Was the strong showing at the recent MWC event by Sprint a sign of maturation or more cynically an attempt to attract attention?
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Sprint this week continued to do what it has done to me for years: baffle.
The latest baffling came from the carrier’s significant presence at the Mobile World Congress event where it highlighted work with vendor partners on enhancing its LTE network and laying the groundwork for its move towards “5G” technology. This included work on advanced multiple-input/multiple-output antenna technology designed to take advantage of the carrier’s robust 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings as well as other technical enhancements based on the LTE-Advanced standard.
While the technical aspects of the announcements were impressive, it was Sprint’s mere presence at the event that really set it apart. It’s not that Sprint is not a welcome member of the world’s mobile telecom party or that it hasn’t attended the event in the past. But, more that this latest appearance was something typically seen by MWC stalwarts and not just some sideshow.
You see, while MWC attempts to paint itself as the mobile telecommunication industry’s halo event, it has a history of being more European-centric in terms of carrier attendance and technological leanings. Sprint is neither of those, and unlike many Asia-Pacific operators, has never really had any interest in trying to appear more European.
Years ago when MWC was known as 3GSM, the event was strictly GSM-centric in its technology leanings, which sort of left out Sprint with its CDMA-based 3G network. Even better, once the 3GSM world began dabbling in the LTE space, Sprint was already rushing headlong into the WiMAX standard for its “4G” efforts.
In fact, I still remember attending a Sprint-headlined event at 3GSM 10 years ago that was held offsite and in the evening – also known as lunch time in Spain – where the carrier and some of its vendor partners were touting the next-generation mobile technology. What makes the memory even better is Sprint at that point was not referring to the technology as “4G,” though that wouldn’t last for long.
Traditional GSM-based carriers at that time had indeed taken notice of the aggressive position being taken by the WiMAX industry, with former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin using a keynote address to lambast the GSM community for continuing to dither over standards while the WiMAX space was moving forward in a more unified position on deployment plans.
Sprint is obviously in a much different place today than it was 10 years ago, what with it now fully behind the LTE standard and having ditched its rebellious CDMA, iDEN and WiMAX efforts … for the most part. Thus, this week’s moves at MWC seemed to provide full realization that Sprint did indeed deserve a space at the adult table.
Now, my more cynical side might argue that Sprint’s banner week could be part of a broader plan to bolster the international perception of the carrier’s network operations, which have been battered and bruised over the past several years. This argument would point to recent headlines about Sprint parent company SoftBank redoubling its efforts to find an outside investor for its U.S. operations, with one of those potential suitors (hello Deutsche Telekom!) a regular on the MWC scene.
Sprint has also taken the latest price war over “unlimited” data plans to a dangerous extreme, both in its actual pricing as well as the caveat that the introductory rate will balloon after one year of service. I guess that is not much of a concern if it’s someone else’s headache.
But, back on a positive note: it’s good to see Sprint at least in a position to be making headlines on the world stage, and that in of itself is enough to let the carrier shine for at least a week.
Thanks for checking out this week’s column. Here’s a quick extra to get you through the weekend:
–Speaking of the latest domestic carrier pricing wars, just last week I used this platform to highlight the unlimited battle now raging across the space. That highlight noted efforts by Sprint, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile US in the battle, but was light on accolades for AT&T Mobility, which opened up its unlimited plans to all customers, though at a price point higher than rivals.
Well, AT&T Mobility came out this week with some interesting adjustments to its plans, which I will take full credit for initiating. The adjustments come under the newly termed “Unlimited Choice” brand, which included price cuts for single-line and multiline accounts to bring them more in line with what is being offered by at least Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile US.
The interesting part is that for customers to get the lowered pricing they also will see their data speeds limited to just three megabits per second for all non-video usage, which itself is capped at 1.5 Mbps. The carrier then throws on the now common stipulation that speeds could be further throttled in some instances should a customer use more than 22 gigabytes of cellular data per month.
I know unlimited data offers remain a tricky proposition for operators and recent regulatory rumblings would seem to indicate mobile carriers will be given more leeway in terms of their “fine print,” but it would appear AT&T Mobility might be better off working in a “3G” reference for the latest price plans as those capped speeds are doing a disservice to strides being made towards true 4G networks.
Let the battle rage!
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