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Sprint Readies iPhone Response
25 May, 2008
Sprint is about to launch its latest response to the iPhone craze, the Samsung Instinct. The new Instinct is scheduled to be available on June 20th. Sprint hopes the Instinct may help stop the bleeding of subscribers who are leaving Sprint in droves. Prime beneficiaries of the Sprint exodus have been AT&T and Verizon. The iPhone may be just the excuse that hundreds of thousands of Sprint subscribers need to leave Sprint and go to AT&T. Sprint hopes the Instinct may cause some of those subscribers to pause and evaluate this iPhone “like” option. The Instinct is very iPhone like, offering many of the same features, including:
- touchscreen
- visual voicemail
- up to 8GB of memory
- music and other multimedia options
- web browsing
Unlike the iPhone, the Instinct offers a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Sprint may have some challenges with the Instinct because its scheduled release is right in the middle of the rumored release of the 3G iPhone, rumored to be announced on or around June 9th. The iPhone’s biggest drawback has been the lack of true 3G type wireless broadband speed, which handicapped the many web enabled applications of the iPhone. With that problem solved, the iPhone may be even a more formidable adversary than it has been in the past, which wouldn’t be good news for its competitor’s or the wireless providers who do not have access to it.
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About Telecompetitor
Telecompetitor is a leading industry blog covering the telecom competitive landscape. We provide insight, analysis, and commentary on the issues and implications of the evolving telecom competitive landscape.
a publication of
- Study: Consumers Prefer Telco Bundles Over Cable
- $25/Month for 4G WiMAX from Xohm
- AT&T Reorganizes
- Clearwire: WiMAX is a Game Changer for Cable
- USDA Announces $342 Million in Rural Broadband, Telecommunications Loans
- J.D. Power: TelcoTV Beats Cable
- DigitalBridge Launches VoIP Over WiMAX
- Over 25% of Wireless Subscribers Indicate They No Longer Need Wireline
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Featured Article
Time to Prepare for DOCSIS 3.0 is Now
07 Aug, 2008
Second quarter results for broadband growth were a tad underwhelming. There are any number of factors which probably contributed to this slowdown, with the economic slowdown and housing crisis certainly towards the top of the list. But growth is also slowing because broadband penetration has grown considerably over the past few years, now ranging somewhere between 50% to 60% (depending on who you ask), and is beginning to slow down. There certainly is more room for growth, but at some point in the near future, broadband penetration will slow even more as it approaches saturation. It’s anyone’s guess what saturation is, but I would bet somewhere around 75% penetration of households (as a national average - individual markets will vary widely). From a service provider’s point of view, that suggests that posting continuing net adds of broadband customers will increasingly involve convincing a competitor's broadband customer base to switch service.