Sprint company umbrella (Sprint/Nextel/Boost/Virgin Mobile)

[quasar_blu]

Anyone have knowledge if calls made between these four companies are eligible as M2M calls? I'd guess that Virgin Mobile wouldn't, as it's leased service from Sprint. But I would assume that calls to Nextel customers (including Boost Mobile) would fall under the Sprint M2M umbrella. Any clues?

[EliteABombAZ]

You know... I promised myself a while back that I would never be a jerk and always scream replies like "USE THE SEARCH FIRST!!!!" But, I just did a search using only the words, "M2" and "Boost" and these are the results I got:

http://www.howardforums.com/search.php?searchid=174078

Have a nice day!

[niteLite]

virgin mobile isn't a division of sprint

[NGeorge]

I haven't been in a Sprint store in the past couple months, so forgive me if I am wrong, but doesn't it make sense that Sprint will no longer offer Virgin mobile service in the stores, and start selling their own Boost Mobile service, or will they still just push Virgin, or both?

--Nat

[hatoncat]

Sprint co-owns Virgin Mobile, it is a joint venture between Virgin Corp and Sprint. It is also a different venture than foreign Virgin Mobile offerings, which are fully owned by Virgin Corp.

Boost Mobile is fully owned by Sprint. M2M support appears to carry to Boost and not Virgin, however, there continues to be conflicting information about if this will change in the future.

[SanyoFan75]

What's the best way to know what falls under M2M? Make a documented test call and look for the time and date of the calls on a detailed bill. Calling Sprint CS would only complicate things. I know Virgin Mobile doesnt fall under the Sprint umbrella.

[niteLite]

Sprint co-owns Virgin Mobile, it is a joint venture between Virgin Corp and Sprint. It is also a different venture than foreign Virgin Mobile offerings, which are fully owned by Virgin Corp.

as far as i know sprint doesn't co-own the company, they are basically sharing the customer. in fact, when an account is created with virgin, virgin mobile "owns" that customer and account. the 2 companies simply have an agreement, and in turn share earnings. virgin mobile USA is still owned by richard branson. as far as i know...

check some stuff out here...

http://www.outlook4mobility.com/comm.../oct162001.htm

or here

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7053506

[hatoncat]

Initially VM was wholy owned by Virgin Group, however, after it made a retail debut Sprint invested heavily in the venture, at which point it became a joint venture. However, Virgin does own a majority stake in the company, Sprint just has a massive stake in the venture.

The inital investment Sprint made was $50 million, and I believe they have injected more into the venture since.

[stylus]

Initially VM was wholy owned by Virgin Group, however, after it made a retail debut Sprint invested heavily in the venture, at which point it became a joint venture. However, Virgin does own a majority stake in the company, Sprint just has a massive stake in the venture.

The inital investment Sprint made was $50 million, and I believe they have injected more into the venture since.

Is that why Sprint announces Virgin Mobile's net adds with their quarterly earnings reports?

Some analysts speculate one day Sprint's wholesale agreements may cannibalize the company. Without wholesale or resellers, Sprint's net adds seem quite low.

Merrill Lynch is predicting a Sprint-Nextel combo this quarter to gain only around 700k direct compared to amounts closer to 1 million for T-Mobile and Cingular. And that's for two national companies rolled into one. Can this be right or just speculation?

Do you think Sprint Nextel one day will become just one big wholesaler of wireless minutes and airspace to multiple companies?

[hatoncat]

MVNO customers are adds to the Sprint network, just like an Amp'd Mobile customer is an add to the Verizon network.

MVNOs will cannibalize certain percentages of all carriers, however, I find market analysts often overstate such matters in order to gain name recognition themselves. Sprint would rather have a customer defect to an attractive MVNO than to another carrier.

Sprint is playing the MVNO game to offer MVNO content (Disney, ESPN/NFL, etc) on their network. You go with Sprint, you get most of the MVNO content from all the carriers (with the exception of VM, whose profits are large enough and market base different enough that it is not needed at this time).

Sprint will be able to say they have more customers on-network than anyone else thanks to the MVNO system (eventually), and that will drive customers to defect to Sprint, especially with the emergance of EV-DO and QChat playing in tandem with deprecated and emerging technologies in concert (iDEN+RL+QChat, 3GPP+3GPP2+H.264B, etc).

In other words, the business customer, mainstram consumer, and technically inclined with all find reasons to stay with Sprint even in a market saturation of MVNOs... the goal of the MVNO is to reach out to niches with minimal cost.

[inteller]

often overstate such matters in order to gain name recognition themselves.

hmmm...sounds familiar.

[stylus]

MVNO customers are adds to the Sprint network, just like an Amp'd Mobile customer is an add to the Verizon network.

MVNOs will cannibalize certain percentages of all carriers, however, I find market analysts often overstate such matters in order to gain name recognition themselves. Sprint would rather have a customer defect to an attractive MVNO than to another carrier.

Sprint is playing the MVNO game to offer MVNO content (Disney, ESPN/NFL, etc) on their network. You go with Sprint, you get most of the MVNO content from all the carriers (with the exception of VM, whose profits are large enough and market base different enough that it is not needed at this time).

Sprint will be able to say they have more customers on-network than anyone else thanks to the MVNO system (eventually), and that will drive customers to defect to Sprint, especially with the emergance of EV-DO and QChat playing in tandem with deprecated and emerging technologies in concert (iDEN+RL+QChat, 3GPP+3GPP2+H.264B, etc).

In other words, the business customer, mainstram consumer, and technically inclined with all find reasons to stay with Sprint even in a market saturation of MVNOs... the goal of the MVNO is to reach out to niches with minimal cost.

That all sounds nice on paper, but again, why do two combined companies of their scale and national clout only rake in 700k direct customers this quarter? Remember last quarter, Sprint raked in 400k direct customers solo.

Does Sprint hope customers who churn away from them actually go to MVNO's?

I would expect Sprint alone without the help of Nextel, affiliates or wholesalers to bring in 700k plus direct customers.

I know Merrill can be wrong and analysts sometimes have their own agendas when writing articles, but this trend seems to be in favor of multiple MVNO's gaining ground on the company who provides them with the network to use.

I posted this quote on a previous thread:

(Washington Post)
Forsee said he recognized that size would be an issue for Sprint, and that is what spurred the merger with Nextel. "We had to think about whether we wanted our number one and number two competitors to be twice as big as us," said Forsee, who will be chief executive of the combined Sprint-Nextel. "At the same time, our strategy was to be an enabler of the cable companies," he said. "Nothing's risk-free. Status quo can be a formula for disaster," he said.

"We have common visions and common enemies" with the cable companies, said Lauer. "We could sell stand-alone wireless service, but growth there is limited. We want to be the third screen into someone's life," connecting cell-phone users to their televisions and computers, he said. Thus, "we see our interests aligning with cable." Such a strategy isn't risk-free: The cable relationships may not pay off for Sprint, or Sprint's wholesale business could end up creating new competition that ends up cannibalizing its own business."
(Washington Post)

I agree VZW will probably count AMP'd customers as their own, but I think they should be kept seperate since VZW would not be the one's who is actively getting that customer. A customer who signs up with AMP'd will not think he/she is signing up with VZW. AMP'd will be competing with VZW as opposed to simply being partners.

[hatoncat]

It's too late for that, Verizon will have no choice but to count MVNO's the same as adds or face stupidity from not doing so because Sprint has already gotten the market's nod for doing so. And really, the situation could just as easily been reversed, so I don't blame Sprint.

That said, yes, Sprint would much rather have customers churn over to an MVNO than churn over to Verizon, Cingular, etc. Churn is a real problem in the industry, nobody's doing a good job or giving people good reasons to stay with their carrier. A part of Sprint's plan will be to bolster MVNOs so that when customers do churn, they will churn right back onto the network.

[stylus]

It's too late for that, Verizon will have no choice but to count MVNO's the same as adds or face stupidity from not doing so because Sprint has already gotten the market's nod for doing so. And really, the situation could just as easily been reversed, so I don't blame Sprint.

That said, yes, Sprint would much rather have customers churn over to an MVNO than churn over to Verizon, Cingular, etc. Churn is a real problem in the industry, nobody's doing a good job or giving people good reasons to stay with their carrier. A part of Sprint's plan will be to bolster MVNOs so that when customers do churn, they will churn right back onto the network.

When did Sprint start counting Virgin and other wholesalers + affiliates with their subscriber details? I can't remember?

Different articles market the numbers differently. RCR News for example usually titles articles related to Sprint #'s with the direct #'s only while Yahoo Finance usually includes all wholesalers + affiliates.

I can certainly see how, from an investor viewpoint, a number like 1.2 million sounding better than 700k.

[hatoncat]

Sprint has been doing it since the launch of Virgin Mobile (the quarter that took place). I believe before that they did separate MVNO adds (extremely few, STI Mobile, Starr, etc) on statements.