bigsnake49

What about USCC and C-Spire and the sundry regional CDMA players?

Yeah they can, but they have a small window to do it. By next September, I'm thinking that the combined entity will get the iPhone, thereby reducing the reasons for migrating off the combined carrier.

Again, Sprint's stock is undervalued compared to sales. I'm thinking that Sprint can siphon quite a few of the Metro and T-Mobile customers. They just need to be smart about it.

So offer them plans with extended coverage. If they roam on Verizon or USCC offer them the exact same price or $5 better. Offer them the iPhone 5 or GS III for a discount to move to Sprint's prepaid brands.

These are prepaid handsets. Virgin and Boost customers don't get Verizon/USCC roaming either.

They don't even have coverage in some of the areas that USCC and C-Spire cover. They will have to build new sites and I don't know if they can make any money doing that.

I have also used it and if it does not steer me wrong, and it hasn't so far, it will replace my Navigon, which I really like.

If I was Sprint and this goes through, I would offer to let Metro customers bring over their Metro handsets for free and not require them to buy Sprint compatible handsets. Are there any Metro phones that don't roam on 1900PCS? The worst that can happen is to force T-Mobile to offer former MetroPCS customers free handsets, thereby making this merger even more expensive. The impediment to Sprint buying/merging with anybody is that their stock is too low.

From what I gather, the talks are at an advanced stage, but not yet finalized. Part of the deal is that the resulting entity will be listed in the US stock market. So it looks that T-Mobile USA will be merged and spun off.

From what I understand, Cricket is in a precarious financial condition and could be acquired for $.5B and assumption of debt. Even some of that debt could be restructured. There are costs associated with integrating a network, namely leases that are no longer needed. I don't think that Cricket has many of their own towers. They just lease on already existing towers. The best thing for Sprint to do is to buy the spectrum and have Cricket become an MVNO. No need to buy the company.

Sorry, dup

Well, yes, it depends on the premium they pay vs how much spectrum, how much spectrum is available in the market, PCS band H, Dish spectrum, etc. If they acquire Metro and then increase prices to compensate for the price they paid to acquire them, then it could lead to people leaving for competitors. Or it lead to higher prices for all prepaid customers. So Cricket it is.

I know that Sprint wanted to concetrate on Network Vision, but if this is true, then it is a major missed opportunity for Sprint. Not too much spectrum and customers in play out there.

I never understood why they even chose Samsung for the Network Vision project. I have friends in the industry and they do not think very highly of Samsung as an infrastructure vendor.

I think it has something to do with them scheduling their upgrades after Sprint's in each market, not being ahead of Sprint's upgrades for that same market. Makes sense if they are going to serve as the relief valve for Sprint's network.

If Sprint were to acquire USCC it would be better from a brand perception point of view to create a super USCC that would incorporate rural USCC and Sprint properties into a wholly owned subsidiary. Give them some money as well and see if they can get Sprint (USCC) rural coverage expanded using the 800SMR spectrum. Sprint's coverage gets expanded and their roaming bill reduced. USCC knows how to run a rural network.

Plus most of USCC's customers are contract customers vs the prepaid customers of Metro and Cricket. If I had to prioritize I would say go after USCC first, then Metro then Cricket, but I'm afraid that it will happen in the reverse order since Cricket owes Sprint money and has very low market value right now. It has relatively high debt load though.

Yes it is.

AWS spacing is the same as PCS spacing. Although there might be some minor differences in propagation, in general it tends to follow the PCS spacing.

DT needs to set T-Mobile free. Let them sink or swim on their own.

I have not tried the traffic feature of the new Maps app. Navigon's is darn good and saved me a bunch of time yesterday. I had a dinner engagement and it rerouted me around a 30 minute accident traffic tie-up. This was a business dinner with a prospective client and Navigon saved my behind. Granted, I had already called, but still.

I have used google maps for ever and they still have flaws. They don't always find the best route. In their earlier incarnations they had my house one street over. But then I've also had problems with Garmin maps and also with Navigon. I stopped using the old apps because it had no turn by turn directions and have used Navigon exlusively since you can predownload the maps that you need. It comes in handy if there's no 3G or 4G when you're in the middle of nowhere. I use Navigon almost exclusively and I will not use Apple's new maps until they allow me to pre-download maps.

Both AWS and PCS.

I guess MetroPCS is shopping itself around. I know that Sprint has to be careful since they have a lot on their plate, but they cannot wait forever.

They should have probably moved the old Maps to the app store so that people that need the missing functionality can still download it, while the new Maps is the default.