@Lucas – How much you WILL save on Sprint over ATT is very much a function of what plan you are on, and what services you use. I am on a Sprint Family Data Share 1500 plan with 4 lines. I also receive a 25% discount. I have 4 premium smartphones on those 4 lines. They are grandfathered, so I don’t pay the extra $10/mo…yet. But, I do make use of things like unlimited text, free Sprint navigation, and Sprint TV. All of those services cost extra on ATT, adding a substantial amount to the monthly cost of the bill. This is not to mention that on ATT I have to buy a separate data plan for each line since they are all those pesky smartphones.

So, to compare fairly between the two plans I would need with each company, including a 20% discount I can get with ATT, I don’t save 10%, I save over 50%. Even if I end up paying that extra $40/mo for those smartphones, I still come out ahead by a large margin.

Now, I will grant you that if you only have 1 line, the difference is less appreciable, but you WILL save, nonetheless.

Russ, I apologize for taking up an argument on your blog. But I thought this needed an answer.

As always, God Bless.

-Paul

2) Sprint should keep thier nose out of this. They can’t play the woah is me card when they have been hemmoraging customers for years since the Nextel merger. Granted, the changes they have made which caused customer churn will ultimately help the company in the long run, they still can’t complain that they are little players in the game….they chose to be that way.

3) AT&T has little to NO interest in 35 mil T-Mo customers. That’s icing on the cake to them. They are mainly interested in the spectrum liscences that TMO has so that AT&T can build out thier LTE network and finally compete with Verizon coverage wise.

On one hand, I see AT&T’s purchase of T-mo as analogous to Sprint’s buyout of Nextel in that there will be a mass exodus of T-Mobile post-paid customers as things at T-mo start to get done the AT&T way. (Hopefully for everyone concerned, my analogy won’t go further than that in reality.) In this case, it could be very good for Sprint in the short term if they are able to successfully market to those former T-mo customers.

On the other hand, though, I see that in the long run the lack of competition could allow the larger companies to set prices and act in monopolistic ways. I wish that I could see the SWA analogy that another commenter made come true. But the difference is that SWA has no debt and has a lot of flexibility in how it operates. Sprint has, in my opinion, acquired a nearly fatal level of debt. Perhaps the continuing improvement in profits combined with an influx of former T-mo customers will help return Sprint to profitability in the short term, but the debt that they have will limit their ability to sustain the fight.

So, that being said, I am glad that Sprint intends to fight the AT&T merger, and I hope they use every reasonable resource to that end. If they lose, however, perhaps they need to go talk to their cousin, Verizon, about a new unholy union to level the playing field in their direction.

The AT&T T-Mobile acquisition will allow Sprint to raise prices while still maintaining a low-price leader position in the market.

Sprint’s plan to transform their network to multi-modal towers will cost billions to complete but should eventually save billions more in operating costs. Having to operate separate networks today is a tremendous cost disadvantage. A question will be, how much will this operating cost reduction be offset by a decrease in purchasing power.

Sprint’s mountain of spectrum availability may end up being the primary driver of a Big Red acquisition of Sprint. I hope Sprint can make it on its own, but only time will tell.

Why shouldn’t I be able to buy a fully compatible Palm/HP Pre, for example, directly from Palm/HP and turn it up on my Sprint plan? (If I’m on one of the GSM carriers I can do that, but the CDMA carriers refuse to let that happen, even if they sell the identical device for use on their network.)

If this AT&T&T Mobile merger happens (I have little doubt it will, look at recent mergers such as Comcast/Universal/NBC…), Sprint will need to fight like a cornered animal with everything it has to prevent being absorbed by Big Red. We who are loyal Sprint customers are often with Sprint because we specifically do not want to be with Verizon, and would not be happy with such a happening.

There is, quite honestly, little enough honest competition in the US cellular market as it is, reducing the number of national players from 4 to 3 is not going to be good for the customers, and will likely foretell a near-future reduction to two. Personally I don’t want to see that happen.

Sprint has openly said they will fight the AT&T&T Mobile merger. I hope they do, I hope they fight hard, and I hope they win.

I also hope Sprint had a “plan” to improve it’s market position both short term and long term. If nothing else I hope Sprint becomes more open with it’s customers. Your customers are not your enemy – we are on the same side – the better Sprint does, the better our service and our future with the company.

All I, and most customers, can do is watch as the leviathans fight it out and decide our fate.

Good luck, Sprint! Fight the good fight!

Tom

It seems the days of being able to select a phone and a plan with the service you want are dying. It’s not the end of the world, people adapt.

Sprint could look at this as an opportunity, and start offering a freedom of choice for people. ie, Let people activate any phone they buy from wherever (sprint, ebay, etc) on a plan that fits their needs (data or no, text or no) would be good.

Even better, sprint could let folks activate non sprint phones (like verizon iPhone) on a sprint plan.

Sprint could do well in this environment by adapting to the changing landscape and create an environment and service that folks would love.