utiz4321

This is my last post so feel free and respond if it makes you feel right. Hesse's statement is technically accurate but notice what it doesn't exclude. It doesn't exclude the possibility that SoftBank had input or could have vetoed the idea. This is where it is dissembling a bit. It leads people to believe SoftBank wasn't involve while not saying that SoftBank is not involved, in fact it say the opposite. For example, sprint comes up with the plan (created in hesses's comment), informs SoftBank. From there softbank could say no, or adjust the prices ex.. Then sprint deploys them( initiated). in this sceam hesse commints are true but softbank was very much invovled (really it is called critical thinking. when you know a source in biased you try to filter what they are saying. Hopefully you won't say Hesse is not biased) And since you agree that the plans had SoftBank's approval what are you disagreeing with me about? I have said since SoftBank must sign off on these plans this can be seen as their first move and it is not impressive. If you take everything someone in coroprate leadership says on face value and don't look at exactly it was they actually said you are going to be mislead a great deal. They are masters of while not lying, leading people to think what they want when saying something quite different and as much as I like Dan Hesse he wouldn't have gotton to where he is without this skill. Also glad to see you did disagree with my contention that average customer might as well not have the old plans avalible to them because they have a better chance of getting ice cream delivered in the middle of the Sahara. I was going off what my local sprint stores said and the website when I claimed that the plans where no longer avalible. If i was wrong I am sorry that sprint misinformed me, but that reflects worse on sprint than it does me so hopefully that is a good victory for, because as a customers of sprint (you know those right the ones that allow you company to continue) I a bit mifited at the companies antics right now.

I have called four stores in my area all of them pushed me into the new plans and didn't give me the option for the old ones even when i threaten to walk. You can not get them online. If they are that hard to get for an informed consumer they not avalible to the average one for all intents and purposes. Hesse can spin this how he wants, but bottom line is if SoftBank had a problem with these new plans they wouldn't have happened. If you think it still could have happened with out SoftBanks approval then you should spend sometime learning how coroprate governance works. But hey everything that companies tell their employees in 100 percent true and not self serving at all, right. Also vzw and AT&T have not forced any of their customers off unlimited data. The might have not offered certain services with unlisted data like FaceTime or handset subsidies , but none of their customers are forced to leave unlimited data. I have never claimed people are being forced off the old plans, so why you keep bring that up is beyond me. I have like Hesse since he took over and have been with sprint for 9years, even while I worked for other carriers. I was very excited about this merger. I am less so now because of these new plans that at the very least receive tacit support from softbank. Further sprint doesn't say that they grantee unlimited data and hand set subsidies for life did they? So they could still pull the samething vzw has done or that all service will be avalible, so they can still do the thing AT&T has done.

Call a sprint store tell them you are new and see what they say (I did it with four) or better try to sign up for the old plans online as a new customer. SoftBank has final say, if they thought this was a bad idea or hindered their plans it would not have gone forward. Hesse is being a bit self serving by saying the clear closer was the reason. It fits niecely with sprints contention that the unlimited garrentee is a value proposition (i dont think it is as sprint would be the only carrier to force people off unlimited. in affect all other carriers have an unlimited garantee by the way they have acted) while allowing them to ignore that this is indeed a price hike. In other words coroprate propaganda. Buy it if you want to buy it, but I will not. Action speak louder than words. This is softbank's first move, hopefully they can provide some really value to justify the price rise (like a network that is better than Verizon or AT&T) or I think this investment of theirs will fail.

I couldn't disagree more. I don't think sprint launches a whole new set of plans, ditching the old ones (for new customers) a few days after the deal closes with out softbank's approval. Sprint and SoftBank have been working closely since the deal was accepted by sprint's board (at least according to sprint and SoftBank). This can and should be seen as softbank's first move and it is not impressive.

I am less optimistic about this merger now than I was a week ago. the new plans tell me that they don't get what it is going to take to grow market share in the US. hopefully I am wrong.

The goals are profits overall, as for any company. Many companies use "lost leaders"(products they make little or no money off of) in their marketing strategies. Again wireless companies don't care about making a profit off each per say they care about the spread between cash cost per user and average revenue per user. This is how these companies increase oibda and thus the bottom line. Any wire less company would gladly offer a service that they lose 10 bucks a month on if it ment they would gain 100. It is a flat out price increase on new customers which I believe is bad timing and they will end up having to back track on. Also, I wasn't expecting the SoftBank purchase to be followed by price hikes.

For wireless companies it is all about arpu (average revenue per user). It doesn't matter to them is one line is ten bucks and another is 200 what matters is the average. They want to increase that average like all carriers do. The problem is that they also need to grow market share and to try to increase arpu through a price rise is counter productive to that goal (especially when they don't have the value proposition of a quality network). Besides they already have one of the highest post paid ARPUs of any of the carriers at 61 and some change (I pretty sure only AT&T is higher, could be wrong through). So I don't think this move makes any sense, but they have people looking at forecasts and projections with a lot more data thean me so I sure they think they see something I don't. It doesn't mean it's there, but it could be. The really depressing thing was that the hope was the SoftBank purchase brought with it the hope of increase price competition and shortly after it was finalized it turn out to be the opposite case.

This is seriously a bad move on sprint's part. It breaks down as a price rise (for new customers) while their network is not competitive (and won't be until NV is complete sometime in the first quarter of next year). Now they are actually more expensive than most of AT&T and vzw plans for a family of five and many plans for family of 3 or more They got a way with raising prices once but that was only because they where still cheaper (for the most part) than vzw and AT&T. I don't see how this is a plan to grow market share. Until now I have had a great deal of faith in sprint's leadership team (considering what they have been able to do given where the company was at when Hesse took over) but now I seriously have to question their thinking and ability to turn sprint into a competitive company. Until they have a competitive network they have to compete on price.

Yeah, I just went into my local sprint store and only the new plans are avalible for new customers. This is a terrible idea in my opinion. But as far as your sister in law going to tmobile if they want unlimited data, after financing the phone they are at the same price.

They won't hit you with massive roaming fees, they don't charge for roaming. They can and will cancel your service, but only in rare cases where you are over their limit on average for three months. And that rule is not even hard and fast, I think they evaluate the overall value of your account and do a cost benefit analysis in making that choice.

I think people complaining that sprint is no longer offering true unlimited because of the fact that sprint reserves the right to throttle video streaming to 1mbps on high traffic towers and times are way off base. First plans are still available that don't have that stipulation. Second, it's more a kin to network management that limiting unlimited data. Other carriers that instituted throttling have done so after a certain amount of data has been used for a month and can therefore be seen as a constraint on the amount of high speed data used. Where as sprint is reserving the right to limit on activity at times when there network is under strain. It therefore doesn't impose a limit on the amount of high speed data which one can use. In any case if a tower is having capacity issues your speed slows down anyway (as any sprint data customer should know). So in affect you get throttled by exhausting the capacity of a given tower, sprint is just trying to control one activity in order to make sure everyone data doesn't slow down to .05 mbps like happens know. Lastly, while one mbps might not allow you to stream hd video you can still stream pretty high quality video easily, so I could careless about this provision.

What Robert is saying and for the life of me I can't understand why people don't get this, is that if you stick with the current plans or elect to go with one of these plans for new customers you are on a plan that is truly unlimited. If you elect to go with one of the new plans you are not on a truly unlimited plan but because sprint offers both it means they offer truy unlimited data and therefor are a truly unlimited data carrier. Seriously it is really basic logic.

It really doesn't make sense. If sprint were going to only offer these plans to new customers they would have said so when they announce the plans like vzw did.

Depends on which states some state capitals are small towns compared to the major cities in the state. ( Washington state comes to mind, Olympia has 50000 people in it.)

Ah I think I did miss read it but if you take into account the financing of phones tmobile comes out to the same.

How do you mean 20*5+30*5=250 sprint Tmobile 50+30+10*3+20*5=210 apples to apples

I was lookin at tmobile for a while also, but there plans didn't work out to be cheaper when you factored in either financing the cost of the phones or buy them out right. Tmobile was 50 +30+ 10 then another 30 to have 2 gigs of 4g or 60 to have unlimited 4g (after that down to edge speeds) which either way is cheaper than the 180 with sprint but then the phones where 400 more each. That is 1200 over two years that adds 50 ( with out a discount rate, the idea that money today is worth more than money tomorrow) to the bill if I bought them out right our 60 if I financed them. That brought the price of tmobile's plans to 170 for 2 gigs a line or 200 for unlimited 4g. So, more if you compare apples to apples.

I was lookin at tmobile for a while also, but there plans didn't work out to be cheaper when you factored in either financing the cost of the phones or buy them out right. Tmobile was 50 +30+ 10 then another 30 to have 2 gigs of 4g or 60 to have unlimited 4g (after that down to edge speeds) which either way is cheaper than the 180 with sprint but then the phones where 400 more each. That is 1200 over two years that adds 50 ( with out a discount rate, the idea that money today is worth more than money tomorrow) to the bill if I bought them out right our 60 if I financed them. That brought the price of tmobile's plans to 170 for 2 gigs a line or 200 for unlimited 4g. So, more if you compare apples to apples.

Unfortunately these type of service outages happen with every carrier.

Not to quibble (ok maybe a little) but rebranding is just marketing in any case lol

Motley fool is really bad even as a site dedicated to investor, at least when it comes to sprint. From sprint's rises ~2.50 to 7 dollars they where saying dont by sprint might go bankrupt and was going nowhere. Now they are recommending people get into the stock I am worried about sprint's future lol

New sprint..... One with out the negative reputation and a broken data network.

So, should they wait until NV is completed or start rebranding right away?

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-06-27/fcc-chief-asks-agency-to-approve-softbank-bid-for-sprint-1 Looks like sprint/SoftBank/clear is a done deal. And I read another article that quotes source familiar with the matter there will be no spectrum divestiture.

Does anybody have a good idea of how long it will take sprint to rollout 2.5 widely? I know clear itself is suppose to have 2000 site ready to go by the end of the year, any chance sprint might beat that number?