2/25/2009 www.mountainviewcellphones.com
In many ways, the carrier has an internal tow truck service for customers. When the customers don’t have the right plan for, exceed their plans, and/or share their phones with ignorant family users, it’s very much like getting your car towed or ticketed.
2/22/2009 www.mountainviewcellphones.com
There are many people who fear “contracts.” It’s silly. The carrier gives you money and you as the consumer don’t take it. Sorry…on this consumers are just dumb.
Here are the reasons why this argument about not signing a contract doesn’t hold up.
1. You can get out of the contract anytime if you pay $200. Namely, give back the money the carrier gave you upfront for the hardware discount.
2. You get the money again in 2 years (in some instances every year).
3. You can sell your phone. Yes, this hardware has a market value.
4. If you just want a 1 year contract, go buy the equipment “used” or “new” on the open market and then just activate it with any carrier you want.
But consumers want everything, convenience, cheap phones, cheap plans, full 100% service, and no contract commitments. This give away is financially impossible for any carrier.
If your a commitment “phobic”, you just have to ask yourself one question. Will you be using a cell phone 2 years from now? If the answer is “yes,” sign the contract with the carrier of choice.
Every carrier provides 30 days to return the phone and not have any contract obligation. Sure there is some trouble involved by the consumer to get this done (making a 20 minute phone call to the cancellation department), but it shouldn’t even be a consideration as you get the money for the contract upfront and the carrier doesn’t make the money back for 6 months. This is 6 months of value transfer from the carrier to the consumer.
With the major carriers, you are paying for customer service, coverage, phone innovation, phone services, solution determination, AND some flexibility. Sure you can sign up with MetroPCS, but when you need help, do they have a service and repair center nearby to help like Sprint?
As the phone hardware you purchase can be resold this provides another reason to sign the contract. Namely, if you buy a smartphone, you are generally getting a lot more money off the phone than the $200 termination fee. So if you resold it within 1.0 years, you can recover the $200 if you keep the phone in good condition. Most other phones, you can get at least $100-$200 for mid line phones. So, you can get your money back for most phones. If you get the free phone, you won’t recover the value back in the secondary market.
In summary,
1. The $200+ you get up front, you can make it up (some or all) on the back end thru equipment sales.
2. You get the money again in 2 years for another 2 year contract to get new equipment.
3. If you’re going to use a cell phone anyway, why not get a better phone to use and pay less.
4. You are just giving the money back the carrier gave you upfront. So, in reality, you are ahead for the period of time you took the money before you give it back.
2/22/2009 by www.mountainviewcellphones.com
Another disappointing quarter on subscriber loses. The good thing was, it was not as bad as expected.
The company has announced ways to save cash and the free cash flow of the corporation should allow it to meet any future obligations. So, it’s not going broke. It has also written down everything from the Nextel acquisition, so it has a clean accounting operating slate for improved ROE in the future.
The stock was improved as the market correctly perceives the company doing the right things to shore up it’s financial condition in an environment where debt capital is harder to come by at a reasonable price.
The launch of the first dual mode 4G data card is a great plus. Now, we need a network to roll out to use it and to take advantage of this newer technology. Sprint has an MVNO agreement to resell Clearwire under the Sprint name when the time comes. Clearwire is working very hard on the roll-out. Many people at Intel, Google, and others are awaiting impatiently.
Sprint still needs to bring it’s churn down to sub 1.9%. This will boost earnings and growth tremendously. It’s doing better than last year, but not good enough. The customer service stats and processes and systems need to improve much more. Hesse can point to this one metric for a clear win but there is still room for improvement.
The biggest product introductions of the PRE and WiMax this year will be also telling of growing the subscriber base my millions. If successful in these two endeavors, Sprint will be taking share from ATT, T-mobile, and Verizon…something it hasn’t done in years. These are the iconic launches, Sprint still needs to execute and keep it’s product line fresh and defined.
Sprint has purposely kept a smaller product line up than the competitors to drive profitability and more value price points for consumers in segments it targets. Sprint definitely needs to get faster product releases of Blackberry devices.
Now that Verizon and Alltel are together, Blackberry devices may actually release first on CDMA as it’s now a larger market…and this will help Sprint overall.
2/16/2009 www.mountainviewcellphones.com
For the professional who uses their wireless technology for their lives. This is the power user plan of choice.
Everything on your phone (unlimited minutes, data, email, GPS, texting, TV, radio, etc…) and 5GB usage on wireless broadband for $149.99/month. This is a $10/month discount on the broadband wireless card ($49.99/month vs. $59.99/month regular price). This package versus comparable packages with ATT & Verizon saves over $480/year.
This is the best deal in town, hands down.
If you think 5GB limit on wireless broadband is bad, you can read the fine print with Verizon and ATT and quickly figure out that Sprint is about 5.0x-9.0x less expensive for overages.
Here are data overages after 5GB for major data carriers.
Sprint = $0.05/MB
Verizon = $0.25/MB
ATT = $0.49/MB
For mobile broadband value. Sprint is #1.
2/16/2009 www.mountainviewcellphones.com
Palm released some great updates today on the anticipated Palm PRE. Some cool video of what it can do. The two core elements are the further development of Mojo SDK (software development kit) for WebOS and the showing of the UMTS version in Europe.
Apple changed the game…and Palm will give them a race for the money. This is seriously an epic business story of Apple vs. Apple. The teacher now faced with his former apprentice for mastery of the mobile smartphone market. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s coming. I’m not sure on the implementation date but from what I recall it’s going to be 6 months no pro-ration and then $10 per month till it reaches a $50 minimum.
I don’t know all the details but it’s coming and it will be rolled out in 2009.
This will only improve Sprint’s value to customers. As a premier carrier that doesn’t renew contracts when you change plans, it’s going to be another advantage for customers to pick Sprint.
This is going to be a very solid device and an incremental improvement on the 800w. The launch is delayed till March.
Here are some notable upgrades versus the 800w.
1. Styling: more compact and better BIGGER keys. The new keys are definitely more impressive.
2. 3.5mm headphone jacks..so you have a better quality listening experience.
3. A battery of 1500mAh is more impressive, yet I was hoping for the previous 1800 mAh. These devices just need more battery life. It’s an improvement over the 1150mAh 800W version.
4. A great sleek touch screen. I think this is a major change of making a digitizer and LCD rather than a touch screen alone. This allows for the sleek impression of the phone profile.
5. Faster 400 mhz processor in PRO versus the 333 mhz processor in the 800w.
6. Same camera: 2MP vs. 2MP.
7. Larger memory capacity of 32GB in MicroSD vs 8GB in 800W.
8. Convenience keys similar: a good WiFi convenience key on the outside like the 800W.
9. Built in GPS.
10. Sprint One Click? Not sure if WinMo will support this on Palm or not, but according to Sprint One Click standards, it should be on all Sprint phones, so this will improve navigation for common functions over standard Windows.
Overall, a good step up in many attributes. The black shell is a good step up, also.
2/13/2009 by www.mountainviewcellphones.com
The LG LX-160, “Free Phone,” is exactly what you get. Although you do save money upfront, you really don’t get a phone that serves the purpose of lasting a long time. This phone was not well built and we deal with the problems constantly.
Key failure points:
1. The charging port. It’s poorly designed and starts to give out if you put any type of pressure on it. This leads to a downward spiral of charging port abuse as customers try to push, jam, wiggle the charging port to charge, causing more damage. At some point, the whole assembly is ripped from the motherboard and the phone is worthless.
2. Keypad sticks or fails. We’ve seen this a few times where the phone will not recognize a certain key. It could be due to a failure on the keypad dome or by excessive pressure on the keys once a slow response starts. Again, the cycle of abuse to make the electronics work.
3. Searching for service. The antenna/chipset is busted, kaput, DOA, etc…
So, if you have an LX-160, be gentle with it. It’s not a rugged phone and if you use it infrequently, then it will work ok. However, if you are a constant phone user and you wanted to save a few bucks up front on your purchase, you won’t be satisfied with the durability of this unit. Buy another unit with better design and parts. The mid-range Samsung M-520 or Sanyo Eclipse would better fit your use. Buyers need to take some personal responsibility for their purchases and tell the sales person at the store how they use their phone and what they need.
Remember, the cheapest O-rings blow up space shuttles. In the cell phone world, you often do get what you paid. There are differences in prices for a reason.
2/9/2009 by www.mountainviewcellphones.com
From Wireless Week…
CEO: Palm Focused on Pre Launch
By Monica Alleven
WirelessWeek - February 12, 2009
Palm CEO Ed Colligan appears to be more concerned about getting the Pre successfully out the door than he is about any potential patent fight that might come with Apple.
Speaking at a Thomas Weisel Partners conference yesterday, the CEO acknowledged speculation in the media but said no legal action has been taken with regards to Apple. The whole area of patents is a complex one and Palm over the years has built a patent portfolio that is one of the highest rated. “If something does happen there, we do have the portfolio to defend ourselves,” he said.
The former Handspring executive also affirmed that there will be no more Palm OS-based products going forward, focusing instead on the new Web OS featured in the Pre. In addition, the company is about to launch a new Windows Mobile product.
Colligan emphasized the strong relationship the company has built with Sprint, which will be the exclusive U.S. carrier to offer the Pre. There are more Palm users on Sprint’s network than any other.
Colligan didn’t say how long the exclusivity period will last, but he said the hope is that with a successful launch with Sprint, other carriers will take notice. He said the place where exclusivity doesn’t apply is in the rest of the world. “We’ve gotten a lot of carrier interest in the product,” and will continue to work with carriers in North America, Latin America and Europe.
The timeframe for bringing additional carriers on board is 2010, and at some point, he expects a broader product line and additional partners in North America.
He also confirmed the company will offer an over-the-air apps store and said Palm has a huge community of developers. “We are just relentlessly focused” on getting the Pre out the door.
Summary Take Aways:
1. Sprint will be exclusive carrier in USA till 2010.
2. Resurgence of Palm will seem to help Sprint get a real iconic phone to define it’s services
3. Palm has large patent portofolio to go after Apple if it wants to fight
4. PRE is the laser focus of Palm…which is great to get the product out by summer selling season
Sprint is downsizing or is it really? There is a large decision looming as to move several thousand employees in network operations to Ericsson as an outsource provider of services. Certainly, 8000 jobs from Sprint is a lot of people, but if several thousand are moving from Sprint to Ericsson, then the real number may be much lower of actually eliminated positions. Or, is it both several thousand going to Ericsson and 8,000 position cuts. Any comments?
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