from the is-Sprint-the-loser-or-is-their-customers? dept.
Sprint has ended talks with T-Mobile due to concerns about getting regulatory approval for the merger. Sprint also named Marcelo Claure as the company's new CEO. Sprint's stock is currently down 18%.
The decision to drop the merger plan ends a nine-month effort by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, whose SoftBank Corp. controls Sprint, to create a stronger rival to Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. Claure now needs to make the carrier's prices more competitive and restore the brand after it was the only major carrier to lose subscribers last quarter.
"Sprint is the clear loser here," Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC, said in a note to clients today. "Son and Sprint will need to refocus squarely on improving results internally, and that won't be easy." Sprint's problems are largely structural, not cultural, Moffett said, questioning how much difference a new CEO can make.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:40PM
"Claure now needs to make the carrier's prices more competitive"
Oh no! We can't have companies competing with each other by having better prices!
And this is why the loss for Sprint shareholders was a win for everyone else: If Sprint is able to compete by lowering prices while keeping their service reasonably good, then their competitors will have to follow suit or risk losing market share.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Billhead on Thursday August 07 2014, @04:30PM
That is not what I would use to describe Sprint's service.
We used them for years because of their price but it got to unbearable, we still have one iPhone with them and quite often even if it has 3-4 bars you can call it from another phone and the phone itself doesn't ring and the call goes to voice mail.
If my memory is correct we were also getting 50-100kbps "3G" speeds.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Thursday August 07 2014, @05:29PM
Sprint's problem is their bifurcated network, patched together of two or three dissimilar technologies over the years. They have historically had some data only networks and voice only networks and they got caught in the cdma trap during the mid 90s switch from analog. They truly have a mess: Enterprise Messenger-Secure and TigertTextPRO and PCS SPCS VisionSM, iDEN (gone) WiMAX (going), the list goes on and on.
Once they realign all segments into LTE everything gets easier. Even Verizon has realized this.
That change over is not that hard, you don't need new towers, you don't even need new antennas on those towers, you really only need new transmitters in the rack.
But Sprint's foot print is still small, and most of their coverage area is still roaming via Verizon, and that makes them quick to punish people for excessive roaming.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cykros on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:41PM
...they gave me free unlimited 4g data for a year and a $200 Visa giftcard when signing up for a new plan just for flashing a AAA card.
I'm glad they didn't merge. But I hope they don't fold. The last thing this country needs is FEWER companies offering up our Internet service.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by evilviper on Thursday August 07 2014, @04:44PM
Sprint has the smallest LTE footprint of all 4. You're damn lucky if you get a signal.
That's hard to say... If scale makes a company more competitive, then one large and viable competitor, is better than two non-viable ones who lag behind and only continue to exist with sub-par service by lower rates.
Still, with the complete differences between T-Mobile and Sprint's technologies, their dominance in the MVNO market, and how terribly Sprint fared with their Nextel merger, I never thought it made sense.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:58PM
I think T-Mobile has hit on a new business model that really screws over their competition. When AT&T failed to acquire T-Mobile they were on the hook for $4 billion. [arstechnica.com] Now Sprint is going to pay T-Mobile $2 billion. [wirelessweek.com] I am hopeful that Illiad (Free Mobile) [astellia.com] will succeed in acquiring T-Mobile [marketwatch.com] and then somehow the company can trick Verizon into giving them $2 billion too.
(Score: 1) by dbe on Thursday August 07 2014, @05:19PM
It's unclear if Free mobile would be able to repeat the same feat in the US as the one they pulled in France. But I'm still amazed at the price of triple play with Comcast here while you can get better with free for 30 Euros ($40) with unlimited call to mobile and 100+ foreign countries. On top of that their customers can get for free 2h/month and 50MB of data cell plan... Note that this plan cost only $2 for non customer and they have 20Euros unlimited test/voice and data (16euros for customers).
So if they could shake the US market the same way as they did in France it would be very cool indeed.
-dbe
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Thursday August 07 2014, @07:54PM
I'll concede that this is not really the sort of service that cellular towers should be used for, but ... well let's just say this is a market I don't want LESS competition in. Sprint bought Clear, now if I drop my wi-max hotspot plan I will never get it again with unlimited data. That really annoys me.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by r00t on Friday August 08 2014, @03:23AM
T-mobile has a bit of a cult following. Legere's got a mouth on him like an old sailor and gives no f#cks about pointing fingers. The teens and 20-somethings love that he's "telling off" the other carriers and getting thrown out of their parties. It's a valuable demographic to have in your pocket when your business is mobile.
All the marketing BS aside, what Legere is doing is brilliant. Both for T-Mobile as well as every mobile consumer out there. He's creating anxiety in the market space and that lowers prices. I hope T-mobile stays it's own entity.