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Sprint CEO: ‘Dust issues’ elevate churn

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told investors yesterday that the carrier’s decision to “rip and replace” its entire network had led to “dust issues” which have elevated churn in some markets. “As we are building out Network Vision … it is something that really hasn’t been attempted on this scale before, it’s a complete rip and replace of the entire network,” Hesse said on a UBS Global Media and Communications Conference Call. “As a result of that of course, there are what we call dust issues in a lot of our markets. So we have seen elevated churn as a result,” he said.

Hesse said that Sprint’s Network Vision has been a rebuild as opposed to an overlay. “It’s a complete 3G rip-out and new 4G network,” he said. “All the 3G equipment coming out, every base station, all the backhaul, every switch, and in almost all cases the vendors changed as well,” he said. The primary vendors for Sprint’s Network Vision LTE build are Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Samsung. More recently Sprint announced its Sprint Spark LTE initiative, with vendors Alcatel-Lucent, NSN and Samsung.

“In essence, what we are going through now with this massive build is some short-term pain for some long-term gain,” said Hesse. “Personally it’s something that’s painful to me because we have worked so hard on the customer experience and customer service.”

Hesse said that the shutdown of Sprint’s iDEN network this summer cost the company less than it could have, but that the impact was still significant. “Even though we were successful in recapturing 40% of those customers, which was about three times higher than we’d expect given our overall market share, we still lost 60% of those business accounts,” said Hesse.

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ABOUT AUTHOR

Martha DeGrasse
Martha DeGrassehttp://www.nbreports.com
Martha DeGrasse is the publisher of Network Builder Reports (nbreports.com). At RCR, Martha authored more than 20 in-depth feature reports and more than 2,400 news articles. She also created the Mobile Minute and the 5 Things to Know Today series. Prior to joining RCR Wireless News, Martha produced business and technology news for CNN and Dow Jones in New York and managed the online editorial group at Hoover’s Online before taking a number of years off to be at home when her children were young. Martha is the board president of Austin's Trinity Center and is a member of the Women's Wireless Leadership Forum.