Sprint Schedules First-Quarter 2012 Results Announcement

[larryt510]

Sprint also said that rent for Nextel towers goes beyond 2013 on many sites, so they will have to pay rent for a network that's not even up and running or making money.

I was concerned about that because basically any iden cell site that was built or renewed since 2003 won't expire until 2013 at the earliest, (assuming the leases were for the average of 10 years). Most of the iden sites were built from 1996-2003 so you have to figure many of those have already matured or are ready to expire soon.

[billm261]

I think they can be profitable with the current subscriber levels even if they were to loose every last IDEN customer to a competitor.

I hope CDMA PTT is good enough to convince them to stay.

If Verizon and AT&T have twice the footprint they need the extra subscribers to help cover the cost to maintain it.
More cell sites, more technicians, more CS reps, maybe call centers etc.

[mdasen]

Couple of interesting piece of data during the earnings call:

"Further, in the 600 network Vision sites currently online, Elfman said Sprint is seeing a doubling of the coverage range compared with legacy sites, which should help reduce roaming costs."

That is exciting news for Sprint subscribers. Between that and the use of 800MHz for voice, I think that Sprint will be able to not only reduce its roaming costs, but finally provide its subscribers the thickness of coverage they have been asking for. We knew that between 1x Advanced ability to tradeoff coverage for capacity, the mounting of the radios on the antennas and 800MHz, they were bound to see an increase in RF performance, but it's good to see it in the real world.

The other piece of data is that they are bringing WiMax to their prepaid brands:

"Sprint CEO Dan Hesse also disclosed during the company's quarterly earnings conference call that its Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile prepaid brands will gain access to Clearwire's (NASDAQ:CLWR) mobile WiMAX network sometime in the second quarter; he did not provide details."

They are throwing a lifeline to Clearwire?

Read more: Sprint adds 1.5M iPhones in Q1, will bring WiMAX to prepaid brands - FierceWireless http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/...#ixzz1t3wuqI2s

The doubling of coverage on network vision sites is probably due to the usage of 800MHz.

The use of WiMAX for Boost/Virgin is a bit odd. Frankly, I think Sprint is just trying to differentiate its "Sprint" product from the lower-priced alternatives of Boost and Virgin. By offering LTE only to Sprint-branded customers, they can clearly differentiate their premium service from their lower services.

Of course, Sprint is really seeing its growth in non-Sprint-branded service. Possibly because, right now, there isn't as clear differentiation (WiMAX is a more marginal upgrade compared to LTE). Maybe LTE will change that.

I guess yes and no depending on if Sprint is making any money at all on these 3 million Nextel iDEN subs.

a)Are those 3 million iDEN subs more of a cost liability?
b)To what degree are these bottom line losses then, assuming most do not re-sign with Sprint?

It was my understanding the entire iDEN network is a cost liability at this point.

This is the right way to think about it. At this point, iDEN is a national network for almost no customers. MetroPCS, which isn't available in most of the country, had 8.1M customers a quarter ago. In just a handful of markets, MetroPCS has been able to get 50% more subscribers than Nextel (pre and post-pay combined) can hold on to with a national network. Plus, most of the Nextel pre-pay customers went with iDEN because Boost Mobile was cheap and Sprint wasn't offering Boost CDMA - not because they wanted iDEN.

At some point, Sprint is paying to run and maintain a national iDEN network for very few customers. There are ongoing costs in terms of replacing equipment that fails, electricity, staff costs, etc. Plus, iDEN uses spectrum - something Sprint doesn't have an abundance of. Sprint has the least spectrum of the four major carriers - and no money to buy more spectrum. They're going to deploy LTE 5x5 at 1900MHz, but they'll need to supplement that as time goes on. Sprint needs to start using its assets in a competitive manner. It's not going to do well with one hand tied behind its back.

iDEN is probably a cost liability, but more than that it's tying up valuable assets. It's somewhat clear that Sprint doesn't have room at 1900MHz to do more than a 5x5 LTE deployment right now. By moving some CDMA to 800MHz, they can free up more bandwidth and they can potentially deploy LTE at 800MHz as well. There's just a large chunk of spectrum being used for iDEN. Heck, if they deployed two CDMA channels at 800MHz and then added another 5x5 LTE deployment at 800MHz, they'd be in decent position against AT&T and Verizon over the near term. Then they could start seeing customers migrate off their CDMA network to LTE and deploy more spectrum to LTE as it became open. With iDEN taking up a lot of that 800MHz spectrum, Sprint has less capacity for LTE than their competitors.

[503ducati]

This is the right way to think about it. At this point, iDEN is a national network for almost no customers. MetroPCS, which isn't available in most of the country, had 8.1M customers a quarter ago. In just a handful of markets, MetroPCS has been able to get 50% more subscribers than Nextel (pre and post-pay combined) can hold on to with a national network. Plus, most of the Nextel pre-pay customers went with iDEN because Boost Mobile was cheap and Sprint wasn't offering Boost CDMA - not because they wanted iDEN.

At some point, Sprint is paying to run and maintain a national iDEN network for very few customers. There are ongoing costs in terms of replacing equipment that fails, electricity, staff costs, etc. Plus, iDEN uses spectrum - something Sprint doesn't have an abundance of. Sprint has the least spectrum of the four major carriers - and no money to buy more spectrum. They're going to deploy LTE 5x5 at 1900MHz, but they'll need to supplement that as time goes on. Sprint needs to start using its assets in a competitive manner. It's not going to do well with one hand tied behind its back.

iDEN is probably a cost liability, but more than that it's tying up valuable assets. It's somewhat clear that Sprint doesn't have room at 1900MHz to do more than a 5x5 LTE deployment right now. By moving some CDMA to 800MHz, they can free up more bandwidth and they can potentially deploy LTE at 800MHz as well. There's just a large chunk of spectrum being used for iDEN. Heck, if they deployed two CDMA channels at 800MHz and then added another 5x5 LTE deployment at 800MHz, they'd be in decent position against AT&T and Verizon over the near term. Then they could start seeing customers migrate off their CDMA network to LTE and deploy more spectrum to LTE as it became open. With iDEN taking up a lot of that 800MHz spectrum, Sprint has less capacity for LTE than their competitors.

Exactly, any iDEN subs that they can migrate over to Sprint is a bonus otherwise it's a liability relieved. At this point it's a win either way for Sprint.

[503ducati]

The use of WiMAX for Boost/Virgin is a bit odd. Frankly, I think Sprint is just trying to differentiate its "Sprint" product from the lower-priced alternatives of Boost and Virgin. By offering LTE only to Sprint-branded customers, they can clearly differentiate their premium service from their lower services.

By moving a number of prepaid users onto WiMAX also relieves 3G congestion.


"In December Sprint agreed to pay Clearwire a total of $926 million for unlimited access to its WiMAX network in 2012 and 2013, and Sprint will have access to the WiMAX network through at least 2015."

Read more: Sprint adds 1.5M iPhones in Q1, will bring WiMAX to prepaid brands - FierceWireless http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/...#ixzz1t7QQvENK
Subscribe: http://www.fiercewireless.com/signup...FierceWireless

[ericdabbs]

By moving a number of prepaid users onto WiMAX also relieves 3G congestion.


"In December Sprint agreed to pay Clearwire a total of $926 million for unlimited access to its WiMAX network in 2012 and 2013, and Sprint will have access to the WiMAX network through at least 2015."

Read more: Sprint adds 1.5M iPhones in Q1, will bring WiMAX to prepaid brands - FierceWireless http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/...#ixzz1t7QQvENK
Subscribe: http://www.fiercewireless.com/signup...FierceWireless

I am 100% positive that Sprint decided to add 4G Wimax to prepaid is try to relieve capacity on its 3G network. Also since Sprint signed a long term deal with Clearwire until 2015, some customers need to backfill that demand as more and more postpaid customers are switching over to LTE phones which is good. I really do hope that a lot of current postpaid customers switch to LTE phones so that sprint can slowly start moving all customers to LTE and eventually ditch CDMA when VoLTE arrives.

[503ducati]

I am 100% positive that Sprint decided to add 4G Wimax to prepaid is try to relieve capacity on its 3G network. Also since Sprint signed a long term deal with Clearwire until 2015, some customers need to backfill that demand as more and more postpaid customers are switching over to LTE phones which is good. I really do hope that a lot of current postpaid customers switch to LTE phones so that sprint can slowly start moving all customers to LTE and eventually ditch CDMA when VoLTE arrives.

It does appear on the surface to be a strong possibility and a necessity to keep true unlimited going on the postpaid side. It's disappointing though that Clear has been unable to better deploy in 2.5GHz, maybe the future LTE-Advanced network will be better. Whether it's under Clear or bought out by Sprint is another story.

[bigsnake49]

It does appear on the surface to be a strong possibility and a necessity to keep true unlimited going on the postpaid side. It's disappointing though that Clear has been unable to better deploy in 2.5GHz, maybe the future LTE-Advanced network will be better. Whether it's under Clear or bought out by Sprint is another story.

I think that Sprint is waiting for somebody to get Clear out of their hands. It's a blessing to have all that spectrum, but also a curse. I think that if I was running Sprint I would probably like to merge with Dish. If Dish gets approval to deploy LTE on their 40MHz (20x20) of spectrum, that spectrum is relatively close to their PCS spectrum and could be hosted on their PCS spaced network. Although the satellite TV industry has reached a state of maturity and saturation in the US, there's probably room for growth in other countries. Dish needs a network to accommodate the TV Everywhere movement and Sprint can definitely provide that. Sprint needs the steady profits from monthly subscriptions to stabilize their financial condition.

Which probably means that DirectTV might hook up with T-Mobile, but they might need some large chunk of spectrum to accomodate DirectTV's TV Everywhere needs. Clearwire might be able to sell them some of theirs.

[lennyj17]

I guess yes and no depending on if Sprint is making any money at all on these 3 million Nextel iDEN subs.

a)Are those 3 million iDEN subs more of a cost liability?
b)To what degree are these bottom line losses then, assuming most do not re-sign with Sprint?

It was my understanding the entire iDEN network is a cost liability at this point.

of the 863million in losses this Quarter over 620 million of that was just to iDen alone....I've told you guys for years now, as subs jump off iDen, the more empty it becomes, the more of a liability to Sprint it is, and this just proves it. The Final Day can't come soon enough, glad people on this board are finally waking up to REALITY!

[billm261]

of the 863million in losses this Quarter over 620 million of that was just to iDen alone....I've told you guys for years now, as subs jump off iDen, the more empty it becomes, the more of a liability to Sprint it is, and this just proves it. The Final Day can't come soon enough, glad people on this board are finally waking up to REALITY!

Lenny,

I don't see those numbers unless you are including prepaid?

On the postpaid side:

"The Sprint platform added 263,000 net postpaid customers during the quarter. The Nextel platform lost 455,000 net postpaid customers in the quarter. Sprint platform postpaid net additions and Nextel platform postpaid net subscriber losses include 228,000 net subscribers who migrated from the Nextel platform to the Sprint platform. "

Now, am I calculating this right?

Does the 263,000 gain really only mean 35,000 (fresh, new customers) since 228,000 customers switched networks?

[corrupt81]

He also said he was leaving and not coming back, you see where that went. So take what he says with a grain of salt.

[billm261]

He also said he was leaving and not coming back, you see where that went. So take what he says with a grain of salt.

At the end of the day the only thing that matters is if Sprint becomes profitable. With no IDEN network to sustain and substantially reduced roaming charges due to Network Vision it certainly should happen.

T-Mobile was always able to make money with about the same size footprint with a lot less customers.

[503ducati]

At the end of the day the only thing that matters is if Sprint becomes profitable. With no IDEN network to sustain and substantially reduced roaming charges due to Network Vision it certainly should happen.

T-Mobile was always able to make money with about the same size footprint with a lot less customers.

Yes, Sprint's financial woes started quickly with Nextel but certainly won't end quickly without.

[lennyj17]

Lenny,

I don't see those numbers unless you are including prepaid?

On the postpaid side:

"The Sprint platform added 263,000 net postpaid customers during the quarter. The Nextel platform lost 455,000 net postpaid customers in the quarter. Sprint platform postpaid net additions and Nextel platform postpaid net subscriber losses include 228,000 net subscribers who migrated from the Nextel platform to the Sprint platform. "

Now, am I calculating this right?

Does the 263,000 gain really only mean 35,000 (fresh, new customers) since 228,000 customers switched networks?

Billm - Sprint reported it lost 863$ Million in the 1Q...of that 863$ in losses 543$ Million was due to Nextel liabilities, my stating 600$ million was off but not by much.

includes depreciation of approximately $543 million, or negative $.18 cents per share, primarily due to accelerated depreciation related to the expected shut down of the Nextel platform

http://www.bgr.com/2012/04/25/sprint...t-subscribers/

He also said he was leaving and not coming back, you see where that went. So take what he says with a grain of salt.

Why can't you just GOOOO AWAY.....News Flash Corrupt, Sprint not going to die, and Hesse is still CEO. Life must be tough.