The battle has only just begun for America's third and fourth largest mobile carrier. Following Sprint's announcement to stop pursuing its acquisition of T-Mobile due to regulatory issues, the two companies have not stopped throwing punches at each other.
The latest comes from T-Mobile's famously outspoken CEO John Legere, who promised in a blog post titled "Do's and Don'ts for Un-carrier Wannabes" panning Sprint's newly-minted aggressive pricing campaign that customers can watch out for more "offers and Un-carrier moves" next week.
"At T-Mobile, our Data Strong 4G LTE network is the nation's fastest. And we have 70% more network spectrum per customer than even Verizon. So, we can give American's (sic) even more speed and data and what they really want-without restrictive contracts, overages, bill shock and all the other strings," Legere says.
"And stay tuned for more news soon about our next offers and Un-carrier moves. We will have more to share next week," he adds.
Exactly what these offers might be we have no idea, although speculations abound that Legere just might be planning to unveil Un-carrier 7.0. Just a few days ago, T-Mobile announced a refer-a-friend loyalty program where existing customers will receive an entire year's worth of unlimited data for convincing a friend or family member to switch over to T-Mobile.
This is the Un-carrier's response to Sprint's disruptive new personal plan offering unlimited data, talk and text for $60, which effectively undercuts T-Mobile's own $80 unlimited data plan by $20. Following the swift demise of the confusing Framily plans, Sprint also announced a more attractive deal with a shared family plan that offers up to 20GB of data for 10 lines for only $100.
Analysts, however, are on the fence about Sprint's new competitive pricing strategy, saying that while it can place pressure on T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon will most likely remain unaffected. Analysts Mike McCormack, Scott Goldman and Tudor Mustata of Jefferies also pointed out that many of Sprint's customers have only recently switched to T-Mobile, effectively "limiting the pool to lower quality prepaid customers that could be incentivized to pay up."
"We see the new $60 unlimited plan as competitive to T-Mobile's $80 single line offer, but question the magnitude of competitive pressure it will create given network quality issues and the inability to be bundled within a family plan," they said.
Sprint is not exactly known for a superb network. In fact, a recent survey by network testing firm RootMetrics shows Sprint has the weakest data performance among all four of America's mobile carriers. With the first part of new Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure's three-pronged strategy to bring Sprint back in the game, namely competitive pricing, the company has to find a way to upgrade its network and convince customers it is more than just slashed prices for poor service.
