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:
T-Mobile US seemed surprisingly upbeat this week following the Federal Communications Commission’s move to limit the amount of spectrum to be included in the 600 MHz auction outside the hands of dominate, sub-1 GHz spectrum holders.
For those who forgot, T-Mobile US initially put forth that 30 megahertz of spectrum be set aside for operators controlling less than one-third of the available spectrum below 1 GHz in a move to bolster their coverage capabilities compared with more dominant players – i.e. Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility. That initiative seemed to easily gain momentum amongst the regulatory types, which of course meant that T-Mobile US wanted more.
Thus, the carrier moved to bump the reserve to 40 megahertz, claiming basically that only 30 megahertz would result in the end of the world and that if regulators really cared about panda bears, unicorns and cute babies it would go set aside more spectrum.
Well, regulators apparently don’t care much for panda bears, unicorns or cute babies, and this week stuck with the 30 megahertz set aside. Now, considering the ruckus T-Mobile US raised in arguing for the 40 megahertz, you would think only getting 30 megahertz would have resulted in CEO John Legere lighting Twitter on fire.
Let’s see what Legere had to say:
Wait … what?
Those comments seemed way too measured and reasonable coming from this guy:
This sort of action can mean only one of two things: either Legere has finally run out of sarcastic anger or maybe … just maybe … he was playing us all for the fool.
Now, I am going to dismiss the first option because I don’t think I want to live in a world where Legere is not sarcastically angry at everything. Just. Not. Worth. It.
So, that leaves option No. 2, which … now that I think about it … is the obvious answer and one we should have seen all along (wink, wink).
Of course T-Mobile US never thought it was going to get the FCC to set aside half of the 600 MHz spectrum available for the likes of T-Mobile US, maybe Sprint and maybe Dish Network. That’s just crazy talk.
(Crazy Like a Fox!)
I guess now we can see that T-Mobile US was so outside itself that its initial crazy request to have 30 megahertz of extremely valuable spectrum set aside outside the deep pockets of Verizon Communications and AT&T was actually accepted that it figured it had some time to kill so why not ask for 40 megahertz.
Of course regulators would never agree to that much being set aside, as at the end of the day the FCC’s main mission is to generate money for the federal government … I mean to “promote competition, innovation and investment in broadband services and facilities … etc., etc., etc.”
Thus, by asking for the sun and the moon, T-Mobile US basically guaranteed that it would get the sun, which is what it was after all along. Well played Legere … well played.
So, when the 600 MHz spectrum auction finally commences on March 29, the most complicated auction process in the history of complicated auction processes will have yet another intriguing angle to keep us auction nerds happy. (Did I mention “well played Legere … well played?”)
So again, congrats to Legere and the T-Mobile US team for getting everything you wanted and more. You snookered us all into getting everything you wanted, damn the consequences.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. Here is a quick, but satisfying extra:
– Well, it’s officially official. Sprint and T-Mobile US at some point in April, May or June, swapped positions in terms of their places in the domestic mobile space based on total network connections.
Sure, being No. 3 or No. 4 is really just a matter of bragging rights – especially when the higher of the two is still about half the size of No. 2 – but when your CEO can’t seem to get enough of himself on social media, bragging rights go a long way.
So what now for the market’s new No. 4 player?
At the same point a few years back, Sprint was seen as a close No. 3 to its larger rivals and looked to have momentum on its side. A significant network update was underway that was to include deploying the latest equipment to support LTE services using a vast array of spectrum assets. Yet somehow everything that could go wrong did seem to go wrong and Sprint fumbled away all of that momentum.
And now … well there is nowhere else to go but up, right? Sprint’s troubles over the past couple of years have always brought about claims from management and analysts that the carrier had “now” bottomed out, and that the next quarter was set to show a turnaround. Of course, that real turnaround has yet to happen from an operational standpoint, resulting in Sprint’s current mess.
It’s time for Sprint to really go crazy in the market. The carrier needs to take crazy to a new level that will make T-Mobile US’ recent – and successful – level of crazy seem … well … not so crazy.
I will admit that T-Mobile US has done a pretty good job of targeting a number of pain points consumers had in terms of the mobile space, or at least brought up pain points consumers didn’t realize they had with the mobile space. Sprint needs to take this to a new level, beginning with the one remaining pain point consumers still get bent out of shape over: unlimited data.
Sprint is already sort of pushing this angle with individual plans, offering up a compelling option of unlimited services at $80 per month. The company is somewhat fumbling this initiative by having a washed-up soccer player as the face of the marketing efforts, but that’s easy to correct.
What Sprint needs to do is expand unlimited data to all of its service offerings, including family plans. I know there is concern over the cost of supporting unlimited data, but isn’t that what LTE was supposed to fix? Plus, Sprint has access to all the spectrum in the world thanks to its highly regarded 2.5 GHz holdings, so congestion concerns should be a moot point.
Sprint needs to make unlimited data its rallying cry. It needs to have all employees refer to the carrier as “Sprint, the only unlimited data option” whenever they speak of the company. Sort of like how Verizon Wireless for years seemed to have brainwashed its employees to always mention network coverage when answering any question, Sprint needs to have its employees speak of unlimited data as if they were a NASCAR driver rattling off all of their sponsors before answering any question.
There may be other options for Sprint to bolster its perception in the mobile space, but unlimited data needs to be the underlying foundation. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Sprint gets too many people on its network using data services? Should that really be a concern at this point?
Come on Sprint. You only have one way to go … and that’s up.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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