Sprint subscribers in many areas of Kansas and Oklahoma will no longer
receive service on the Sprint network, according to a recent report in
the Kansas City Business Journal. Rather, Sprint will route those calls
over other companies' infrastructure, a service known as roaming.

Instead of investing in its own network - and creating jobs - Sprint has
chosen to ride off other companies' networks.

And while customers are roaming, some Sprint services won't be
available, including Sprint Mobile to Mobile and Any Mobile and Anytime
plan features. Customers using those services will be billed roaming
charges.

Sprint data coverage

Why is Sprint doing this? With the rise in smartphones and I-Phone
costs, Sprint is looking for ways to save money. "Due to rising network
costs, we are making adjustments to the coverage we provide to some
areas of Oklahoma and Kansas," a Sprint spokeswoman told the
Kansas City Business Journal.

Sprint voice coverage

But what may help boost Sprint's profits, hurts consumers and
communities. Rural consumers with few competitive choices pay higher
roaming charges, and get potentially spotty voice service and slower
data speeds. At the same time, communities see no new network deployment
and no related job creation. The irony is that Sprint -- with its
majority ownership in Clearwire - sits on more spectrum than any other
wireless carrier, yet, at least in Kansas and Oklahoma (and who knows
where else they plan similar moves), Sprint is not putting the resource
to productive use.

Once again, Sprint shows its true colors: profits before service, and no
job creation at home.

In light of the Supreme Court Citizens United decision, which allows businesses to spend unlimited amounts on political activities, corporate disclosure of political contributions has become more important than ever. In May 2011, a majority of Sprint shareholders voted to require Sprint management to disclose its political campaign contributions. To date, Sprint management has failed to act on this mandate.

Sprint is a major political spender.  Sprint Nextel has spent millions in corporate funds on political activities, according to publicly available data.  The exact figure is difficult to determine because reporting at the state and local level is incomplete, payments to trade associations or other tax-exempt organizations that fund political activities are not included, and companies are not required to disclose other types of spending such as their indirect political expenditures via third party groups. . [Center for Political Accountability; Institute for Money in State Politics; CQ Moneyline.com]

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In the wake of Sprint’s Network Vision roll-out debacle, the heat is really on CEO Dan Hesse as he prepares for the company’s Third Quarter Earnings release.

It’s bad enough that the analysts in the audience actually laughed when one sardonically observed, “I’d be lying if I said I followed a lot of what was going on in those slides.”  Hesse’s problems only got worse as analyst after analyst peppered him with questions he either could not or was unwilling to answer, culminating with applause from the audience to a questioner’s outburst that one of his answers “seem ridiculous.”

After the roll-out, things got even worse.  Scathing reviews from analysts, bloggers and the financial press, forced Sprint’s Chairman James Hance to attempt some damage control.  Hance admitted that the company made a “mistake” by not being fully prepared to answer analysts’ questions about the iPhone and the company’s liquidity position.  “We will talk about the impact when we talk about the third-quarter earnings,” said Hance during an interview with Bloomberg.

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Several analysts and media outlets have preview stories out in advance of Sprint’s third quarter earnings call on Wednesday.  It is safe to say that Sprint has succeeded in at least one thing: lowering expectations.

Associated Press: Sprint faces questions about its network and iPhone strategy

“Sprint Nextel Corp., the third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., faces questions about its network and iPhone strategy as it reports its third-quarter results before the stock market opens Wednesday.”

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The continued fallout from Sprint’s Network Vision announcement has created a severe credibility gap for the company, according to leading industry analysts.

“They have a real credibility problem right now,” said Scott Dinsdale, a high-yield bond analyst at Montpelier, Vermont-based KDP Investment Advisors. “We were really positive on management beforehand because they’ve done a really good job of navigating the company through a lot of pitfalls. Now I feel like they’ve got an incomplete plan.”

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