Sprint PCS president Len Lauer said the carrier expects its upcoming Ready Link push-to-talk service will be competitive with Verizon Wireless’s current offering, though would still fall short of the sub-one-second call latency provided by Nextel Communications Inc. Direct Connect service.
“I feel fairly good about where we are in our push-to-talk,” Lauer said at a Morgan Stanley investor conference in Boston. “I think we’ll have a competitive product compared with Verizon’s.”
Despite the greater latency compared with Nextel’s service, Lauer added that Sprint PCS would provide other advantages including a variety of push-to-talk handsets.
Lauer also noted that Sprint PCS was looking at acquiring some wireless licenses from Qwest Communications International Inc., which announced last month plans to migrate its nearly 1 million subscribers to Sprint PCS’ network by early next year, but added that he did not expect a large deal.
“There are some areas where it would help us a little bit from a fill-in standpoint, but I wouldn’t see us as an overall big buyer of the assets,” Lauer said.
Qwest currently controls a number of 10-megahertz spectrum licenses in a number of western and Midwest markets and has said it plans to sell its wireless infrastructure following the transition of its customers to Sprint PCS’ network.
Lauer added that he felt Sprint PCS would gain a limited number of new customers as the result of the wireless local number portability mandate that is scheduled to be implemented Nov. 24 despite analysts concerns that the carrier’s sub-par customer service would make the carrier a net customer loser.
Lauer noted that Sprint PCS has been making strides in customer service, highlighted by the carrier’s 2.4-percent second-quarter customer churn result that was near the industry average.
“We believe we will be a smaller net winner out of this. I don’t think we’ll be a large winner; I don’t think we’ll be a large loser,” Lauer said.
