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Re: eastunder post# 4492

Saturday, 08/23/2014 7:25:31 AM

Saturday, August 23, 2014 7:25:31 AM

Post# of 12943
Sprint, With Marcelo Claure at Helm, Aims for Comeback With Price Cuts
By BRIAN X. CHEN AUGUST 21, 2014 2:53 PMAugust 21, 2014 3:27 pm

(Remember when I said a little kiss on the Blarney mixed with this guys energy should get them up from this level? I think he's good for it. :))

Sprint has recently announced price cuts to its plans that appear to be part of an effort to undercut its rivals.

Sprint’s new chief executive, Marcelo Claure, just started work last week and the company got straight to cutting prices.

Sprint on Thursday announced a reduction for its plan that includes unlimited minutes, text messages and data, bringing the price to $60 a month, down from roughly $80.

Earlier this week, Sprint had said it was cutting prices on its family plan. For a limited time, it will allow customers who sign up for a family plan to share a pool of 20 gigabytes for a flat rate of $100 a month through the end of 2015; up to 10 phone lines can be added to the account. For comparison, in the past, Sprint’s fee for 10 lines sharing 10 gigabytes cost $250 a month.

The price reductions are clearly designed to undercut rivals, namely T-Mobile. Sprint’s new unlimited plan costs $20 less than T-Mobile’s comparable plan. For $100 a month, Sprint’s family plan offering 20 gigabytes offers more data than T-Mobile’s $100 family plan, which offers a pool of 10 gigabytes of data.

Most families, however, are unlikely to use close to 20 gigabytes a month. (A gigabyte is a thousand megabytes; a megabyte is about the size of a photo taken with a decent digital camera, or roughly one minute of a song, or a decent stack of email.) Last year, consumers consumed an average of 1.2 gigabytes a month, according to Chetan Sharma, an independent telecom analyst. So even a family of 10 would guzzle far less than 20 gigs.

The company also said it would pay people up to $350 to cover their termination fee for leaving a competing network to join Sprint, in response to T-Mobile’s offer introduced earlier this year to waive termination fees.

Still, after giving up on the idea of merging with T-Mobile, cutting prices and flaunting more gigabytes appear to be on the first page in Sprint’s playbook. The carrier is trying to make a comeback after bleeding many subscribers to its rivals AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, who all have better network quality. It is still in the process of upgrading its network to the latest wireless technology, 4G LTE, to be on par with the competition.

Jan Dawson, an independent telecom analyst for Jackdaw Research, said that price cutting could work out in the short term for retaining customers, but he was skeptical about it succeeding in the long term.

“It’s something of a band-aid to help Sprint get through the next few months while they complete their network upgrade,” he said. “I don’t think it’s sustainable for any of the major US carriers to compete on price alone.”

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/sprint-with-marcelo-claure-at-helm-aims-for-comeback-with-price-cuts/?_php=true&_type=blogs&emc=edit_th_20140822&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=68106134&_r=0

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.à tout prix

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