bigsnake49

Well it seems that total revenue for the whole wireless industry was flat if not outright negative. So it's not just Sprint but the whole industry. http://www.lightreading.com/mobile/devices-smartphones/where-has-all-the-mobile-revenue-gone/d/d-id/710286? Read the comments, they are very enlightening.

No we have a separate topic for that.

I once streamed music on I-95 for about 10 hrs straight on Sprint

Robert, I consider myself an engineer, a program manager, an investor (who is short of investable funds at the moment , and then a consumer. As a consumer I recognize that the prices have to be sustainable. i recognize that in high fixed cost industries such as utilities, wireless, hospitals, prices have to reflect fixed costs and the investment capital required by keeping up with technology. As a program manager that has actually worked in the wireless industry it is rather appalling to see the project management missteps that Sprint committed. They need to fire every one of them.

Really? You want me to go into their whole cost structure? I would if they gave me all the data.

A race to the bottom does not leave enough money for capex. Mahatma Ghandi once said that an eye for eye leaves the whole world blind.

I said share the network. I did not say merge. What do you have against that? I don't want a race to the bottom. Where the heck is Sprint going to find the money to pay back the loans they took against NV? Not by offering $100/month family plans. BTW, T-Mobile did not make money last quarter. Not only did they drew down on the cash abut the only way they made money is by counting the $731M from Verizon.

I like the fact that they are actually trialling it first to discover the limits of how many customers it can support at what load. It should do really well in the boondocks, I mean rural areas.

Same here! I have AT&T for my personal lines and Sprint for my business line. Before that I had Sprint for personal+business. I have used an iPhone since 2007 but have had Palm and Windows Phone phones before. I don't let the brand of my phone or my provider define me. When I feel like my provider or my phone provider is not giving me what I want I will switch. I will vote with my money. Same thing with other things in life.

They should do that on all interstates and major state roads.

I was actually involved with a local WISP so I know how much it costs to provide those services. When you have an already built network you have to get as much money as you can out of it before you have to replace it again. an empty network provides no revenue. Plus the laptop will probably be on wifi most of the time. Same thing as an iPad.

Sprint will do fine once they have their network in order. Do I think they will make inroads against Verizon/AT&T? Maybe they can buy a few million from them by offering loss making or break even plans or buying ETF's or offering devices at a discount. But in the long term neither Sprint nor T-Mobile will have success against the big two. They are too entrenched. Whatever success Sprint achieves has to come from new uses of data: Connected cars, actually offering decent plans for laptops, etc. It amazes me that carriers think that laptops have to pay $60/month for a decent plan. Make it $30-$35/month and we are talking. The only way they can make inroads against the big two is to actually merge the networks so that they can spread both capex and opex over 100M people instead of 50M. Then they can concentrate on marketing against the big two.

Oh, I absolutely think they need more low band spectrum. But I also happen to think they should trade some spectrum with Dish. I happen to think that they have so much 2.5GHz spectrum that a lot of it will sit unused. They should trade some of the unused 2.5 spectrum to Dish for Dish to use for fixed broadband and VOD and TV everywhere. In trade they should get Dish's midband spectrum. First to keep it out of the hands of T-Mobile. Second because midband has to be their bread and butter frequency. Their sites are spaced for it. Keep 2.5GHz for the urban centers. 8T8R panels are not cheap, are they?

True, you know that T-Mobiles has been touted as being lean and mean company and they have 38,000 employees. The same as Sprint!!!

Just remember that Sprint will have access to another 3MHz in the 900MHz SMR band. I have no idea what they are going to do with it after it gets rebanded. I believe the rebanding there will proceed so much faster than the 800MHz. Ideally what I would like for them to do is to move the people that occupy the spectrum below theirs up to 900MHz and take over that spectrum. Basically take over the guard and expansion band in the 800MHz SMR and 1 MHZ below that. That will give them a nice, round 10x10 channel.

I want Dish's spectrum away from T-Mobile's paws so that they have to compete with AT&T and Verizon in the AWS-3 auction. I want them to pay a lot of money in the AWS-3 auction so that they don't have enough for the 600MHz auction.

Good, I think Sprint needs to get in bed with Charlie. Marcelo needs to take one for the team . We need to keep Dish's spectrum out of T-Mobile's hands. Dish needs EBS spectrum for their plans. Sprint needs some more midband spectrum. I see common interests there.

So layoffs?

So is Sprint going to rollout 8T8R faster now? Implement a second PCS channel? Swap some spectrum with Dish? Host Dish's spectrum?

The only reason landline operations have been carrying so much debt is that AT&T, Verizon and Sprint offloaded their debt onto their landline operations.

Yes, Isn't competition grand?

I know . In other news FCC chairman Wheeler had to have his two cents in: "Four national wireless providers is good for American consumers," Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said in an emailed statement. "Sprint now has an opportunity to focus their efforts on robust competition." This is highly unusual for an FCC chairman to comment on an unannounced merger. Good job chairman! The two smaller ones can drive each other into the ground with lower prices and not have enough money to bid on your auctions so that AT&T and Verizon can again dominate the spectrum wars. Yep, let them split the 20% of EBITDA that the Big Two don't already claim.

Ha, ha, ha….yeah right!!

I think it has been said many time before. Sprint needs to strengthen and thicken their network. I don't see them doing that unless they are also willing to built new sites in areas they have not had service at all or in areas of cities that have had new suburbs spring up in the last 10 years or suburbs that have expanded. That means that they might have to have coverage in "uneconomical" places.

Maybe I should rephrase; In response to Google Fiber, AT&T has been promising 1Gbs broadband connections. Which to me means that they have to bring fiber much closer to the home.