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Sprint to Risk $20 Billion on Apple iPhone

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Blame it on the iPhone...

Jellz

Oct 3, 2011, 2:11 PM
The iPhone is a popular phone and is a major key to AT&T's recent success as #2 carrier in the US. But they're still #2. I think that competing without the iPhone is feasible and Sprint is making excuses for itself. When you compare Sprint to Verizon/AT&T, yes their plans are cheaper but not by too much. Yes they offer unlimited data, but do most people even need that (even if they want it)? Their network just isn't as good, and they sell it out to everyone and their mother. In the end, the price difference just doesn't justify the network difference. The smaller prepaid companies have crap coverage but are cheap enough that if someone isn't going to move around much and don't expect much from their phones, they can live with getting what th...
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bluecoyote

Oct 3, 2011, 2:14 PM
If I remember correctly they surpassed Verizon back in January due to organic subscriber ads. Verizon only surpassed AT&T back in 2009 due to the Alltel aquisition.
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VZW611LA

Oct 3, 2011, 6:54 PM
Verizon has over 100 Million customers and connected devices. AT&T has around 90sh million customers and connected devices. Customer only is 87 Million for Verizon and 75 Million for AT&T.
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bluecoyote

Oct 3, 2011, 10:22 PM
AT&T was at ~96 Million "Wireless Subscribers" as of Q1. I know they haven't had any net losses. At the time, they were ahead of Verizon's ~94 Million.

For all I know though they've been flat since then.
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SprintFTW

Oct 3, 2011, 3:11 PM
AT&T has terrible satisfaction ratings according to consumer reports.

Sprint and Verizon were rated as the most satisfying carriers, followed by T-Mobile.

Combine this with the fact that Sprint has the cheapest plans except for T-Mobile and the iPhone is a huge deal since AT&T has had terrible satisfaction rates, but secured the iPhone, it is reasonable to conclude that was a huge part of their recent growth.

Having tried EVERY carrier there is to try, Sprint does get better coverage than any of them especially if you ever travel across the country or to more rural areas.
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gloopey1

Oct 3, 2011, 4:24 PM
SprintFTW said:
AT&T has terrible satisfaction ratings according to consumer reports.

Sprint and Verizon were rated as the most satisfying carriers, followed by T-Mobile.

Combine this with the fact that Sprint has the cheapest plans except for T-Mobile and the iPhone is a huge deal since AT&T has had terrible satisfaction rates, but secured the iPhone, it is reasonable to conclude that was a huge part of their recent growth.

Having tried EVERY carrier there is to try, Sprint does get better coverage than any of them especially if you ever travel across the country or to more rural areas.

If you read that article closely, CR even goes as far to say that they can no longer recommend Verizon over Spr...
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VZW611LA

Oct 3, 2011, 7:00 PM
Doubtful. Sprint is already having tons of problems with network capacity. More people will always pick Verizon over Sprint because of reliability.
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cheech004

Oct 3, 2011, 7:28 PM
really says who, wheres the proof? Proove what your saying till then its your opinion and you know what that means
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aejaneczek

Oct 3, 2011, 10:04 PM
I've had AT&T for 7 years now, couldn't be more satisfied, I've got an iPhone with unlimited data, unlimited family text, and unlimited calling to any cell phone, with three total lines the other two are feature phones and my bill runs only $135 after tax a month, Sprint would actually be way more expensive since you can’t tier data plans, one smartphone with 2 feature phones would run $159 before tax, oh also since I've been a customer for so long and have auto bill pay I get upgrades every year, no special programs they take away, and my other two lines get upgrades every 18 month's oh and I typically get 2.5-5 mbs down on my iPhone 4 which I believe is about the max speed on WiMAX whenever the hell you can find it and stand just righ...
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SprintFTW

Oct 4, 2011, 3:53 AM
Hate to burst your bubble but we are talking about CURRENTLY available plans. Many people have their own 'special' deal they worked with whatever carrier they are with. That's a moot point here. I use to give people discount plans all the time when I worked for Sprint...

On AT&T just for 2 iPhone's even on the LOWEST plan (700 minutes...), with unlimited family text and only 2 GB of data per phone, and unlimited to any mobile, it comes out to $149.99 before tax.

With Sprint for 2 feature phones such as Evo's it would be $149.99 for 1500 minutes, with unlimited family text, unlimited data, unlimited calling to any mobile. So you are getting over twice the non calling to mobile minutes and also unlimited data instead of the 2 gb cap (I h...
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Vmac39

Oct 4, 2011, 5:45 AM
In case you didn't know and from reading the comment, you don't. The only reason Sprint gets the kind of coverage across country is because they roam on Verizon's network. Without that roaming coverage, they wouldn't be Mitch better than some of the top regional carriers.
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SprintFTW

Oct 4, 2011, 11:48 AM
Actually I am WELL aware of the fact that Sprint has many roaming agreements (the most in the industry)

That is not necessarily a BAD thing... funny how people think that's always a bad thing to roam. Roaming is included in most plans nowadays anyway so it doesn't even matter.

Verizon also roams off Sprint so what's your point? The roaming agreement doesn't just go one way...

Roaming is necessary for carriers to cover everyone... putting up a cell tower isn't easy. There are tons of regulations surrounding where you can put on...
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T Bone

Oct 4, 2011, 9:00 AM
Is that when you look at the stats you see that the difference between first place and last place is less than one standard deviation....what that means is that statistically there is no difference between the carriers.


And the 'best' rating is still a failing score

So Verizon, in first place, gets a D+ while everyone else gets a D-

Hardly something to write home about.
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SprintFTW

Oct 4, 2011, 11:54 AM
It's not surprising that all the carriers have a bad score. Every time you turn around people are complaining about their cell phone service regardless of the carrier.

After being out of the customer service industry for a while I've come to the conclusion a lot of the crap people complain about is their own fault (people break their phones, then they get pissed when the carrier won't replace it for free... or they sign up for stupid 3rd party services like joke of the day and say they never signed up and want a credit... or don't understand the plan they are on & get some kind of overage, or change/setup a plan and don't understand how proration works...) Every once and a while a customer will come in with an issue that was Sprint's faul...
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Vmac39

Oct 4, 2011, 12:27 PM
My point was, you mentioned the fact that Sprint has better coverage. Their coverage in rural areas is only due to Verizon. I never said that roaming was a bad thing. Besides, you mentioned poor costomer service on the part of ATT. I fail to see the point in that statement. Poor or not, ATT was and is a larger network and Apple wanted to put that to use. Larger customer base means the potential of more people buying the phone. As for Sprints customer service, I've heard some horror stories about them as well. LOL

Anyway, the other thing I want point out is, Apple aslo wanted to take advantage of the ability to talk and surf. Although, because of that feature, this is just my opinion, is why ATT's network suffers from so much congestion. I...
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gloopey1

Oct 3, 2011, 4:41 PM
Not any more. This is according to Consumer Reports latest user polls. at&t may have a larger native footprint than Sprint, but their overall coverage (native + roaming) is vastly inferior. the 3% of the pops not covered live in mostly rural areas where nothing but miles and miles of roads exist.

Verizon also covers 99% of the population, but they limit their customers roaming experience in areas where Verizon has service. In other words, if you live within Verizon coverage and enter a metal building that's in a fringe area, you will probably have no signal. You don't necessarily roam onto some other CDMA network that might have a tower positioned closer.

Sprint usually has one or two backups that the phone will lock onto if the networ...
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VZW611LA

Oct 3, 2011, 7:08 PM
Not even close. Verizon is the main network Sprint roams off of. If in an US Cellular area, Verizon will pick up off of them of what you said happens. Just like in MS, Verizon uses cellular south if the Verizon service goes out, even their 3G. Something Sprint doesn't get. Sprint no longer offers the largest coverage voice wise. There are even areas where Sprint doesn't roam off Verizon and is SOL like here in Bama.
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gloopey1

Oct 3, 2011, 8:15 PM
VZW611LA said:
Not even close. Verizon is the main network Sprint roams off of. If in an US Cellular area, Verizon will pick up off of them of what you said happens. Just like in MS, Verizon uses cellular south if the Verizon service goes out, even their 3G. Something Sprint doesn't get. Sprint no longer offers the largest coverage voice wise. There are even areas where Sprint doesn't roam off Verizon and is SOL like here in Bama.

Sprint could not legally advertise that they have the largest voice coverage in the US if they didn't. Verizon and at&t would be more than happy to sue them.

The fact that Verizon is the main network that Sprint roams off of is irrelevant to this discussion. What difference does...
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ejf2461

Oct 4, 2011, 9:34 PM
You evidently dont live in America. Companies lie every day and their marketing is usually all streches of the truth. The proof in what carrier is best is their size. Verizon & AT&T have over 90million customers. Sprint has 25 million. Also Nextel never, ever had the largest network. I worked for Nextel from 2000-2005 and we were even smaller than T mobile then... and Sprint ruined a great company when they took over. Look were Nextel is now under Sprints leadership!
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T Bone

Oct 4, 2011, 11:58 AM
And they are far from unbiased, moreover they have a vendetta against at&t going back to the 70's and the antitrust lawsuits....


And they've been caught falsifying their studies for which they have been successfully sued more than once.


They are hardly unbiased and objective...

Besides which, what I find funny is that many of the same people who cite Consumer Reports to say how great Verizon supposedly is, also completely dismiss out of hand their negative judgement against the iPhone 4.
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