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Sprint May Have Unlimited Data Plans, But Not Unlimited Customers
mitcheli writes "Sprint announced a Q2 loss of $1.6B as 2 million subscribers left their service. While Sprint remains one of very few carriers to continue to allow unlimited data on their networks, the failure to reconcile two competing network technologies (iDEN Nextel and CDMA Sprint) combined with the lack of upgrades to their network and degrading service prompted a mass exodus of subscribers from their network. Of course the fact that during the iPhone 5 release, Sprint openly advertised that their iPhone would not be carrier locked, only to turn around and push out an OTA two months later that locked them probably didn't help much either."
While slashdot users may like to complain about carrier locking, your average US consumer doesn't really care. Why?
Because they typically get a discounted or free phone that locks them into a 2 year contract anyhow. And by the time 2 years are up, they want a new phone anyhow.
Sprint's in the middle of a complete network overhaul (called network vision) that will bring LTE to almost every cell site by the end of 2014 while significantly upgrading both the antenna's and backhaul at most locations bringing better coverage and better speeds. It hasn't gone nearly as quickly as Sprint's original timetable laid out, but they're less than 6 months behind that fairly aggressive timetable. I know I come off sounding like fanboi but it really annoys me when people can't get their facts straight and use that lack of knowledge to tear down one of the last hopes we have for real competition in the cellphone market in the US. Not only does Sprint compete against the big boys but by being friendly to MVNO's they foster new concepts that help to drive down costs (see Virgin Mobile (now part of Sprint) and Republic Wireless for examples).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
nope, need to have an iphone and want a full GSM network so i can buy any GSM unlocked phone in the future
i have an iphone 5 i'm looking to keep for 3-4 years and every phone after that i'll pay full price and keep 3-4 years. no reason to upgrade every 1-2 years anymore
Sprint has been weighed down by the horrible acquisition of Nextel. They were paying for two networks but only one network's worth of customers.
The loss of these subscribers was intentional and predicted well in advance as Sprint finally shutdown the Nextel platform. They already recaptured the more valuable customers onto the Sprint platform and made a strategic decision to let some go because the equipment fees and/or discounts made it unprofitable to keep them.
Part of the financial write downs was paying lease termination fees on backhaul and sites to shut down redundant Nextel locations. They won't ever post a quarter like this again; the Nextel bleeding has finally been stopped and their cost structure will only improve going forward. If you check the Sprint platform, they are still adding subscribers and revenue is up.
They have also closed the Clearwire deal, allowing them to move forward deploying 2.5Ghz spectrum but that won't really bear fruit until next year when handsets start shipping with support for those frequencies. Now that iDEN SMR 850Mhz is shut down, they can deploy the 3x3 LTE channel in that space which should make a huge diffence for indoor coverage. They have been planning this during Network Vision (their modernization effort that is running fiber to every tower along with LTE) to deploy the Nextel spectrum. All the newer handsets already support it, including the iPhone 5. At the newest upgraded towers they don't even have to roll a truck, the equipment is already installed and can even have the downtilt remotely adjusted.
They aren't stupid... Network Vision is running fiber to almost every tower with microwave bounces for the few that can't get it. The backhaul is all minimum 1Gbps, software upgradable, so they can just turn on more backhaul with a keystroke... The old network was all T1s, requiring a 4-6 week wait on the phone company. The new antennas are more sensitive, can be remotely tilted, and support more frequencies. The LTE gear is all software-upgradable to LTE-Advanced.
They had two major problems. LTE equipment wasn't ready prior to their must-build deadlines for the 2.5Ghz spectrum and they were severely hampered in capital spending due to the Nextel boat anchor. They foisted off the 2.5Ghz spectrum on some investors to help offset the cost and protect the spectrum, probably knowing WiMax was a dead end. Boost was a way to help offset the cost of iDEN with prepaid customers they could jettison later.
Now that SoftBank has solved the capital problem, they own the 2.5Ghz spectrum again, and they are rolling out fiber/LTE, they should be able to challenge the dualopoly on equal footing relatively soon. My city is one of the LTE launch markets and the difference between the old and new networks is night and day.
Once you understand these things, you realize that Sprint is a good play, albeit somewhat risky. The market just goes off headlines (often completely bogus ones, see every Apple story ever) and freaks out. Those are excellent buying opportunities if you understand what is really going on with a company.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Caveat: As always, YMMV. I went over on my T-Mobile data a few months ago while at a conference. To my surprise even at 5GB I wasn't throttled. When I got back to my hometown I walked into one of their stores while my wife was shopping and asked them about it. The answer I got was that they reserve the right to throttle if you go over and that it's not an automatic thing. I have no idea if this is correct since in my experience salespeople are about as ill-informed as viewers of Fox News, but it is something to think about.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Verizon shot themselves in the ass. They had unlimited data, then got rid of it. Eventually if you had unlimited data you got to keep it while new customers didn't have the option. Then they even got rid of that, to keep your unlimited data you had to buy a phone outright ( and this is even after they got rid of the "new every 2" ~$50 bonus when upgrading)... after buying one phone outright on my old contract I contacted customer support to inquire about keeping my unlimited data. Basically was told to fuck off, and pay more for a lot LESS data even though the absolute highest I ever used was 5.5GB one month. Told CS to shove it up their ass since I was a loyal - pretty much perfect, since my bill was paid on time every time- customer for ~10-12 years .
Ported to another carrier in less than two hours, got enough data with equivalent minutes for ~$20/Month cheaper to not worry, and haven't looked back. If they had worked with me as a loyal customer I would still be with them, and it's stupid... it's much much MUCH more cost effective to keep a good customer than it is to try and get a new one.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
My brother was saying that T-mobile benefited immensely in the failed take over big by AT&T. Apparently they had fine print, saying AT&T should give T-Mobile some 3 billion dollars and access to its network, if the deal was stopped by the Feds. So suddenly T-Mobile's coverage area increased tremendously and got some money too. But other are saying that still, T-mobile's coverage is its weak spot.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Why pay more for an unlocked phone? So you aren't in a contract, they don't give you a discount on services. It makes no sense that they make a person with a locked or unlocked or out of contract phone pay the same amount. Make it worth my while and I'll bring my own phone to the game.
You can get an unlocked Nexus 4 for $300, sign up for T-mobile's $30/month unlimited data/texting (100 voice minutes), and save a ton of cash over Verizon/ATT/Sprint. Or if you want unlimited everything, it's $50 a month. Considering that I was at almost $100 a month with ATT and at $80 a month with Sprint, that $300 Nexus 4 would be paid off in 10 months with unlimited everything on T-mobile.
I'm one of the Sprint leavers. Here's what happened in my case:
The Phoenix area is horribly neglected by Sprint. The quality of service continues to drop, and they've been promising Phoenix customers that 4g is just a few months away for the last few years. Their 3g service barely comes in at dialup speeds, and when your phone needs to do something as simple as say update an app, the phone has to burn through its battery for about a half hour for even the smaller apps just to struggle to get data. This happens with pretty much every phone model out there because the data services are so horrible. In spite of these horribly bad data rates, just the mere fact that you own a smart phone they label the service as "premium data" and charge an extra $10 per month per phone. Their excuse is that because you own a smartphone, you'll use more data, ignoring the fact that their data is so horribly slow and wasteful on battery that you always end up relying on wifi anyways.
I got out of my Sprint contract by doing the roaming trick, and so have a lot of Sprint customers:
http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=229968
T-mobile service is by far superior, by the way. Not only is it a third the price (T-mobile costs me $115 after taxes for 5 lines unlimited everything, sprint was $300 for 1500 shared minutes,) but the data services are reliable and fast as hell compared to Sprint. Sure it's not unlimited 4g, but if I pay that extra $10 Sprint was charging anyways it becomes unlimited 4g. However I find that I don't ever go above my limit anyways, so it doesn't matter, and even if I did there's never any data overage, it just goes to Edge speeds which are still MUCH faster than Sprint's 3g. T-mobile also has two (free) options you can add to your lines to completely block third party billing (from text services, 900 numbers, etc) as well as all international text/calls. Every month I had to call Sprint to fix some overage they did in error or sometimes getting signed up for a text spam service, whereas with T-Mobile I've never had to do that. Not once.
Another nice thing about t-mobile is it supports the HD Voice feature of my Nexus 4, and in addition to that when somebody calls me it actually rings immediately, whereas with Sprint the other person can hear up to four rings before my phone finally rang, often causing me to miss their call to voicemail. That and Sprint dropped calls like crazy, and when I confronted them about it they told me that their systems measured my quality of service to be 100% - and get this, when I was on the phone with the CSR, my call was dropped, and she actually called me back and then played stupid like it wasn't their problem.
I honestly have no idea how the hell Sprint intends to last long term. I'm rather shocked that they are a more popular carrier than t-mobile as their service is so much worse and by far more expensive. Plus it seems that T-Mobile has already reached 160m pop with their LTE coverage, whereas Sprint just reached 200m and they've been at it longer.
If you read between the lines of Sprint's SEC filings, their current plan is to keep revenues up by increasing the fees that each subscriber pays. They noted that in a previous filing by saying that over the last year their customers pay an average of $2 per month more than they did a year earlier, which was their way of sustaining themselves in the face of heavy subscriber losses. They do this in various ways, one way is by scaling back subscriber discounts, notice how they got rid of their premier program and they reworked their billing system so that discounts only apply to a single line instead of the whole account like every other carrier does, and lately they've been cutting people off of their discounts entirely (you now have to go through a periodic renewal process every so often.)
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