Sprint Nextel remains committed to its unlimited data plans, despite...
Sprint Nextel remains committed to its unlimited data plans, despite Verizon Wireless’s and AT&T’s claims that they benefitted from the rollout of their plans during Q3, Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse said Thursday during an investor conference call. “There are…
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some temporary advantages that Verizon has due to its network, but we do not see making any changes to our rate plans,” Hesse said. “We're seeing absolutely nothing in any of our channels that indicates that the new rate plans that Verizon has is either helping or hurting -- to their credit, I don’t think it’s hurting them. Because of their LTE footprint advantage right now, they're … blasting right through, what we believe, are complex rate plans.” However, the carrier did announce new tiered-data plans for tablets Wednesday. The plans start at $14.99 for 300 MB and go up to $79.99 for 12GB, Sprint Nextel said. The carrier has long marketed its “Simply Unlimited” data plans, which began to see competition during the quarter from competing unlimited data plans from T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS (WID Aug 22 p2). No. 3 carrier Sprint Nextel lost a net 456,000 subscriptions during Q3, the carrier said Thursday. That loss is in contrast to reported gains by No. 1 carrier Verizon Wireless and No. 2 carrier AT&T -- Verizon Wireless said last week that it added a net 1.5 million new contract subscriptions during the quarter, while AT&T said Wednesday it added a net 151,000 subscriptions during that period. No. 4 carrier T-Mobile has not yet reported its Q3 results. Verizon Wireless attributed its quarterly gains in part to the rollout of its “Share Everything” shared data plans, which debuted June 28 -- just prior to the start of Q3 (WID Oct 19 p8). AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega told investors Wednesday that its own “Mobile Share” shared data plans had boosted the company during the quarter. AT&T signed up 2 million subscribers to its shared data plans during the five weeks after they became available Aug. 23, de la Vega said. About 33 percent of those customers signed up for the highest capacity plans. “We're thrilled with the progress,” he said. Part of Sprint Nextel’s unlimited data strategy centered on it being the only carrier to offer such a plan for the iPhone line. It sold 1.5 million iPhones during the quarter. While the carrier boasted that about 40 percent of the iPhones went to new subscribers -- higher than Verizon Wireless or AT&T -- overall sales were lower. Verizon Wireless reported sales of 3.1 million iPhones during the quarter, while AT&T reported sale of 4.7 million.