promotions at people to get them to switch, then throwing MORE profits at them to stay. Meanwhile, Claure only gets them to switch, then keeps them here with a 'soft contract' like a lease or payments. Legere's retention policy has basically been 'throw more money at them', while Claure's has been 'lets keep long term profitability in mind for when we want to stop the promotions'.

Offering tethering is not an industry trend, it's a desperate move by John 'The Candy Man' Legere. Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, they are all businesses. They don't make money by not charging people. Fair tethering prices, sure, but free tethering is forgoing profits they would otherwise earn on something that isn't typically a deal breaker for customers. It would be throwing money away. I hope Sprint doesn't offer free tethering, B25 and B26 are already insanely congested, and profits are good.

Legere gives and gives and what happens when you feed the animals? They keep coming back begging for more. Claure is a brilliant CEO, he wouldn't be foolish enough to give Sprint profits away to win some ego-stroking contest Legere is having with himself. 

The more Dish talks about this merger, the worse off T-Mobile will be for the 600mhz auction. I hope they keep talking about it. 'Woes me' Legere says to the FCC, while a giant spectrum hog spills the beans about their possible merger *dramatic soap opera organ*. So much drama.

It's not that they are converging. It's just that increasing amounts of video are OTT. That's why Verizon launched their service, that's why Dish launched their service. If increasing amounts of OTT video is getting watched on tablets and phones then it makes sense to own or be a partner in a wireless network. That's why a Cable/Sprint tie up makes sense. Cable presumably has the licenses/content and Sprint has the network or will have it.

Partnership =/= merger. Sprint could partner with whoever they want, and it would actually probably be the best wireless carrier to partner with considering their capacity, but it doesn't mean they would merge with them. T-Mobile/Dish (or at least what people are speculating) would be a merger and/or acquisition, where one company buys the other. They can operate it separately (which would be best for T-Mobile, they have crazy brand equity) or roll it into the parent company.

Sprint isn't merging with anyone because they were JUST bought out by Softbank not too long ago. Softbank has proven time and again that they want to stick with Sprint until the war is over.

The thing about T-Mobile, is that their current parent company, Deutsche Telekom, bought them to resell them. They bought the smallest company in hopes that the 4 carriers would in some way merge, and they could get a premium price. Legere did exactly what he was supposed to; up the value of the company so it would be perceived as a threat, and Sprint tried to buy them out to silence them, and 3 carriers could set prices. T-Mobile was never meant to be a major player, they were and have been an asset to be acquired. The problem is that they're big enough now where the other 3 carriers can't legally acquire them without gaining an unfair advantage. 

T-Mobile is in financial trouble in the long-term. Softbank saved Sprint, now T-Mobile needs a wealthy parent to invest in them (spectrum auctions/acquisition, financing for buildout, partnerships, etc). It has nothing to do with cable companies or a trend of acquisitions, it's just a T-Mobile thing. They exist to be acquired, their parent bought them to sell them. When they finally DO get a parent with money or patience, they'll be good to go. It just so happens that the latest parent looking at them is a broadcast provider.

Ive hit backspace and deleted my entire post about 5 times so far, so I'll make it short.

AT&T Mobility is as much a part of AT&T Inc as Cricket. If the DirectTV purchase goes through, it would likely remain a subsidiary of AT&T Inc., in which case, there would STILL not be a single case of a wireless carrier merging with a broadcast provider.

If anything happens between Dish and T-Mobile, it would likely be exactly the same, where Dish would buy T-Mobile, operate it separate as a wholly owned subsidiary, and lease or sell their spectrum to T-Mobile for nearly nothing.

That being said, Dish-Mobile still wouldn't come close to the capacity and available spectrum Sprint has to work with, and they would have a half dozen bands to deal with. Sprint owns spectrum that was going to be used for wireless last-mile home internet, it's a big'n chunk o' spectrm.

I think this entire thing is ludacris. AT&T bought DirectTV because it was a direct competitor with their Uverse service. AT&T just happens to also have AT&T mobility. It doesn't mean TV services and cellular services are going to start pairing off, or that they HAVE to pair off. It's not even a trend.

rumors of Dish wanting to merge with T-Mobile? better speculate on all possible ISP / cell service provider combos!

Yes, Lansing is an official Spark market

so..isn't 9mbps median download terrible for a Spark market?

nope.

 

not sure if this page is viewable without an an account, but the stores are @ https://sprintpoints.retailbenefits.com/stores

 

target, 1800flowers, kohls, coach, country outfitters, crocs, diaper dude, famous footwear, jcpenny, and a dozen other mall type store names.

hey thanks, Kohls and Target are big. this reminds me of Bing Rewards.

edit : oh wow, I didn't see the categories on the right, that's a TON of partners.

Why the sad face? Looks to me like a very close race..

 

Plus more importantly....

 

"Since our testing in September, Sprint’s median download speed increased from 2.7 Mbps to 9.9 Mbps, and Sprint’s median upload speed increased from 2.9 Mbps to 5.1 Mbps."

I guess you're right, but aren't they a Spark market?

please let a partner be Amazon..

http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/lansing-mi/2015/1H

: (

AThe moment a T-Mobile customer steps out of town, they have no service.  While some people are willing to accept that, I'm sure many more do not, and even if Sprint doesn't use their 600 MHz purchase themselves, their RRPP partners will definitely use it and make Sprint service that much more attractive both to their own customers and those of the RRPP members.

 

Not going to comment on the "just move to the city!" fallacy that many people like to repeat.

 

- Trip

 I never said move to the city, I said people should have realistic expectations and understand that it costs more money to provide ANYTHING to less populated areas. Sprint shouldn't prioritize rural customers simply because it's not cost effective. if you live in a rural area, expect to pay more and have fewer choices (and slower data).

not saying Sprint should abandon all rural coverage, just saying it's GOING to be at the bottom of their list of 'stuff to fix' because it doesn't have ROI like urban markets do. they are basically doing the same thing T-Mobile is; fix the biggest cities first because they're going to pay for everything else and look the most impressive. the difference is that Sprint had a larger footprint, so people are left hanging longer.

If Sprint ultimately wants to complete in rural areas, it will need more than the 5x5 below 1 GHz it effectively has now.  In most areas, Verizon and AT&T have 20x20 spread across 700 and 850 MHz, some of which is dedicated to 3G at present but will ultimately be used for LTE in the future, and Sprint's 5x5 won't touch that by a long shot. 

 

Small cells don't work in areas where there's no infrastructure to back them up.

 

- Trip

if anything can be learned from T-Mobile, it's that wireless carriers shouldn't and don't have to prioritize rural customers. it's part of the 'rural tax', you pay more for *everything* but real estate because you chose to live in the middle of nowhere.

I never noticed how little data I typically used until I switched to unlimited on Sprint. I think Hesse makes a really great point about unlimited, but that's not the entirety of the value proposition.

On T-Mobile, at $80 a month, I was making sure to use as much data as I possibly could because I wanted to tap the full 'value' of my plan. I felt like if I didn't use tons of data, I wasted $. It wasn't 'forget about caps', it felt like a challenge to use as much data as possible. On Cricket at $35 a month, I was using my phone as little as possible, there was almost no point in having data. On MetroPCS unlimited I was at a good price point, but was SoL when it came to getting a new phone. I think Sprint really has hit the sweet spot at $60 for unlimited on individual plans, where people aren't going to feel bad about not using tons of data, or about adding a new phone to their plan (especially with leasing, $75 for a brand new iPhone and uncapped data is just a remarkably easy to swallow pill I think).

Hesse seems like he was a smart guy. He was around before I joined Sprint, but looking back at articles, he seemed like a decent CEO, just maybe a little too ambitious.

There's 1 beefy tower on the north side of town, near Belknap park, that has reliable 50mbps B41, there's the one on McKay tower with B41, and there's one out in Wyoming near 32nd st by my work that tests over 30mbps regularly that shows on their map.

I'm guessing token B41 sites helped them eek out higher numbers. That's how it works though. T-Mobile had spotty coverage before B12. Sprint just went the opposite way, far reaching B26 first, now speedy high frequency.

As far as new coverage, I now get solid B41 all the way down Jefferson on my way to work. There's a smoke stack with antennas on it, can't remember the exact factory name, but now the Madison neighborhood where I always dropped coverage has solid B41.

It's getting better. A LOT better compared to what it was in GR.

I question the T-Mobile win because in the last report in Q2 2014, they had this to say about Verizon: "Notably, 33.4 mbps is the fastest median download speed Verizon has recorded in any market we've tested in 2014 to date". I get that a lot changes in half a year, but..I can't imagine T-Mobile can trump Verizon's fastest recorded speed in half a year. Especially while coming dead last in every other metric.

I can't post pictures for some reason, but if you open "how rootmetrics scores are calculated" it shows Verizon's median download was 31.26 (18.13 upload) while T-Mobile's was 24.06 (17.82 upload). Sprint's is 11.6 (6.34 upload) while AT&T's is 11.48 (5.90 upload).

Verizon has faster median downloads, faster uploads, and better data availability, by a large margin, yet they are tied..

Same thing for Lansing, and Flint, and im assuming all other markets. Verizon has faster speeds, yet T-Mobile flat out 'won' in their 'speed index'.

I don't get, Verizon has almost a 10mbps lead on T-Mobile in download speed, with a similar upload and far superior reliability, yet T-Mobile beats them on the speed index? How the hell do they figure that?

Beside that, Sprint is now basically in a dead heat with AT&T here. This is really exciting. When B41 is denser, they're going to pull ahead in speed. I'm just blown away by the value proposition: fast downloads, the best calling and texting, great reliability, all for the lowest price of any carrier, AND with unlimited data. Now if they can buy out all the garbage 'all star wireless' stores, and make them corporate owned, they would do well here again.

Agree. But from now on, both TMO and Sprint will only get better. And if we go by market, market wants one carrier TO RULE THEM ALL!

I think it's funny that you can't carry on a discussion specifically about Sprint earnings without framing it in a way that involves T-Mobile. Heh. Whatever floats your boat.

That was the net postpaid amount.  All of those were tablet additions.  They lost 201,000 phone customers.  That's a continued improvement from last year and earlier quarters.  

it's important to keep this all in context too, they have over 50 million customers, 200k losses accounts for 0.4% or less of their total customers..they're not hemmoraging customers like they were, and they're slowing and offsetting losses. postpaid adds will come with network improvements, they have so far.

I'm with Claure, I don't really care about what place they're in as long as everything shows improvement. And everything is improving, so yey.

from a business standpoint it's a relatively safe move considering their competitors do the exact same thing, but it does reality check that 'OMFG WHAT CAN'T T-MOBILE DO!?' stuff, which is refreshing.

I have 2 questions about Sprint in Grand Rapids.

1) Is backhaul still an issue in GR? Was it ever? Or was that congestion on B25?

2) Is tower spacing really a big issue in GR?

It seems like my S5 is constantly stuck on 1 bar of B26 when I'm at home (Heritage Hill) or at work (Wyoming at 32nd and Division). Only when I'm in the middle of downtown do I get decent speeds it seems. What could be the cause of this?

from what I've read, Grand Rapids is and has been essentially a perfect storm for terrible Sprint coverage. poor tower spacing and for a long time poor backhaul and a giant hill in the middle of the city. it's been really tough to stay loyal : /

why exactly would they put up equipment and not optimize it then and there? does it really take that long to 'optimize'?