WOTW loves what Sprint is doing, but for its own good thinks maybe it’s time to sit out a few plays
Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
Pressure is a funny thing. It can bring out the best in people or the worst.
Best:
https://youtu.be/ildVYgYWPqc
Worst:
When it comes to the telecom space, we have witnessed both sides of that pressure equation in terms of decisions made by mobile operators, as well as how those operating without significant pressure have reacted.
Among the domestic market’s largest carriers, it can be said Verizon Wireless over the past 10 years or so has been able to operate relatively free of pressure and thus has been able to make operating decisions with significant foresight and care. That may be changing here soon as the carrier looks to solidify a mobile video strategy that has resulted in the launch of its Go90 service, the recent acquisition of AOL and talk of purchasing Yahoo.
AT&T Mobility as of late has also been rather calm in its decision making process, hasten of course by the turmoil surrounding its good name following the network havoc caused with the launch and exclusive availability of Apple’s iPhone device.
T-Mobile US for its part has had to be a bit more aggressive in terms of throwing out new ideas ever since its failed acquisition by AT&T, but the results to this point have shown strong decisions made under duress.
Then there is Sprint, which regardless of the person in charge has made questionable decisions its calling card. When it has come to options, Sprint management has found ways to make a significant number of bad calls, which have placed the carrier in its current operational position.
I bring this up because it seems over the past couple of weeks, Sprint has been pretty aggressive in rolling out new rate plans that some could see as a bit “panicky.” Sure, Sprint’s latest fiscal quarter was not its best, but it did manage to show strong growth in adding postpaid customers and has already offered up prepaid rate plan changes for its Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA brands in an attempt to turn around those flailing operations.
I understand Sprint is in a precarious competitive position and likely needs to do all it can in order to garner positive attention from consumers. But, there’s a fine line between being appropriately aggressive and “too” aggressive. I know it’s a fine line and I have myself often not been able to locate it at appropriate times, but it’s there nonetheless and it’s important to locate it.
Maybe it’s time for Sprint to take a step off of crazy stage and let its internal actions catch up with what its external presence is trying to get across.
And, trust me, I say this reluctantly as I as much as anyone love watching crazy do what crazy does. But, maybe as CEO Marcelo Claure undertakes his “listening tour” one thing he should focus on is being a good listener. And by that I mean he should focus only on listening and not on doing anything else.
I know decisions always need to be made, but when decisions are made on top of other decisions it becomes hard to tell what impact those decisions are having.
So Sprint, maybe it’s time to take a breath and sit out a few plays.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. Here is a quick, but satisfying extra:
–Was it really just a couple of weeks ago that I was celebrating how awesome cell networks had become? (Yes … yes it was.)
Well, guess what? They are still awesome, though that level of network-specific awesome has somehow changed a bit in the past couple of weeks. This all due to yet another round of “independent” network testing results from RootMetrics, which unless your email address has an @tmobile.com handle has worked up some respect in the mobile telecom space.
RootMetrics’ latest findings again placed Verizon Wireless on the highest of pedestals, with rivals swapping out positions on the lower steps. The report is pretty exhaustive and definitely worth a read, though reading T-Mobile US’ response to the report is probably even more worthy if not just for the company’s exhaustive use of capital letters. If I may post the full quote from T-Mobile US CEO John Legere, with capitalization and punctuation intact:
“RootMetrics should be banned as an independent source for network benchmarking, period! “Why? Here’s one example … they manipulated their testing of the T-Mobile network, choosing to turn OFF Voice over LTE, our network technology that is on every single phone we sell. VoLTE handles roughly 50% of calls made on the T-Mobile network. That is 250 million calls per day, or over 40 BILLION T-Mobile calls that RootMetrics just CHOSE to exclude in their latest tests. So the latest (and by latest, I mean up to 7 months old) RootMetrics results are worthless, and raise just one real question for T-Mobile … do we have to pay RootMetrics millions like the other carriers do to get them to stop deliberately turning off significant portions of our network and skewing results during their drive tests? Coincidence? Doubt it. Want more examples of their incomplete methodology? Email me!”
Someone get that man a DAMP cloth!
Perhaps more compelling is to read Sprint’s reaction to the report, where the carrier seems genuinely happy to have received a second-place ranking in call quality.
More importantly and back on point, the RootMetrics report does a good job in furthering my claim that network coverage is a tricky proposition and one should be careful in how one depicts “superior” network coverage when queried.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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