Verizon Wireless Launching LTE in 38 Markets on December 5

Sprint should launch an advertising campainn for their WiMax network using Verizon's $80/mo 10gb/mo plan against them.

See if that gains any customers!

People don't want to pay nearly $100 a month for service and they still have to keep track of their usage.

The first 6 months of Verizon's LTE network, I really don't see it taking off with a bunch of new subscribers.

Jay, the issue isn't Sprint gaining customers anymore. They DID that and they still lost money.

Clear has millions of users, and is running out of funding.

Their prices are either too low to be sustainable, or they require too many users to be feasible right now. Either way they're in deep ****.

And Sprint talking about how their cheaper is the WORST thing they can do. people know their cheaper. People also assume they're inferior and crowing about how cheap they are will do NOTHING to change that opinion.

Sprint needs to change customer's perception of the value they offer.

Menno,

You know as well as I do that they used to put the cost to service each user in the financial figures quarterly. Metro PCS still does.

Even with Sprint's nasty overhead problem, it doesn't cost anywhere near $50 per user. Sprint's got a debt problem, a customer relations problem, and a marketing problem. Raising the prices wouldn't fix any of these issues.

Verizon really had an opportunity to take the bull by the horns here. Instead I believe it will be an epic fail.

Raising prices WOULD fix their retention problem. It's called perceived value. Those customers leaving sprint are largely going to ATT or Verizon. PRICE IS NOT THE ISSUE. more cash flow would allow them to invest more in their customer service, wimax deployment, etc. Instead they're giving away the farm to try and get customers back and it's barely working

notice how they didn't turn a positive quarter until they got the Evo, a device that costs MORE per month. People clearly arn't afraid of spending more.

Verizon is charging the same for 4g/3g as they currently are for 3g. For the target customer this is a WIN. It's only people who don't understand the market, or data hogs like me or you who really have any reason to bitch.

The carriers are the ones who define 5+gb/mo as data hogs.
Not reality. But speed enables video, and video is data intensive, and thus needs more than 5/10gb/mo.

I really think sometime in the next 18-24mo's that 20-30gb/mo won't be considered to be data hogs.

If you're consuming more than 5gb a month on a 3g device, you're in the top 5% of their customers. That 5% consumes, at minimum, 40% of their total bandwidth in a month. That is what defines them as data hogs.

Yes, its important to insteal value with your customers.

But in case you didn't realize... Verizon has been posting losses this year too. :/

They posted it because of the new healthcare legislation, and one time payoffs to unionized landline workers where they sold off those services.

Wireles was still profitable.

The new healthcare legislation hasn't taken effect yet. It doesn't until 2012.

PS. They still recorded losses.

They took the hit to their bottom line this year FOR the healthcare restructuring. Some companies do things before deadlines.

And the wireless side didn't take a loss, because the wireless side doesn't post profits (it's not it's own company)

Considering that any losses incurred by landlines are insignificant to the discussion. The losses that Verizon Communications posted don't matter.

This is off topic and probably doesn't deserve a response, but here it is.

I keep getting legal notifications from my employer and insurance company concerning the parts that went into effect in March of 2010. Namely, the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. In fact, I got one just today, explaining what had changed.

Funny. I must be getting legal notices from the future.

I guess I haven't read up on my politics lately. I guess I was wrong.
Thank you for correcting my error. Lol

That's what I'm here for.

I'm glad someones watching out for me.

There's always someone watching you.

I need someone to watch after me at all times. God knows what ill say next.

The branding has, and still is changing.

Infact if you cite their current model it is, almost verbatim, "Our $69.99 is worth more than their $69.99". We are comparing two exactly priced plans from other carriers, not saying we're "cheaper" as you and others say... that's the perception *you* are still seeing and spreading.

Sprint, however, is saying get more for the same as the other big dogs cost.

We lost OIBDA and ARPU, and we've had to make that decision to gain in the customer base area. And eventually we will have to go into a more reasonable pricing model for the future.

But in the now, we are building customer opinion that was tarnished by terrible management, and we cannot claim the best value and within the same year sw...
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After a couple years trying to fix their debt, customer relations, and marketing problems, you'd think they'd have fixed it by now. How many more years are they doing to need to nail these issues down and fix them?

Quite honestly it will take many more years to undo the customer relations nightmare combined with the Nextel purchase.

I disagree. I think they could turn that around in a year's time, if they really wanted to (i.e. had money to spend).

Nextel customers are easy to understand. I was one of them for a LONG time.

I used to pay $100 a month for one line and almost nothing on it. But they'd get me a killer deal on my phone, probably heavily subsidized for the time. I had an account rep I could call any time for help. All we wanted was for the service to work, and it did that very well. Until it hit the edge of the map, and then it died like an overloaded fuse. We knew exactly where the hole started, but before we lost signal, that thing worked like a champ.

Personal touch. I was used to the personal touch of Nextel. They seemed to care when I h...
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Have you dealt with Sprint customer service in the last 12 months? Customer service is fantastic.

You're living proof that they've got a perception problem more than an actual CS problem. I mentioned the customer service problem earlier due to the perception.

I have an older relative on Sprint, and I end up being the "go to" person for her because "all this phone stuff" confuses her. She, and I, are treated like we're less than significant whenever we call for help.

Also, the business I used to work for, which had Nextel for so long, is still run by my close friend. He comes to me for phone advice, and tells me all of his latest headaches with their Sprint/Nextel account. I think he's finally done waiting for Sprint to get better. And now that most of his customers and vendors are no longer carrying Nextel, there's little incentive to stick with them.

Exactly.


Sprint's PR team needs to be taken behind the shed and shot.

y'all are out of your minds.

Sprint is the most-improved company in customer service across ALL industries in the past 2 years, according to the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Sprint moved ahead of AT&T and Verizon in the 2010 J.D. Power Retail Satisfaction Study.

And Newsweek ranked Sprint #6 among the 500 Greenest Companies - again, across ALL industries.

Verizon DOES have the best network out there. Which is why Sprint has roaming agreements with Verizon, and in my experience (I'm an East Coast girl), their coverage is virtually the same.

AND, Sprint Navigation doesn't suck like the new VZNav does - and it's free to boot! (with a data plan, of course.)

'nuff said.

~ miss chris

And again. Name the ad where sprint said this?


They haven't. So from a consumer standpoint it doesn't exist

actually they do..i sometimes see it here in phonescoop... the ad after the 1st article...its not well hyped but its there...
its the ad with a thropy in it... forgot how it goes..its been there for months now ..i think its about jd powers...

You've got a point, it's been like 4 or 5 years already.

acdc1a said:
Even with Sprint's nasty overhead problem, it doesn't cost anywhere near $50 per user. .

The issue is that we have no way of knowing what the actual cost per subscriber is. If Sprint keeps offering unlimited plans for $60 a month while everyone else caps down at $50 for 5 GB, then all the low, reasonable users will be drawn to competitors to save $120 a year, while the super-abusive users consuming 25GB/month or more will stay with Sprint/Clear.

The 25 GB customers cost way more then $60 per month to service, so their average expense per subscriber would skyrocket without low consumption users in the pot to subsidize the abusers.

It is not a sustainable model in a 5+ Gbps world. Somethi...
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Bingo!!

I think most intelligent people in the industry want to see Sprint succeed. Competition is healthy and necessary and to lay claim that there is no competition because Verizon and AT&T have destroyed it all is completely bogus.

Back in the day when I worked for Sprint PCS, our rate plans were no cheaper than Bell Atlantic's and Cingulars. The biggest difference was nationwide coverage and digital service versus regional coverage and analog/some digital service. Sprint has made some poor business choices since... the first of which was the $125 spending limit. I think everyone agrees now, that at the time, giving service to people who couldn't pay for it was a BAD idea. There unlimited data offerings is like the spending limit of...
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Unlimited is a great term for marketing, and people love to hear it. But in the end it's bad news for company AND consumer.

For the company you have the data hogs that force you to built a TON of network for 5% of your users.

For consumers, it's overpaying monthly to help subsidize these data hogs.

Yes, but a great deal for existing customers who are eligible to upgrade.

Hello Menno,

First, I would like to commend you and Epik on your forum page. Very nice!

I agree with you on on the Sprint's image standing. However, there is a problem with them raising prices. Yes, extra dollars should be made for compensating for losses. But their problem has been a year over year issue in which a couple of quarters of subscriber increase, will not solve the back dates of failed profits.

Sprint needs to stay the course. If they raise prices, they will fall into a category of non-value in consumers minds. Sprint can not offer native coverage in every corner of the country. This alone is one reason customers buy into Verizon. I hear questions all the time:

"Ok yeah, Sprint's plans are great. But what about cov...
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Thanks! Spread the word! 😉

Another thing I didn't mention, is that if Sprint raises prices, this would defeat the purpose of keeping the larger in check. It in turn would convey that the larger forced the smaller to raise prices rather than the smaller forcing the larger to stay in reason.


John B.

They're not keeping anyone in check if they have lower prices but no profit.

Look at this years sales. Their high end devices (Evo, Epic) require a higher monthly price. STILL cheaper than the other two, but higher. These devices are the main reason they gained customers last quarter as well.

I'm not saying that they should match Verizon.. far from it. I'm just saying they shouldn't be afraid of increasing prices for premium services or plans.

And they should STOP focusing on price in their ads. Mention it, yes, but point out the fact that they've spent a lot of money working on customer service, and network coverage, etc.