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Sprint Commits to Buying $20 Billion Worth of iPhones, To Get Redesigned iPhone 5 Exclusively?

rjflyn said:
My take is thats about all the customers Sprint actually has. They way they have been bleeding them, me and my family included.. crappy ass phones over the years all all. That said, 30 million iPhones equals about one free phone for each Sprint customer to keep them from leaving.
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Yes, because they would never attract new customers ... :rolleyes:
 
I hope this is not true, it would give AT&T a boost in trying to acquire T-Mobile and that is something that I do not want to see happen anytime soon, they will ruin T-Mobile, just like they did with Cingular.
 
cmwade77 said:
I hope this is not true, it would give AT&T a boost in trying to acquire T-Mobile and that is something that I do not want to see happen anytime soon, they will ruin T-Mobile, just like they did with Cingular.
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How would it boost AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile?
 
arn said:
Note there are 2 rumors here.

1. WSJ: Sprint committing $20 billion to Apple
2. BGR: Sprint as an iPhone 5 exclusive

They are separate sources, and honestly, of separate believability.

arn
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Why didn't you make two separate headlines, or at least not use a comma to separate them? It looks like one headline.

arn said:
But tied together in reasoning. Sprint is supposedly paying this $20 billion to get exclusivity.arn
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So that is in the US... what about the rest of the world?
 
divinox said:
As i read it, 20 bn is "total dedication" including subsidies (amounting to 15bn). Handing out a whopping 35 bn for 30 mn devices would mean that they - through this deal - would need to rake in 1k extra per sold device, which, quite frankly, does not make sense... i mean, lets for fun assume their profit margin is 33%. raking in 1k extra would then mean an additional 3k in revenue. Where would they get that from, while simultaneously selling 30mn devices?

Doesnt add up.

5bn seems more feasible. 500 usd subs. still sound silly though for a Swede.
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In fact this is what Verizon paid in the end. You have to understand Sprint's position though. They have been losing customers for almost 5 years now due to not having the iPhone. Contrary to what you may read around here Sprint is a very good service. They have had all the latest Android phones but with the iPhone being what it is it didn't matter much. I guess you can say that Android has kept them afloat until now. Even with Android SPring hasn't been able to make a profit since 2006 and they are primed for someone to step in and buy them.

This Apple deal hopefully will become a powerful road to recovery for them. Dan Hesse had to do something. If he let things go as they were going Sprint would probably not survive another 2 years. So yes it's a big scary deal but to win in this business you sometimes have to make some very bold moves and you have to have the balls to do it. Obviously Mr Hesse has the balls to go all in.

I for one hope everything works out for them and that they are around for many years to come.
 
I'm only interested in buying a new phone direct from apple. I can't see the point in comitting to a 2 year contract knowing the phone will lose it's sex appeal after a year, when the latest model is out....


Any guesses about what/when the next iPhone release will be in Australia?

my prediction is:

iPhone 4s/Late October

and

iPhone 5/ Mid December

also, if it's WiMAX capable- Would I be able to connect to my 4G wireless internet account? Then there would be no need for a provider connection at all! yippee!! and yippee for unlimited data!!!-
 
TallManNY said:
I'd like to hear someone explain the technological feasibility of doing a WiMax phone. Unless there is some justification, like battery life, then I can't see Apple doing this over an LTE phone.
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Wimax chips are shipping in the volumes required for Sprint. No decent GSM+CDMA+LTE chip is shipping in the volumes required for the rest of the world.

New deep-submicron chip designs have huge lead times. Trying to rush these complex chips usually just makes them ship even later.
 
I'm still trying to make sense of this....I just don't understand why Apple would give exclusively a new redesigned phone to a company that doesn't even carry the iPhone yet.
 
This just really makes me laugh.

Verizon didn't get anything exclusive when they got the iPhone, why should Sprint; or any other carrier.
 
bbucy said:
Might make sense...

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Actually makes some sense. Good digging.

Add this to the mix:

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/09/08/exclusive-tsmc-raises-prices-on-amd-and-nvidia/

If apple really is driving up 28nm prices up, that means they want them and want them now. No 28nm products are on the market yet and it's unclear when we'll start to see them other than Q4 at the earliest or Q1. It may just be possible Apple is placing some rush 28nm orders. However, now would be the right time for Apple to be getting 28nm A6 samples and to start thinking about production there, so it's not obvious what is going on.

We'll need tomorrow and iFixIt's teardown to tell us.

edit: Also, TSMC has begun fulfilling 28nm orders as of Sep 7, so it is possible that these could be parts for the next iPhone, but on such a young process and volume in the millions, I don't know that TSMC has the capacity.
 
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Fascinating rumor! I personally am sticking with Verizon, even if it plays second fiddle and gets a new design later. I love my iPhone as it functions flawlessly as a......wait for it.....PHONE! I travel a lot and Verizon has never let me down in that arena.


Anyways, methinks a lot of this is just BS but we'll see tomorrow.
 
awestruck said:
I'm still trying to make sense of this....I just don't understand why Apple would give exclusively a new redesigned phone to a company that doesn't even carry the iPhone yet.
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Because it would sell a metric ****-ton of them during that period - they have the newest, hottest Apple product, and no one else does.
 
apple101 said:
This just really makes me laugh.

Verizon didn't get anything exclusive when they got the iPhone, why should Sprint; or any other carrier.
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Money talks? Not saying this will happen, but if Apple decided to do it then they COULD. They are in a position where they control the market, the market doesn't control them. Hell Apple could say they are starting their own carrier service (with leased ATT towers) and will offer future iPhone's only on their network and guess what, nobody would be able to do anything about it.

So all these people saying "ARHRGGH I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!!!11!!" take your ****in seat.
 
It would certainly be an entertaining event if this happened...can you imagine the overwhelming boo's and # of people walking out on the event? It would be a pretty awful reception.
 
I hope BGR is completely wrong and this tarnishes their rumor reputation. If Sprint does become exclusive with the new iPhone, than I am going to question my loyalty with Apple for screwing us current AT&T and Verizon customers that are waiting for an upgrade.

All this waiting for Oct. 4th is turning my hair grey. lol
 
r.j.s said:
Because it would sell a metric ****-ton of them during that period - they have the newest, hottest Apple product, and no one else does.
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And? I doubt Apple's looking to help out Sprint here. The way I see it, they'd benefit a whole hell of a lot more if they give it universally to all 3 carriers.
 
divinox said:
As i read it, 20 bn is "total dedication" including subsidies (amounting to 15bn). Handing out a whopping 35 bn for 30 mn devices would mean that they - through this deal - would need to rake in 1k extra per sold device, which, quite frankly, does not make sense... i mean, lets for fun assume their profit margin is 33%. raking in 1k extra would then mean an additional 3k in revenue. Where would they get that from, while simultaneously selling 30mn devices?
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The would get most of that from the continued subscriptions of current customers who didn't get up and leave for another carrier just to get an iPhone. And Sprint knows exactly how many subscribers have been leaving them with each new iPhone introduction, and with each contract expiration. They may have to do almost anything ($20B in debt?) to put a tourniquet on the bleeding.
 
r.j.s said:
Seriously, Sprint is not that bad, and just because you wouldn't switch to sprint doesn't mean no one would - in fact, there are quite a few people in this thread that already said they would go Sprint.
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I get that but Sprint has been bleeding customers for one reason or another and I don't think all of it had to do with the lack of iPhone. Whatever they're doing, or apparently not doing to lose customers probably won't change just because they now offer the iPhone. I just don't see Sprint as that big of a deal in the mobile space.
 
awestruck said:
And? I doubt Apple's looking to help out Sprint here. The way I see it, they'd benefit a whole hell of a lot more if they give it universally to all 3 carriers.
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Not really. If they can sell a ton of iPhone 5s on Sprint, they will still sell a ton of 4Ss on AT&T and Verizon. Then, in a few months, they will sell a ton of 5s on AT&T and Verizon. It's actually quite smart to split them up.
 
Foxdog175 said:
It would certainly be an entertaining event if this happened...can you imagine the overwhelming boo's and # of people walking out on the event? It would be a pretty awful reception.
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Funny because this year it's not a public event but instead a private event in Cupertino with select people from the media/blogsphere attending, makes you wonder what they really have up their sleeves.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

scades said:
Bring back Steve just to announce a speed-bump? iCloud and iOS5 may be cool and all, but aside from us geeks, it's hardware that makes the market.
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The exact opposite of this is true. Software/features are what users care about. Not specs.
 
Interesting news from Sprint:

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), October 03, 2011 - Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) will hold a simultaneous audio conference call and webcast of the company’s 4G Strategy/Network Update which will be held on Friday, Oct. 7 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time and will feature presentations from top Sprint executives on Sprint’s 4G strategy and Network Vision implementation.
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http://newsroom.sprint.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2062

4G strategy only 3 days after the Apple event and the rumors of Sprint's involvement.
 
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