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:
If compliments are the sincerest form of flattery, and if in turn flattery is way to get something you want, then Softbank Chairman Masayoshi Son may need some help in trying to convince regulators to let him have free reign over the United States’ broadband future. That, or Son is the best roaster I have ever seen.
Son took to the stage this week in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., pretty much laughing in the face of what we call “broadband” and that the only way this country’s hilariously bad broadband offerings can be fixed is to let him have an unimpeded crack at it. While the title of his presentation seemed flowery enough: “The promise of mobile Internet in driving American innovation, the economy and education,” it might as well have been a roast of U.S. broadband, with Son playing Don Rickles.
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Son’s presentation was filled with charts and graphs bursting with numbers showing how poorly U.S. broadband, both wired and wireless, compared with other countries, though a few also had Softbank’s operations in Japan mixed in with the countries showing just how much Son thinks of his company or perhaps his plans to break out as a new country.
Some of the best slides showed how poorly the domestic LTE mobile broadband market compared with Softbank’s operations in Japan, combining all U.S. LTE providers with Softbank’s LTE network. The results showed Softbank’s LTE service provided download speeds 3.3-times faster than the weighted U.S. average. Of course, Son maybe forgot to mention that the weighted U.S. average was weighed down by Sprint and its sub-brands Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile that were saved from being last on the carrier list by MetroPCS.
Removing those four laggards boosted the U.S. weighted average to more than nine megabits per second, or just over two-times as slow as Softbank’s 21.3 Mbps showing. While not much better, it does show the work Son has in front of him in regards to turning around Sprint’s operations.
And that leads to another aspect of his presentation: the un-said part. Despite numerous comments leading up to the stage performance, Son did not directly recognize the pink elephant in the room: his desire to acquire T-Mobile US.
Prior to the presentation, Son had taken to numerous media outlets to express his desire to snatch up the nation’s No. 4 operator to add to his purchase of the country’s No. 3 carrier. When Son initially made his play for Sprint, he talked of wanting to turn around that carrier’s sagging fortunes as he did when he purchased Vodafone’s Japanese operations in 2006 for $15.4 billion. Well, it would seem that after looking under the hood – and having Sprint acquire full control of Clearwire – Son has found that in order to turn around Sprint’s operations, he would also like to have T-Mobile US as well.
Not that Son could not turn around Sprint by also acquiring T-Mobile US, as it would seem from recent quarterly results Sprint’s customers are indeed finding T-Mobile US – as well as other carriers – more attractive. Heck, I am sure that if he could also get control of Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility, Son could really do a number on improving the U.S. wireless broadband market.
Obviously Son is a very intelligent man and is well aware of the nuances impacting all of the topics he is talking about. And for the most part, those he is talking to are also aware of what is going on. That leaves my only advice to Son is to leave the roasting to the experts.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–While Sprint is tip-toeing around a bid for T-Mobile US, the carrier is setting its sights on a new rival. Having already spent considerable marketing efforts targeting one-time suitor AT&T, T-Mobile US is reportedly looking to challenge Verizon Wireless, or at least Verizon Wireless’ claims of network superiority.
T-Mobile US said it plans a legal challenge to Verizon Wireless’ marketing efforts showing substantially broader network coverage than what T-Mobile US can offer. And not just a legal challenge: T-Mobile US has also “demanded Verizon cease and desist” running the advertisements.
That’s right: a demand!
“Verizon’s ink blots massively understate our coverage and don’t begin to represent the actual customer experience on T-Mobile’s network,” said John Legere, Twitter savant and in his spare time CEO of T-Mobile US. “So we’re setting the record straight – both by demanding an end to the misinformation, and by going straight to the people with the truth.”
Of course, the T-Mobile US demand does not mention that Verizon Wireless’ “map” advertisement clearly states superior LTE coverage than that of its rivals, which no matter how you slice-and-dice T-Mobile US’ numbers is clearly the case. T-Mobile US claims around 210 million potential customers covered with its LTE service, while Verizon Wireless claims more than 300 million pops covered. Much of that 90 million pop difference is in the breadth of Verizon Wireless’ superior network coverage compared with the urban-focus of T-Mobile US’ deployment, which plays well on a map of the United States.
I am no fan of advertisements, but facts would seem to be facts.
T-Mobile US claims that Verizon Wireless is confusing the issue because T-Mobile US’ HSPA-based network, which it likes to claim is “4G” even though it’s not, adds a bit more coverage to the map. However, with T-Mobile US claiming 220 million pops covered with its 3G HSPA+ network, I am still not seeing the math add up.
What is clear is that T-Mobile US’ network claims took a hit last week when both a drive-test survey and a consumer survey of network quality both ranked T-Mobile US well down from its larger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility. There was no mention by T-Mobile US this week that its latest demands were related to that, but I think most will be able to see a connection.
Regardless of who is right in this situation – and it would seem that in this case that would be Verizon Wireless – just knowing that some new marketing hatred is brewing is good enough for me.
–Finally, not to put any more of a damper on Sprint’s current fortunes, but at least someone thinks Sprint may not be worth much more than this article is printed on.
(Hint: that would be next to nothing.)
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