This Telecom's Fourth-Quarter Reckoning is Coming

• Report this Comment On February 07, 2012, at 10:40 PM, Raymondpoppy wrote:

  The fact remains that Sprint is the only U.S. carrier to offer new and existing customers the iPhone experience with unlimited data plans starting at $79.99 per month. An investment writer recently summed it up best: “Sprint now offers the best value proposition for a new smartphone user. I got my first smartphone on Sprint this fall because a new AT&T or Verizon data plan, without being grandfathered in with an earlier, lower price, is outrageous. My plan includes 450 afternoon mobile-to-landline minutes, unlimited other minutes, and unlimited texting and data for $79.99. Unlimited AT&T or Verizon plans would have approached $150, and to get a comparably-priced package, I'd have to settle on limited data or texting plans, which I'd have to constantly try to not blow through. Why get a smartphone if you can't have fun using it?”

  Sprint and Clearwire are headed toward LTE with or without Lightsquared. From a recent news release: "Clearwire and Sprint will work collaboratively to support the ecosystem for TDD-LTE in Band Class 41 for devices, chipsets and standards. Subject to the timing of the build-out and other factors, Sprint expects to launch devices including laptop cards and phones that will utilize Clearwire's TDD-LTE network in 2013."

• Report this Comment On February 07, 2012, at 10:40 PM, Raymondpoppy wrote:

  Maybe consumers will begin to finally notice that AT&T and Verizon = The Most Expensive Wireless Plans in America. We know where Verizon and AT&T (both in the top 5 for corporate lobbying) get all that money to run commercials 24x7, pay out huge “fat cat” executive bonuses and hire armies of lawyers and lobbyists to try to push the U.S. market into a wireless industry duopoly -- the American consumer. This is how AT&T and Verizon fashion themselves as brilliant … with their political use of money.

  According to the report “Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10,” two of the 25 companies with the largest total tax subsidies were AT&T at #2 ($14.5 billion) and Verizon at #3 ($12.3 billion). Also, there were 30 corporations that paid less than nothing in aggregate federal income taxes over the same period. These 30 companies, whose pretax U.S. profits totaled $160 billion over the three years, included Verizon. The report states the laws that allow this were not enacted in a vacuum, but rather were adopted in response to relentless corporate lobbying, threats and campaign support.

• Report this Comment On February 07, 2012, at 10:41 PM, Raymondpoppy wrote:

  AT&T remains the worst carrier in the United States, according to an annual customer satisfaction survey compiled by Consumer Reports. The mobile provider ranked dead last for the third year in a row.

• Report this Comment On February 07, 2012, at 11:40 PM, 1caflash wrote:

  Dan, Thanks for the article. I have no AAPL stock or Options; just some ideas. Imagine You are Mr. Cook. You want Apple's Business to GROW. You realize someday, it might not do so as analysts predict, and the stock might go done some. You wonder how to prepare for that possibility and You Have NO DEBT and about 100 Billion Dollars Cash. Should You: A--Offer a Dividend; B--Split the Shares; C--Both A & B; D--Neither A nor B; E--Keep Making GREAT PRODUCTS CONSUMERS LIKE; F--BUY SMALL COMPANIES; G--Forget this; The old guy posting these comments is NUTS!!! Remember, we are pretending that You and I are Timothy D. Cook. How Crazy Are WE, KNOWING that Apple, Google, Amazon, Mattel, Hasbro, Dreamworks, Intel, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Merck, Eli Manning (Pardon Me) Lilly, and other Great Companies and Performers WELCOME IMAGINATION, INNOVATION and TEAMWORK? YOU KNOW the Choices I Picked. Please RESPOND with YOUR IDEAS. Respectfully submitted by a 62 yrs. young fellow. LMT is in my DRIP.

• Report this Comment On February 08, 2012, at 1:07 AM, tommydallas wrote:

  You are wrong about Sprint using Lightsquared for their 4G Network. Sprint is actually rolling out it's own LTE network with its own spectrum beginning this quarter in several major markets and will be completed at the end of 2013 with all towers upgraded to LTE. This is part of the "Network Vision" project and is a main reason the stock is down, because of concern over the cost of this project and the iPhone costs. But as you have noted, Sprint must keep up with 4G and the competition, so moving forward without a plan for LTE would be worse than spending and making it happen.

  The good thing about Network Vision is that not only will it allow Sprint to provide LTE, but it also includes several other upgrades including Advanced Tower redesign for enhanced coverage, 1XRTT Advanced, and Push to Talk on CDMA as good as what Nextel had on iDEN.

• Report this Comment On February 08, 2012, at 7:12 AM, Ares07 wrote:

  Sprint beats analyst estimates shares up 4.5%: Q4 adj-loss of 35c/share, vs. cons. 37c loss, sales $8.72B, vs. cons $8.69B:

  http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120208005706/en

Add your comment.