Charlie has less than three years to come up with a partner or sell off the frequencies or the government will take it all back and he gets NOTHING.
Softbank Mulling Sprint / DISH Combo
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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Sprint's perception and public view has long been stained in the eye of the people because of the bad hand they've been dealt...
Marcelo has done fairly well at 'draining the swamp' of the old crew that Dan just couldn't shake..they kept him under a tight noose, and even though he was a decent CEO with a really good vision, the board just wouldn't allow him to fulfill that vision.
Sprint's Nextel merger/purchase was a disaster from the start. By the time that happened, people were fed up with the stupidity of people on the *beep beep* carrier...and "hey, whar u at" was the most horrendous thing you could possibly encounter. Not to mention having to listen to wives blasting their husbands at vol.10 on speakerphone while you're out in public...or hearing where the crackdealer is meeting his client to sell that rock..
So Nextel was dying off tremendously by that time, and AT&T quickly found out with their attempt at the technology that PTT wasn't the way of the future.
Southernlinc still maintains a PTT network, and that's only because SoLinc doesn't care about acquiring customers....they use it for the employees of Southern Company and it's understandable why it matters to them... My wife has a SouthernLinc which is company provided and works great..
For Sprint, the nail in the coffin for the LTE rollout was the failed attempt at the first 4G network, which was WiMAX. Sprint should've lawyered up and SUED qualcom for the hand they played in the death of Wimax, because it almost bankrupted Sprint when WiMAX failed ...and WiMAX failed in a major way...which hurt Sprint for MANY years forward...
They invested heavily in putting out WiMAX and having that tech in the phones, then suddenly LTE was the standard, and WIMAX was a dead technology less than a year after it was rolled out...
The cost of that venture nearly cost Sprint it's business...
And how were they to know that WIMAX was going to die, thanks to the modem manufacturers being in bed with the big 2 cellcos? The intent behind that debacle was to take Sprint off the map...deal them a blow they couldn't recover from...which almost happened.
It's hard to have CAPEX ventures invested heavily into a standard technology that's currently rolling out, then suddenly change that CAPEX and stop the rollout, lose all the invested capital into that technology, and start investing in this new technology (LTE) and begin rolling it out. Sprint had to do this and only had very little time, a small window in which to do it...or they would be left behind for good and wouldn't recover at all. Network Vision was Dan's plan to make Sprint successful again...and it had for all intent and purposes, done what was intended.
Dan was limited by past mistakes that were made and not allowed to do what was needed... WiMAX/LTE and the Clearwire shareholders can be thanked for trying their best to take Sprint under. Clearwire shareholders went so far as to take Sprint to court and say they were significantly underpaid in the buyout of Clearwire by Sprint Corp...but the court saw through their greed and ruled that in fact, they were severely OVER paid by Sprint for their stakes in Clearwire and dismissed their suit.
Sprint still has a plethora of spectrum...and folks thinking that just because it's high-band and Sprint can't use it rurally are badly mistaken.
Sprint is using the highband stuff, (Band 41) to make microwave connections from rural tower to rural tower, then using the lower band, like 25 and 26 (which 26 is the old Nextel spectrum that was shut off) to deploy rural signal...
So just because they have high frequency spectrum doesn't mean they are irrelevant to the rural people.
I'll soon have a magic box, which uses band 26 as it's "backhaul" provider, but then it deploys a band 41 carrier signal to my phone for me to use...so within a 300ft radius of my home, I'll have great speeds to match the already great call quality that I've had with Sprint for years.
While network vision caused sprint users some headaches, for the most part, people on Sprint have one thing in common ---->the call quality is excellent...which is derivative of a CDMA carrier to begin with. GSM carriers have a history of sounding hollow and "in a tin can"...while CDMA uses a codec that is really good for voice..
I didn't have much complaint during the rip and replace (Network Vision) time while Sprint was working hard to upgrade their network.
And it's not widely know that Sprint is the ONLY carrier of the 4 that has completely revamped it's entire network in the same manner, nationwide. AT&T hasn't done it, and neither has VZW...or TMO for that matter. Sprint is the only carrier that went tower to tower, one by one, and ripped out ALL the old equipment, and replaced it all with new equipment (8T8R). This was the only way Sprint could fix it's network and make it through the turmoil. While it's not an ideal scenario, it's one they took knowing it would cost them customers because people can't be concerned with WHY it doesn't work..they only can be worried with "it doesn't work right now..and I need it now"...
And that hurt Sprint even more.
But, for the 1st time in 3 years, two days ago Sprint reported profitable quarter. So apparently they've done something right...
Even if the perception of Sprint is "they deserve to die, they suck, they don't know what they are doing"....
A little investigative research would turn the discovery that Sprint has tried numerous things and had it's hands tied by greedy people who just wanted money and weren't concerned with offering something that was quality...
Marcelo has done fairly well at 'draining the swamp' of the old crew that Dan just couldn't shake..they kept him under a tight noose, and even though he was a decent CEO with a really good vision, the board just wouldn't allow him to fulfill that vision.
Sprint's Nextel merger/purchase was a disaster from the start. By the time that happened, people were fed up with the stupidity of people on the *beep beep* carrier...and "hey, whar u at" was the most horrendous thing you could possibly encounter. Not to mention having to listen to wives blasting their husbands at vol.10 on speakerphone while you're out in public...or hearing where the crackdealer is meeting his client to sell that rock..
So Nextel was dying off tremendously by that time, and AT&T quickly found out with their attempt at the technology that PTT wasn't the way of the future.
Southernlinc still maintains a PTT network, and that's only because SoLinc doesn't care about acquiring customers....they use it for the employees of Southern Company and it's understandable why it matters to them... My wife has a SouthernLinc which is company provided and works great..
For Sprint, the nail in the coffin for the LTE rollout was the failed attempt at the first 4G network, which was WiMAX. Sprint should've lawyered up and SUED qualcom for the hand they played in the death of Wimax, because it almost bankrupted Sprint when WiMAX failed ...and WiMAX failed in a major way...which hurt Sprint for MANY years forward...
They invested heavily in putting out WiMAX and having that tech in the phones, then suddenly LTE was the standard, and WIMAX was a dead technology less than a year after it was rolled out...
The cost of that venture nearly cost Sprint it's business...
And how were they to know that WIMAX was going to die, thanks to the modem manufacturers being in bed with the big 2 cellcos? The intent behind that debacle was to take Sprint off the map...deal them a blow they couldn't recover from...which almost happened.
It's hard to have CAPEX ventures invested heavily into a standard technology that's currently rolling out, then suddenly change that CAPEX and stop the rollout, lose all the invested capital into that technology, and start investing in this new technology (LTE) and begin rolling it out. Sprint had to do this and only had very little time, a small window in which to do it...or they would be left behind for good and wouldn't recover at all. Network Vision was Dan's plan to make Sprint successful again...and it had for all intent and purposes, done what was intended.
Dan was limited by past mistakes that were made and not allowed to do what was needed... WiMAX/LTE and the Clearwire shareholders can be thanked for trying their best to take Sprint under. Clearwire shareholders went so far as to take Sprint to court and say they were significantly underpaid in the buyout of Clearwire by Sprint Corp...but the court saw through their greed and ruled that in fact, they were severely OVER paid by Sprint for their stakes in Clearwire and dismissed their suit.
Sprint still has a plethora of spectrum...and folks thinking that just because it's high-band and Sprint can't use it rurally are badly mistaken.
Sprint is using the highband stuff, (Band 41) to make microwave connections from rural tower to rural tower, then using the lower band, like 25 and 26 (which 26 is the old Nextel spectrum that was shut off) to deploy rural signal...
So just because they have high frequency spectrum doesn't mean they are irrelevant to the rural people.
I'll soon have a magic box, which uses band 26 as it's "backhaul" provider, but then it deploys a band 41 carrier signal to my phone for me to use...so within a 300ft radius of my home, I'll have great speeds to match the already great call quality that I've had with Sprint for years.
While network vision caused sprint users some headaches, for the most part, people on Sprint have one thing in common ---->the call quality is excellent...which is derivative of a CDMA carrier to begin with. GSM carriers have a history of sounding hollow and "in a tin can"...while CDMA uses a codec that is really good for voice..
I didn't have much complaint during the rip and replace (Network Vision) time while Sprint was working hard to upgrade their network.
And it's not widely know that Sprint is the ONLY carrier of the 4 that has completely revamped it's entire network in the same manner, nationwide. AT&T hasn't done it, and neither has VZW...or TMO for that matter. Sprint is the only carrier that went tower to tower, one by one, and ripped out ALL the old equipment, and replaced it all with new equipment (8T8R). This was the only way Sprint could fix it's network and make it through the turmoil. While it's not an ideal scenario, it's one they took knowing it would cost them customers because people can't be concerned with WHY it doesn't work..they only can be worried with "it doesn't work right now..and I need it now"...
And that hurt Sprint even more.
But, for the 1st time in 3 years, two days ago Sprint reported profitable quarter. So apparently they've done something right...
Even if the perception of Sprint is "they deserve to die, they suck, they don't know what they are doing"....
A little investigative research would turn the discovery that Sprint has tried numerous things and had it's hands tied by greedy people who just wanted money and weren't concerned with offering something that was quality...
Try living in the Hearland anywhere outside a major city and see if Sprint works for you then. I can tell you it won't. I don't want a Femtocell device to just give me coverage in my house. That's a work around. I want coverage that works where I live *and* travel. I'm not holding my breath for that to happen with Sprint in the next 5 years. Maybe I'll check again in 10.
The only way any company will deal with Dish, is if Charlie sells out and has NO position in the new company.
FWIW: I want to Sprint to be a successful competitor, and I'd rather see them merge with Dish or Charter than with T-Mobile. 4 major wireless carriers seems like the minimum we should have. As for the voice quality, I agree, with the caveat that VoLTE sounds better than the best CDMA. I actually looked at Sprint's coverage last night since they have such great deals right now. In some rural places I visit regularly they claim to have better coverage than Verizon, which may actually be the case. When I had Verizon, I often found that the rural coverage was "extended network," which meant data speeds sucked a**. That is one of the reasons I switched to AT&T. Even if they don't have LTE in rural areas, their 3G UTMS was better than whatever the heck I was getting on Verizon.
Honestly, I do not care about Sprints history. What I care about is the fact that due to whatever reasons, their service sucks across the majority of the country. If it works for you, awesome, however it still sucks across most the country. I live in one of the biggest cities in the US and could never get decent speeds or service. Also was greatly over priced. That issue disappeared with Verizon
When I had Sprint between 2000-2013, I tried to defend them too, especially since I always seemed to be "in contract" and couldn't break up with them. Not only that, their corporate office was (And still is) less than 45 minutes from my house and I wanted to support a local company. Once I was finally free of them, however (and consequently saw how good the other guys were), I completely understood the criticism they always received.
BTW, I know MANY good people in my area who used to work at the Sprint campus and were tossed to the curb by them due to their corporate mismanagement. What used to be a source of pride for Kansas City is now an embarrassment, as far as I'm concerned.
That Is my exact experience. I tried to defend them. Stuck with them for years, kept upgrading. They kept telling me "next year it will be better", while it kept getting worse. I have multiple friends who have held high positions within middle management(regional directors and such) that have their Sprint phones, and pay for another service(usually Verizon). My parents have had Verizon since '96, I cant remember what it was back then, and have been happy. I have had them for about 3-4 years now and they are far superior. Sprint has run itself into the ground and Son cannot bring it out of it.
I agree. Even if they merge with Dish and get the spectrum Dish owns, they won't be able to add towers, as previous posters mentioned. VZW and ATT will always have more towers than Sprint and TMO. TMO has been able to find a somewhat suitable workaround with their "extended range LTE," but they haven't actually added any real towers. So, you might have "two bars" now with TMO whereas you had none before, making it usable, but still inconsistent, in my experience. As much as I used to hate Big Red, they just have a superior product that will be difficult to replicate for people who don't live in urban areas.
Now, I've heard musings on other forums about drone-provided wireless data service, small cells, etc, and if Sprint were wanting to take a leap forward, they should be looking at taking advantage of those new technologies to increase penetration where there isn't any currently, IMO. I know TMO is looking into those possibilities.
Yep, and even here in San Francisco and the nearby Silicon Valley, Verizon is still the best even though in the neighborhood I live in which is in the Twin Peaks area of San Francisco, it seems Verizon doesn't have good signal either but it's usable. I've been using Cellular and PCS phones since 1989 and when Sprint first came out, there were some areas inside SF outside that didn't work at all. TMobile and Cingular, what was known as AT&T's Orange network after the Cingular acquisition was even worse as it was really picky about where it will work so you can be at the front of a Walgreens store and it works but not in the back. T-Mobile was known as VoiceStream in CA and basically in California/Nevada, before AT&T bought Cingular, they didn't have a network as they basically used Cingular's towers while Cingular used T-Mobile's network in NY. T-Mobile later bought the Cingular CA/NV towers because of the AT&T/Cingular acquisition so they've had a network since. I've used Google ProjectFi for a week last year which basically uses both TMobile and Sprint and it seems to be good at my residence. Just don't know how T-Mobile is elsewhere since it's a lot cheaper and comes with more benefits like the unlimited international data roaming as I mentioned earlier.
Speaking about towers, I remember back in the 1989-1990 era, one can ask the provider where the towers are and they will tell you and it's easily spotted for the antennas but it seems I have not been able to visibly see any antennas in the last 10-15 years, are they now well hidden or look different?
I still see tons of towers in my area. Heck Verizon even has cells on top of water towers out here.
You can download the Root Metrics app for your phone; I believe it will tell you the exact location of all towers and their average call, data and performance quality.
True and that was the reason 1.9Ghz PCS carriers had poor coverage while the traditional carriers with the 850Mhz frequencies had the better coverage but what I don't get is let's take Verizon (formerly GTE) in San Francisco for example. When they were 850Mhz, they had way better coverage than they did when they added 1.9Ghz and the 700Mhz they added didn't help either. What happened to their coverage? Did they use less of the 850Mhz and use 1.9Ghz instead?
I found this to be a useful tool to compare coverage when looking for a new wireless carrier:
How to Compare Coverage Maps & Carriers for the Best Coverage
It uses advertised coverage maps, so YMMV of course.
How to Compare Coverage Maps & Carriers for the Best Coverage
It uses advertised coverage maps, so YMMV of course.
Depends on the market, but, if they had spectrum in all 3 ranges, they might have pushed as many of the newer, 700MHz-capable phones as possible to the 1900 and 700 freqs., while keeping the old 3G phones on 850, but who knows for sure. I know when Cingular got a lot of 850 from the AT&T merger, they moved a lot of the control channels to 1900, so they could use 850 for data, which was fine as long as you had a phone that could do both. Some international phones only could do 850 and not 1900 or vice versa for some reason.
That explains why many friends are saying TMobile is good now when I didn't think they were able to add more towers. So basically they are using extended range LTE.
Thanks, never knew about Root Metrics but OpenSignal never shows the location of the tower. Anyways, Root Metrics also has a web version here: RootMetrics Coverage Map
Not sure if it tells the location of the towers.
I know I am connected to 700Mhz but wouldn't 700Mhz have better coverage than 850Mhz since it's a lower frequency so it's able to handle distances and building penetration better. I think the older phones were tri-band meaning they only did 900/1800 and 1900 and later 850 was added to the phones since Cingular added 850 to their towers before the AT&T Wireless merger. AT&T Wireless actually spin-off from AT&T Corp and then when SBC bought AT&T, it seems like they all became part of AT&T Corp again.
Actually he has 2 and a half years left and yes it will go very fast. I still doubt Charlie will do anything in time other than sell off the frequencies to the highest bidders or he will sell out DISH entirely by the deadline to who ever he can unload it in.
