Skype's Helping Verizon Stall Wireless Evolution > It's here.......well, in some places..

It's here.......well, in some places..

Let's look specifically at Sprint - Sprint used to be a CLEC/ILEC and LDS provider (in addition to a small regional wireless provider). Sprint bailed out of the long-distance bsiness (when that became a flat-rate forest; in other words, a dumb pipe), spun off the ILEC/CLEC biz (now Embarq), and is *still* burning through cash at a horrendous rate. (Worse for Sprint, they are still hemmorhaging the customer with the highest pay-through rate for a wireless carrier - the business customer; and they are losing them to both AT&T Mobility and VZW.) Most investors want nothing to do with Sprint's stock (and even fewer want any part of Sprint's debt; it's junk status today); however, Sprint can't afford to raise prices (even though they are already losing their customer base in droves; they have the highest churn rate in national wireless). What have the investors and business customers picked up about Sprint that some of us refuse to see? We've seen two other companies go down this path in this industry - Adelphia and Worldcom.

OK - couple of things to correct in PGHammer's comments: 1) Sprint is not burning through cash at a horrendous rate. Sorry - look at 4Q. Cash is going up. There's things all of us can criticize about Sprint, but cash management is not one of them (under-investment in network? You be the judge - look at the PC World data study). 2) Sprint has a CLEC that serves nearly 5 million cable VoIP customers - which, as a couple of analysts have noted recently - throws off a lot of - you got it - cash. They now have a Class 5 and Class 4 (tandem/ LD network that's packet-based and paid for). 3) Sprint had so much problems with the debt holders that they raised $1.3 billion debt in 3Q 2009 (Aug 13th, I believe) to cover the Clearwire top-up. 4) T-Mobile has a higher churn in post-paid wireless (if that's what you mean by national wireless) at 2.11% - overall was closer to 3%. TMOB was higher on both counts. I am not supporting Sprint - there's plenty to be critical about - but please, speak from the facts rather than emotional nostalgic views.

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