Posted on 02/29/2008 6:44:37 PM PST by FoxInSocks
Sprint Nextel yesterday reported a $29.45 billion fourth-quarter loss and said legions of subscribers continue to abandon its service, many because they can't pay their bills.
The nation's third-largest wireless carrier last year courted people with poor credit to boost its number of subscribers. Now the company is feeling the pain disproportionately as the economy weakens and consumers default on their debts.
Sprint said it expects 1.2 million wireless subscribers to drop their service in the current quarter, roughly the same number that left in all of 2007. The company offset losses by signing up new customers, but it has steadily lost ground to its two main rivals, Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
<snip>
Sprint yesterday announced its latest effort to recruit more customers, a $99.99 unlimited voice and data plan. Sprint has been searching for ways to differentiate itself from its competitors, much as AT&T got a leg up by making an exclusive deal to carry the Apple iPhone.
Sprint has struggled since it purchased Reston-based Nextel in 2005. The two cultures did not blend well and customers complained about the quality of Sprint's service.
<snip>
He said the company loosened its credit requirements last summer to attract customers with poor or little credit histories. Sprint ended the year with 53.8 million total subscribers, 700,000 more than it had in 2006. It made up for the loss of core monthly contract subscribers by adding less-lucrative prepaid and wholesale accounts.
"We have a lot of subprime customers in our customer base and we were disproportionately hit hard versus other carriers," Hesse said.
<snip>
Analysts referred to Hesse's strategy as a "kitchen sink" approach: presenting the bleakest picture possible in hope of showing progress in the coming months.
<snip>
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
LOL! I have Sprint and a PPC 6700. I love the service and the phone. It's not the service that sucks for me, it's the customer service.
But there is nothing better than to sit in an airport where they want you to pay $10 or $20 for the "day" for WiFi when all I have to do is setup my bluetooth on the laptop, turn it on in the 6700 and use my phone as a wireless modem.
The $100 unlimited calling/data is a fantastic deal. Data alone on the other networks appears to be pretty expensive.
Oh, as of last month you can now make changes to your plan without resetting your contract.
This is great news.
My experience with Sprint: they deluged me with junk mail the whole time i was a customer. Somewhere in all that mail was a change in the terms of service on the calling card they’d issued me. They tripled the rate.
I subsequently found myself in the midst of an emergency and used the calling card— only to be presented with an enormous bill for one month’s service.
Their response: I was a ‘legacy’ customer and had forfeited my right to notification — they could set their rates with impunity.
I paid the bill, and wrote to the CEO telling him to procreate with a barnyard animal. And I predicted the company would fail, I was only wrong about the time frame
Sprint who? They still around?
So it's just not deadbeats that's causing Sprint's downward spiral. It's partially due to folks like me who find it a thousand per cent more economical to write and email than to automatically and lazily (that was me) reach for the phone to contact someone.
Leni
I had Nextel for 4 years, and recently wanted to upgrade my phones (family plan) so I called Sprint to see if I could transfer service from Nextel without a penalty on one of the phones that was under the 2 year contract period. Without hesitating, the service rep assured me I could, and for a similar rate I had on Nextel. I, said I would call back after doing some research on which phone I wanted.
I did that the next day and ended up talking with 7 different people trying to cancel out of Nextel and entering Sprint’s domain. I finally asked for a supervisor who handled the process very efficiently.
So far, the quality of service is similar to that of Nextel in my area, and I’m satisfied.
I had another experience working with Sprint Long Lines when I worked on a private network for a major retail chain. Working with AT&T was certainly more structured and defined compared with Sprint, but Sprint’s flexibility made the job a lot easier.
You mean I can now change my contract and not get it extended at Sprint? good news!
Another thing that irritates me with Sprint is that my son has TMobile and he can take that chip out and exchange phones daily if he wants. He buys phones or exchanges them with other people or family members and just puts his SIMS card in.
With Sprint you can’t do that.
Essentially, they got themselves a customer base that uses the service more extensively than most, and pays for it less frequently than most. Generally what they were doing was looking for customers to replace those who’d taken cheaper options. Early on, there were a lot of folks who used their cell only occasionally, yet still paid for a monthly plan. Those folks were gravy, because they represented pretty much pure revenue without a need to expand the system. The various ‘pay as you go’ services have captured a considerable amount of that market.
Tracfone spotted what was going on, and has moved aggressively into serving the low usage customer. I, for example, am currently paying about eight bucks a month for cell service. Makes no sense for somebody who’s on their cell all day, but works just fine for the occasional user.
Nextel also has another issue with the need to either move their frequencies or pay the costs for public safety agencies to move their frequencies to avoid some significant cross-talk problems that they’ve had. That’s a huge expense that isn’t going to be limited to one year.
Less suck than a few years ago when it took up to 24 hrs to be notified of voice mail messages. Now they've improved it to delivery within 12 hrs.
ATT has the real web on the iphone so I dont even need to open up the laptop and it too has $99 unlimited.
I do not miss Sprint but for competitions sake I hope they stick around and get back on their feet.
Not according to the one guy in my office that still has them. His VM messages can take up to three days to get to him.
And he gets horrible signal.
And he has to carry around a company phone (ATT) in addition to his personal phone because reaching him on his cell is a matter of random chance.
Sprint needs to die.
I had Sprint in 2005 and I kept it till I moved to another part of the state, which was not served by Sprint and I was hit with roaming charges. When I finally got my new cell service and called to cancel Sprint, they asked why I was canceling and I told them about the roaming charges. The phone lady said, “Did you know that we offer free roaming?” That was news to me after I racked up $300 in roaming fees.
I had a similar problem with sprint over the same “Legacy” issue, I simply refused to pay the bill, disputed it legally and there was nothing they could do about it. (Under the fair debt collections act.) (They tripled my rates with out notification.)
This is partly one of the largest issues they are faced with and why they have lost over half of their customers. I now have Verizon and have never looked back since. They have the greatest coverage I have ever seen and their rates are honest and reasonable.
I have been trying to buy a replacement holster for my Nextel blackberry since Sprint bought them.
No luck.
So, I am turning it back into corporate, and ordering a new one (Verizon).
Used CC for the first time in a year last week. Lined up at only functioning checkout counter to make my purchase. Someone in front of me had a question so of course the checker left her counter and wandered off for 7-8 minutes to help the squeaky wheel, leaving 3 of us in line who were READY TO BUY, apparently a difficult concept for CC staff and management to grasp.
Much grumbling amongst those who were waiting and I had already noted that the muzak was just as annoying as in BB etc. Stopped there cuz close to work ... guess what - it ain’t that close.
Thanks for your post, at least now I know why their service is so poor.
Taken a look at the mortgage and banking industry lately?
Considering they just wrote off $30 billion in good will from the merger I'd say so.
And Sprint service continues to suck.
If you want to be honest about it they all suck.
No that was billion with a B. They wrote off all the good will remaining from the Nextel merger in the 4th quarter, hence the large one time loss.
Sure, with a keen eye. It would be hard not to see the similarities. I believe all those companies should know better also. Unfortunately for most of America, the government has been sticking its nose into those arenas.
At least they haven't started "saving" the cell phone industry -- yet.
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