Comments on: A GigaOM conversation with Sprint’s Dan Hesse on five harrowing years as CEO

By: shertheteacher

shertheteacher — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 02:07:40 +0000

today, on my short lunch break, I called sprint for help. I was transfered from the first person (agent) to the second. The second repeated the same script. I asked for a supervisor, and was transfered a third time. The third agent repeated what the first and second said. I did not talk to a supervisor, my lunch break was over, and I got NO help with my issue. Been a proud Sprint customer. Got all the Family and some of the friends enlisted into Sprint. Nope, after todays non- assistance, I shall NOT be continuing my contract. On way back to the old carrier

By: Beats

Beats — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 00:16:58 +0000

^^^^ sounds like a legacy Sprint employee who has been drinking the haterade :-)

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 20:40:48 +0000

Legacy Nextel employee? Sorry, but the management of Nextel was made up of some of the slimiest, most self-serving, dishonest people in telecom. They slapped lipstick on their pig of a company and duped Forsee (an idiot) into buying it, riding their golden parachutes on down. Nextel would have gone under in a year if Sprint hadn’t bought it. The only remaining problems at Sprint are the legacy Nextel employees that remain…

By: sprint employee

sprint employee — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 01:03:06 +0000

ive been with sprint 11 years and sprint was never GSM just saying

By: hateinternazi

hateinternazi — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:08:35 +0000

I wouldn’t say buying Clearwire at at much lower value than Clearwire investors anticipated is kissing anyone’s ass.

By: William Diaz ✔

William Diaz ✔ — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 04:16:34 +0000

I can honestly say that Sprint has a road almost too long to travel to rebuild its brand. The only reason Nextel merger failed was that Sprint assimilated Nextel into horrible service, and forced CDMA-like plans on Nextel consumers. Had it been the other way around where Sprint moved CDMA plans to mimic Nextel and their 6 second billing, stellar customer service, and immediately recycled even the smallest shred of Nextel spectrum for use on CDMA, Sprint might have been better than AT&T but still below Verizion. Sprint basically force fed Nextel crap, kicked out the management, and forced customers to pay for the bill all for some spectrum that ironically wasnt even reused until Sprint almost collapsed, that collapse however is still close at hand since even the Nextel spectrum now, while great addition, wont solve many of the problems Sprint has…Which is leveling out their porportion of customers over different frequencies so they can expand 4G into all spectrum frequencies rapidly. Something that well could have been avoided had Sprint really cared years ago.
With regards to better days for Sprint, sure they are seeing better days. Their customer service has come a long way, but still nothing like AT&T or Verizon has, yet it still is above T-Mobile (which at one point I would bet my life on their customer service staff), so thats a plus. Their network still blows big time, even with many of the Network Vision improvements, and no Nextel recycling will help that in the foreseeable future, which is why MOST Sprint customers, even non-Sprint customers are extremely excited about Softbank… Softbank = MONEY! Money = better network, better plans, better service period! While Sprint has no money itself, and needs what they have to pay off Apple and revamp their network desperately, taking a chunk of what they do not have and putting that into Clearwire again, like the Nextel merger is really precarious, but at the end of the day, immediately raises the value of Sprint more than the $2.2Billion invested. Clearwire = dead, but spectrum is forever, and sure 2.5Ghz doesnt travel well or penetrate walls, it definitely clears the load off strained 800/1900 networks, and has nearly unlimited capacity in LTE-Advanced scenarios using that 160Mhz worth of airwaves! That alone will set Sprint up majorly. So I do see Sprint coming out ahead, but not anywhere remotely near where it was when say, it first launched its EVDO network overnight!

By: Andrew J Shepherd

Andrew J Shepherd — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:29:16 +0000

Ahem, American Personal Communications d/b/a Sprint Spectrum in Washington-Baltimore switched from GSM to CDMA nearly 15 years ago. Sprint PCS nationwide was CDMA from the outset.

By: Luscious

Luscious — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 22:09:51 +0000

Here’s a whiz-bang idea for Hesse – if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition, offer what they DON’T have. All the talk about Sprint’s takeover of Clear has been about spectrum. Newsflash: consumers don’t shop for spectrum! Consumers want devices and plans that let them work, communicate and have fun. Why did Sprint eliminate unlimited data plans last year for it’s mobile hotspot devices? And if they are taking over Clear, why don’t they match Clear’s services and offer speed-based pricing on their mobile hotspot data plans?

Consumers welcome choice. Clear has been the only mobile broadband provider to offer unlimited at an affordable price; without the overage charges, ridiculous data caps and senseless throttling every other U.S. carrier has forced upon it’s subscribers. Hesse would be wise to make a stand and offer Sprint’s customers something beyond shared data plans, especially for mobile professionals who need always-on connectivity and refuse to count geebees.

By: Chris McCoy

Chris McCoy — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:02:06 +0000

Dan Hesse is a class act.

By: Maxsilver

Maxsilver — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:38:55 +0000

“Sprint emerged form its dark days”

Erm, Sprint’s still in their dark days.

Their Network Vision is a small light at the end of a tunnel, but they still have 1-2 more years of pain ahead of them.
Sprint data is so bad, it’s unusable in 90% of the nation. Operators like MetroPCS get higher scores on data speeds and data availability

Their Network Vision helps a little, but it only makes them competitive with where Verizon / AT&T / T-Mobile / MetroPCS are today. In two years, their competitors will have moved forward, while Sprint will still be trying to finish deploying 3G / 3G+ data services.

Their LTE launch is already fundamentally flawed (only 5×5 LTE, and none of their devices support any of the upcoming 800/iDen or EBS/Clear LTE.)

Sprint has a long history of network failures, starting from the switch from GSM to CDMA, and (so far), it continues to be making poor network decisions.

Until they get serious about fixing their network, Sprint’s “dark days” will continue to cloud them, now and into the future.