T-Mobile's Chief Hopes to Overtake Sprint by 2015

[monkeyboy]

http://www.t-mobile.com/Cms/Files/Pu...nal[1].pdf
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External...xUeXBlPTM=&t=1
I don't really consider a difference of 4.4 million subs to be neck to neck, but perhaps that's just me....

Not sure where you are getting the 4.4mil... from the very docs you site:

This includes postpaid 26.6 million via the Sprint brand on CDMA, 6.1
million on iDEN, and 440,000 Power Source users who utilize both networks), 11.6 million
prepaid subscribers (7.1 million on CDMA and 4.5 million on iDEN).
...
T-Mobile USA served 33.8 million customers at the end of the third quarter of 2010.

unless you are adding in Sprint's MVNO customers... even so, the points are that the Sprint CDMA and Tmo are VERY close in numbers, certainly when compared with VZW and T, and that Tmo has made HUGE gains in recent years compared with Sprint CDMA, i.e. Tmo has been CLOSING the gap (though yes the past couple of Qs for Tmo have been less good...)

Mainly, VZW and T are in the stratosphere when compared with Sprint and Tmo, but Sprint acts as if it can still catch up to the Baby Bells. Meanwhile Tmo really is coming up from behind. If Sprint would wakeup and realize that it really, at this point, when compared with VZW and T, has *very* little to offer your average customer beyond lower cost, then maybe it will realize that its best chance is to let the battle with VZW and T go, and instead pounce on Tmo. In contrast to comparisons with VZW and T, when compared with Tmo, Sprint has ALOT to offer. So Hesse should forget about his AT&T lineage, and go for the closest, easiest pot of customers -- Tmo customers.

The upcoming iPhone wars is going to make this situation even more obvious... zero sum game wrt wireless in the USA...

[billm261]

Where's the proof that Airaves are being counted as contracted lines of service? As far as new subs, the only additions that T-mobile has made in four of the last five quarters have been on the prepaid side, so I suppose they're in the same boat, eh?

Airaves are not contractual devices. If anything, I think they give more away for free, especially to the right customers.

Sprint and Virgin's revenue goes directly into Sprint's cash resister.

I guess giving away the farm to Simple Mobile and especially Wal-Mart Family Mobile, fills DT's pockets with bundles of cash and does not count towards subscriber additions. How much money can they possibly make with these two companies? Wal-Mart sells everything cheap because they buy everything real cheap.

[Evan702]

Not sure where you are getting the 4.4mil...

Quite easily. Sprint has 48.8 million subs. There are 10.6 million on iDEN leaving 38.2 million on CDMA.

[monkeyboy]

Quite easily. Sprint has 48.8 million subs. There are 10.6 million on iDEN leaving 38.2 million on CDMA.

Fine, 38.2 vs 33.8mil... I'd say that's rather close, certainly a gap that could be bridged within 4 years. Recent history has shown that those 10.6mil on iDEN are pretty much up for grabs, with the bias NOT to go with Sprint CDMA.

I'm not saying that Tmo *will* overtake Sprint, but its certainly not a forgone conclusion that Sprint will still be #3, particularly given the performance of Sprint vs Tmo during the past 4 years. OTOH, again I believe Sprint has the opportunity to "return the favor" and target Tmo specifically, and if it does, Sprint *should* have everything it needs to win that battle... but it would require that Sprint recalibrate its strategy and game plan... I think it should.

[Evan702]

I'm not saying that Tmo *will* overtake Sprint, but its certainly not a forgone conclusion that Sprint will still be #3, particularly given the performance of Sprint vs Tmo during the past 4 years. OTOH, again I believe Sprint has the opportunity to "return the favor" and target Tmo specifically, and if it does, Sprint *should* have everything it needs to win that battle... but it would require that Sprint recalibrate its strategy and game plan... I think it should.

IMO it's all about how Sprint executes their network vision plan vs. how T-mobile executes the plan that their CEO detailed. Whoever does the best at fulfilling their respective plans will win. If being able to play 3rd fiddle to at&t and VZW can be considered a win.

[Kies]

Yada, yada...rationalizations and nothing more. On one hand you try to down Sprint for mostly adding prepaids, but like I pointed out, that's ALL t-mobile has been adding for four of the last five quarters. Their core business as a postpaid provider hasn't done well at all during that time frame. Oh and in Q3 2010 despite "offering up the farm", Sprint prepaid ARPU $28, T-mobile prepaid ARPU $19.



Yeah Airaves have had numbers assigned to them, that was discussed here some time ago. All that thread shows is someone's "guess" as to the reasoning why.

It's no guess, that's the only reason why they would assign an Airave a phone number and count it as a line of service. Last I checked lines of service are counted as subscribers on the network.

MVNO/Wholesale activity is not in the same boat as direct sales, as a result ARPU is lower. ARPU for Sprint Prepaid is down to $28 thanks to Virgin Mobile and Assurance Wireless, thanks for pointing that out.. Sprint knows Virgin Mobile customers have low ARPU. Recently adding these plans wouldn't make an immediate change in ARPU - Q3 numbers show that. I said Sprint's subscriber growth is heavily padded by prepaid additions - not a way to sustain ANY postpaid carrier. What part of this don't you understand?

[monkeyboy]

IMO it's all about how Sprint executes their network vision plan ...

Speaking of this "Network Vision plan"... it all sounds great, multi-band, multi-air interface all in one site and god knows that Sprint really needs to reduce its # POPs and at the same time improve its coverage...

But I have yet to see anywhere a description of how Network Vision deals with the (big) problem of the differences in tower spacing required for 2500 vs 1900 vs 800 Mhz to achieve full coverage without holes or unnecessary overlap. This is one piece I don't see how they will resolve (unless some towers only actually support some bands -- very messy and a waste of the multi-band feature, or perhaps the lower bands will use lower power -- still a waste). As is, it sure sounds like 2500Mhz will have holes and/or 800Mhz will have wasteful overlap...

[larryt510]

But I have yet to see anywhere a description of how Network Vision deals with the (big) problem of the differences in tower spacing required for 2500 vs 1900 vs 800 Mhz to achieve full coverage without holes or unnecessary overlap.

In the big metro areas Nextel had 1900 Mhz like spacing on their cell sites due to capacity needs back in the day when they were growing and due to the iDEN technology limitations that required tighter cell site spacing. Plus all of the CDMA sites that exist in the same areas. They no longer need all of those iDEN sites and I assume that some of the redundant ones will be decommissioned at some point in the future. I'm sure the whole tower spacing issue is not as complicated as you think to work with and I'm sure there's a good plan in place. They can re-engineer the areas that they target for 800 Mhz deployment and add 800 Mhz to selective sites and not add it on sites where it's not needed. The more rural areas are going to be more of an engineering challenge I would think (especially for WiMax on the higher frequency) but I don't see voice and 3G being much of a problem.

[Guest 171]

T-Mobile's 4G network seem's to beat Sprint in almost every market, especially in term's of coverage. I can see them having a better 4G network than Sprint at this rate still in 2015. If Sprint lost all their Nextel customer's right now that would put them a lot closer to T-Mobile in terms of customer's. Both companies have their own set of issue's. They both need to worry about getting better networks before spreading rumor's. I know they have already beat Sprint here in term's of native coverage and especially 4G (Obvs).

[bigsnake49]

T-Mobile's 4G network seem's to beat Sprint in almost every market, especially in term's of coverage. I can see them having a better 4G network than Sprint at this rate still in 2015. If Sprint lost all their Nextel customer's right now that would put them a lot closer to T-Mobile in terms of customer's. Both companies have their own set of issue's. They both need to worry about getting better networks before spreading rumor's. I know they have already beat Sprint here in term's of native coverage and especially 4G (Obvs).

I have travelled quite a bit in the Southeast and neither Sprint not T-Mobile are anything to write home about with T-Mobile winning by a whisker due to the steady additions they have been doing during the past 4 years. Sprint stopped adding anything in the Southeast after 2007 and just resumed colocating on IDEN. I am looking forward to them implementing their network vision plan and I hope they choose the areas they have the greatest need for improvement to do first.

On the other hand, Sprint's roaming is great particularly with a phone you can force to roam. I have had plenty of times that my AT&T phone did not have coverage but my Sprint phone (roaming) did.

[bigsnake49]

T-Mobile's 4G network seem's to beat Sprint in almost every market, especially in term's of coverage. I can see them having a better 4G network than Sprint at this rate still in 2015. If Sprint lost all their Nextel customer's right now that would put them a lot closer to T-Mobile in terms of customer's. Both companies have their own set of issue's. They both need to worry about getting better networks before spreading rumor's. I know they have already beat Sprint here in term's of native coverage and especially 4G (Obvs).

I have travelled quite a bit in the Southeast and neither Sprint not T-Mobile are anything to write home about with T-Mobile winning by a whisker due to the steady addition they have been doing during the past 4 years. Sprint stopped adding anything in the Southeast after 2007 and just resumed colocating on IDEN. I am looking forward to them implementing their network vision plan and I hope they choose the areas they have the greatest need for improvement to do first.

On the other hand, Sprint's roaming is great particularly with a phone you can force to roam. I have had plenty of times that my AT&T phone did not have coverage but my Sprint phone (roaming) did.

[billm261]

I wish both companies luck. I hope they both go through their respective network improvement projects. I would love competition for the big two.

Don't you think that's going to happen now that the device playing field is becoming more level?

I'd love to see an "all in" plan for 99.99 like T-Mobile or Sprint offers.

[billm261]

T-Mobile's 4G network seem's to beat Sprint in almost every market, especially in term's of coverage.

Is that based on where you travel or use the phone or another survey? In parts of the Northeast T-Mobile is either weak or absent.
If (for example) the transmitting radius of a cellular antennas signal is 4 SQ miles, T-Mobile has many that are spaced out at 8.3 miles apart it seems. It is getting better, I have seen locations that have that sleek flag pole style antenna popping up and in the major cities coverage is pretty much equal. Get into the fringe areas, the suburbs, it's a different story.

If the network improvement project goes as planned T-Mobile will have very good coverage.
If Sprint executes properly, the playing field will be level. Wi-Max may be a red headed step child however.

Although I don't see T-Mobile overtaking Sprint anytime in the near future, I could care less who's #3 or #4. If someone wants to beat that drum sign up with Verizon or AT&T.

If the only thing this competition ends up doing is provide both users a better network, maybe better plans and handsets, then we all win.

[bigsnake49]

I like all this smack talk that the CEO is laying down! Sprint you have been challenged and I hope you watch your back. While doing so, don't forget to have something to counteract the inevitable hit from a Verizon iPhone.

[AnthroMatt]

Airaves are not contractual devices.

That was true, but not anymore. Look on the Sprint website. They will sell the new 3G Airave for $129...if you sign a 2 year contract.