Sprint looks beyond consumer wireless services, will target wireless-enabled consumer electronics
In a move to counteract its steadily declining subscriber base and sinking financial situation, Sprint is seemingly looking to open up its network to more non-traditional mobile devices. Sprint is already host to the Amazon Kindle Whispernet service, which provides wireless delivery of eBooks to the popular eReader and serves to distinguish the Kindle from its competition. The carrier also has an agreement with Ford that will outfit select 2009 truck models with cellular data connectivity. In an attempt to expand beyond the Whispernet and Ford offerings, Sprint is reportedly in talks with companies like Garmin, Eastman Kodak and SanDisk about adding EV-DO and presumably WiMax capability to what are traditionally non-wireless devices. If consumers are not interested in Sprint’s network, it only makes sense that Sprint would try to woo consumer electronics powerhouses into using its wireless network. How many people would jump all over a point and shoot camera or an HD pocket camcorder like the Zi6 that could wirelessly upload photos or videos instantaneously? In this age of instant communication and voyeurism, we would guess a lot! In any event, we like this play by Sprint a lot — big commercial contracts mean big revenue that won’t be jumping ship in droves every time an admin fee changes and the ETF is waived…
I thought this was the whole idea behind Verizon’s “approval center” or whatever it was called. There was something the other day about it only fielding a handful of things so far and none are consumer oriented.
This seems like a good movie by Sprint. Some of the products to come out of it could be great.
I still don’t understand why people hate Sprint.
If your problem is about their customer service: 1) Their customer service has changed dramatically for the better over the past 2 years. 2) Verizon’s and AT&T’s customer service are just as bad, if not worse.
If your concern is about coverage, know that wherever Verizon has coverage, Sprint has coverage.
Where this goes will tell if Sprint can be viable in the future, hope they build on the Ford thing and put it in the whole lineup of cars
Looks like Sprint might be smart enough to swallow their pride and go the way of Texas Instruments where they can get and keep service contracts. Just be the name behind the name. It should be perfectly clear by now that simply being a wireless company doesn’t serve its needs, its shareholders’ needs, or its customers’ needs fully enough to compete. Its enterprise wireless contract revenue is at rock-bottom.
Of course, this still keeps them in a position of being absorbed into some other conglomerate who needs to expand its portfolio, but that’s just business.
That is partially right because Sprint’s wireless products do service almost 40M people not including IDEN, they just need to do a better job getting the message out there. That recent JD Power report is a good start
Thing is … Sprint can’t afford to rely upon the ‘Sprint’ name. They are their own worst enemy at this point, which is why they are intelligent to be the name -behind- the name, like Texas Instruments. If Sprint wants this last hope of theirs to work, they will swallow their pride completely and not take your advise of “getting the message out there”. They will allow those they are contracted with to use their marketing clout to gain positive penetration.
This would be great. Pop a CD in your CD player in your car and it loads up album art and track list. Your GPS would be updated to show new restaurants or run off of Google Maps API. Check email and text messages when the car is in accessory mode. Car recall info pops up to tell you to swing by the dealer before your car blows up.
This gets even better when it applies to things mentioned like cameras that have relied on third party devices like Eye-fi.
Get on this Sprint. Daddy needs new shoes!
Sprint needs to dump the IDEN network, the way AT&T dumped TDMA, and migrate all of their users to the CDMA network. Then spend the money they saved to improve customer service and its image. I don’t hate Sprint, I never loved it that much. I just think they could be a better company. With better phones and also better WIMAX intergration(or dump the concept and move to LTE like everyone else) they would have better customer retention.
Not a Sprint fanboy, I work for AT&T.
Good Move by Sprint. I like it. It would be sick to upload files from a camera so i dont have to worry about looking for a computer to upload them. Or even use Sprints Service in my Car and integrate it with the Cars GPS.
I dont understand why people hate Sprint, Their plans are the best, most people like me dont even need to go into a Store and deal with the Customer service Reps (Even tho theyve dramatically improved) unless my phone breaks, and Coverage is as good as Verizons..If they had a 101 mostly useless phones like At&t people would flock over too. More Customers than T-Mobile or Alltel had anyway.
Definitely a good idea from Sprint….All I can say is just look at their integration in the Amazon Kindle…great idea….and actually works great too!
…their cell providing can use some work though…
If consumers are leaving Sprint in droves, why would a big electronics company choose them?
good attempt by sprint…they still need to be bought out, or even just taken over by the govt then be sold to the highest bidders piece by piece
and iden is going nowhere, except maybe to its own dependency again
Sprint, T Mobile and to a certain extent U.S. Cellular are the ones keeping the big two semi honest, if they go then all hell breaks loose
^The ‘Sky Is Falling’ defense? Seriously, chicken-little?
this is what used to happen, remember john rockefeller? Open a gas station right next to the other gas station put them out of business. Take over.
This is what doesn’t happen anymore and it needs to, the government and everyone try to keep these failing companies in business aside from AIG and a few other all these failing companies need to fold or just sell out to the competitor.
Leap Wireless, US Cellular, MetroPCS would gladly step up if they can knock sprint down/out
Not one of the mentioned companies is ready to quadruple thier customer base and still handle it while managing two networks. There are 3 companies in a position to acquire Sprint, two have conflicting techs and the 3rd will not get approval because it’s too big. Young C, I understand where you come from being either an insider or former insider who doesn’t like the direction of the company but the actual products have few problems. I do agree quite a few balls have been dropped, bridges have been burned and whatever other analogy can be used but you can either quit or pick yourself up and keep going, my vote is for the latter and this will be another way to generate money til consumer customers come back
i thought this was going to happen when sprint began the wimax venture. i figured we would have a whole plethora of devices with wimax chips from laptops, to cameras to ipods and other mp3 players. its nice to see sprint doin this with just their existing evdo service, since it is already up and running nationwide. and who knows what the hell is goin on with sprint wimax or xohm . which i believe theyre dropping and giving it all to clearwire, since sprint did mention it was looking into lte for its 4g. either way i think sprint needs to decide on its route and go from their and not try to do everything. as far as nextel is concernded sprin should spin it off into its own separate entity with boost mobile. nextel was an awesome company before the merger, i worked their. than sprint and their beuracracy came in and screwed everything up. lastly as someone said maybe sprint should change their name and look at itself as a bigger than just a wireless company. its name hurts them. just look at sprints plans they cant be touched by att or verizon or even the regionals like us cell and tmobile
interesting business model sprint. let’s see how this goes.
^I don’t exactly think it’s a business model, per se, but pure survival, at this point.
” boogereater Said:
If consumers are leaving Sprint in droves, why would a big electronics company choose them?”
Because Sprint now has a big bunch of excess capacity not earning income due to customer flight out of Sprint. so they can offer it cheap to companies like Garmin.
Sprint is the only wireless company to lobby to try and get a chunk of the bailout as well with a scheme to create an emergency network out of all its excess capacity. That was rejected.
FYI, all the wireless carriers are in talks with GPS, camera and car companies to provide service for their devices — only Sprint is desperate enough to issue leaks at every discussion
This will improve the bottomline and open us up to new, exciting devices and services