AllThingsD » 3G

A View to a Cell: San Francisco Mobile Towers Get Prime Real Estate (Video)

Ina Fried — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:00:03 +0000

Glance at the marquee at the 2000 Van Ness Medical Arts Building, and you’ll see a long list of doctors, dentists and other medical professionals.

But it’s the tenants that aren’t listed — the ones with the stellar rooftop view — that have drawn a crowd of reporters on this sunny Tuesday afternoon.

This building, like 2,000 other spots in the Bay Area, is home to the bulky electrical equipment needed to send and receive cellphone signals.

For the privilege of housing their gear, phone companies pay thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per month. In some cases, landlords make more from the towers on their roofs than they do from the tenants inside their building.

Because it’s so hard to get approval to build new towers, the same locations are often home to more than one carrier’s cell towers, and it has become commonplace to see towers from fierce rivals located right next to each other. And once one cell company makes its way in someplace, the others tend to follow.

This particular rooftop, for example, houses gear for Sprint, MetroPCS and AT&T.

But it is a neighborhood in transition.

[ See post to watch video ]

An area of peeled-away paint shows the spot that used to be home to gear from Sprint’s soon-to-be-shuttered Nextel network.

The newest arrival is a refrigererator-sized cabinet that houses Sprint’s 4G LTE gear as well as the systems needed to support older networks. Immediately adjacent is a slightly smaller box containing a backup system with enough battery capacity to power the network gear for four to eight hours.

The new gear, like other similar systems in San Francisco, have begun to bring LTE service to Sprint’s Bay Area customers, though it has yet to formally announce this area as one of its expanding network of markets with the high-speed wireless service.

Next to the new system is the one it is replacing. That unit, which handled fewer frequencies and managed fewer services, nonetheless occupied more than twice as much space. Though still up and running, that system will soon be dismantled, removed and recycled.

In addition to the cabinets, the roof is outfitted with a number of different antennas — several for each of the carriers, providing the maximum amount of coverage. The antennas also explain why it is no coincidence that the building has a sweeping panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay. In addition to being a breathtaking sight for the occasional repairman, the view means that the tower is also seen by a good part of the city — ensuring that the tower reaches a wide coverage area.

“Cell towers have the best view,” said Chris Brydon, Sprint’s area director for Northern California.

Of course, few people will ever see that view, given that it is home to vital and expensive computer gear. Plus, its radiation levels are high enough that the door leading to the roof is plastered with nearly a dozen warning signs.

The fact that this roof is already home to network gear means that the approval process to install LTE equipment is far simpler than trying to find a new location. As a result, many rooftops like this one are getting a makeover.

It’s a scene that has been playing out across America, as all the major carriers replace or augment their 3G systems with those capable of providing high-speed LTE service.

To help install all these new systems, Sprint calls upon a variety of other companies. Ericsson manages the installations and network operations, overseeing gear supplied by a trio of companies — Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson’s hardware unit.

The race to build out LTE has created a shortage of a particular specialty of workers — those who climb poles for a living. (In addition to pole-climbing skills, such workers also have to be engineers with a specialty in radio frequency technology — a qualification that significantly thins the applicant pool.)

“It’s one of the most sought-after skills in the industry,” said Joe Meyer, the 21-year Sprint veteran who serves as vice president of network service management.

Meet Zact, a Shareable Cellphone Service That Changes on the Fly

Ina Fried — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:47 +0000

The major carriers have taken baby steps in giving users more control over their data plan. With AT&T and Verizon, for example, users can share a pool of gigabytes across multiple devices.

But imagine a world where you can buy a few hours worth of streaming audio or add unlimited email but only a modest amount of data for other purposes.

That’s just the kind of world being created by a Marc Andreessen-backed startup called ItsOn. The company’s main business plan is selling systems to carriers that would let them offer these kinds of services.

However, to get that business off the ground, ItsOn felt like it needed to create its own service. So on Monday the company is announcing Zact, a consumer cellphone service designed to be cheaper and far more flexible than others on the market.

“We need to do a service and become our own customers to show what’s possible,” ItsOn CEO Greg Raleigh said in an interview.

Whether you want to give your kid more texts, boost your data plan or drop your ex from the account, all these kinds of options can be changed from the phone and on the fly. Want to buy just an hour of video or a month’s worth of email? You can do that, as well.

And if the plan you pick is more than you need, Zact will refund the difference between that plan and the least expensive one that would have matched your usage.

“There’s a way to give people exactly what they want and make a profit,” Raleigh said. Although Zact customers have to pay full price for their phone, they can still save thousands over a two-year contract, Raleigh said.

Another feature is controls that let parents choose not only how much voice, data and texts to give their kids, but also when they can use their device and which apps can run at which times.

Preorders for the service will start on Monday, with devices shipping to consumers by June. Though ItsOn created the service that enabled the flexibility, the underlying network for Zact is Sprint, with ItsOn buying capacity on a wholesale basis.

One big downside initially is Zact’s very limited device portfolio — and that’s putting it mildly. Zact initially only works with two Android phones, the $199 LG Optimus Elite and the $399 LG Viper 4G LTE.

Over time, Zact plans to add phone models as well as tablets and other devices.

But the goal is also to show carriers what’s possible using its service, so that eventually ItsOn can be used by the major operators. And the message is resonating, Raleigh said.

“You see it in their eyes,” he said. “They say, ‘We can be popular.’”

Connecting Things to the Internet Does Not an Internet of Things Make

Liat Ben-Zur — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:48:50 +0000

Image copyright Red_Spruce

The Internet of Things has continued to emerge as a trend this year within the consumer electronics sector. Everyone’s trying to get into the game, with connected devices now ranging from dog collars to toasters to sneakers, all getting connected to “the cloud.”

This is an exciting trend for consumer electronics in general, but we as an industry need to take a step back and realize that true connectivity extends beyond just the cloud.

Just because something is connected to the Internet, doesn’t mean it’s truly part of an Internet of Things (or as we like to call it at Qualcomm, the “Internet of Everything”). What’s unique about the Internet is its openness — the ability for one website to link to any other and leverage information in novel ways. Remember when the word “mashup” was all the rage in Web talk? Why was that? Because you just could. You could have one website leverage data and APIs from another website and mash that up to deliver a completely new, cool Web service, a la LivePlasma.com, Pageflakes.com, HousingMaps.com, etc.

So what’s the problem? Aren’t all these hot new connected IoT devices connected up to the cloud? Well, that’s the problem. We are oversimplifying the landscape. Each specific device seems to connect to its particular cloud service. There isn’t really one cloud. Every manufacturer has their own cloud service, and often these clouds are closed, proprietary environments. Devices that live in their own siloed cloud cannot speak to one another, meaning they cannot benefit from the data, context or control of nearby IoT devices. That is why we currently need a separate app to control — and interface with — each connected thing we buy. This may be acceptable in the near term, but it cannot scale.

And therein lies the rub. The Internet of Everything should be the realization of devices becoming smarter from sharing context and information from one another. It should bring continuous computing to fruition, whereby information that matters to you can follow you regardless of the physical devices available. The Internet of Everything should enable a step function in UI design as nearby devices, appliances, sensors and intelligent software replace the need for human input. Smart application developers have already started using this type of real world physical input to automatically fill in information so that end users don’t have to (think GPS). Now imagine when the intelligence and sensing can start to come from beyond the phone itself — when information from your appliances, car or your garage door opener can provide this “contextual intelligence.”

To be fair, the Internet of Everything is not just about collecting data from other devices. It’s also about sharing control across devices. Today, most people think this simply means controlling a refrigerator or lights from a smartphone app. But that is just the beginning. Imagine if simple, low-cost devices like toasters can dynamically discover nearby devices that have advanced UIs (such as smartphones, TVs, computers and tablets). Suddenly, cheap appliances can offer beautiful, sophisticated interfaces. There is also a trend toward the ability to shift control from one device to another as you move through your day. Why can’t my SMS messages follow me around different screens in my home, even when my mobile phone is quietly tucked away in my purse?

And while we’re at it, let’s discuss the importance of connectivity itself in an Internet of Everything world. There is no denying that everything is getting connected. Whether it’s via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, ZWave, Ethernet, Powerline or 3G, it’s happening. But regardless of the underlying connectivity technology, ideally all of these devices should be able to discover, connect and talk to one another. The idea of each device connecting only to its own cloud service is worrisome. What happens if that particular cloud service goes down? What happens if external access to the Internet goes down? Does that mean that these smart devices lose all of their “smarts”? What about privacy? What if I want some devices to keep the data they collect locally on my personal network and not share it externally on the Internet? For example, do I really want my door locks or garage door opener to track every time I come in and out of my home and then send that up to “the cloud?”

These are the complexities often overlooked in many of the initial IoT devices today. But these complexities must and will be addressed, as the Internet of Everything scales and evolves.

Indeed, this vision requires openness and flexibility. It requires the ability to work across heterogeneous networks and heterogeneous devices. It requires the ability for devices to function and add value even when there is no Internet connectivity. The good news is that this future is not far away. And I can’t wait. Because frankly, with every year that goes by, I can use smarter things around me to make up for the intelligence I seem to be losing.

Liat Ben-Zur is a senior director of product management at Qualcomm. She can be found on Twitter at @liatbenzur.

Apple Wins Invalidation of Samsung 3G Patent in Germany

John Paczkowski — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:30:18 +0000

Another Teutonic victory for Apple in the company’s interminable intellectual property battle with Samsung.

Germany’s Federal Patent Court — the fantastically named Bundespatentgericht — this week ruled in Apple’s favor in yet another of the pair’s patent disputes. This one involved a mobile technology that Samsung considers essential to the 3G wireless standard, something described as “turbo encoding/decoding device and method for processing frame data according to QoS.” The South Korean company had been seeking injunctions against Apple over this patent. But the Bundespatentgericht declined to grant them, instead invalidating the patent in its entirety.

The Bundespatentgericht didn’t explain the rationale behind the invalidation. But its reasons are likely similar to those of the U.K.’s High Court of Justice, which tossed the same patent last month, arguing that it lacks the priority Samsung claims, and has been rendered invalid by intervening prior art.

Samsung has the option to appeal the Bundespatentgericht’s decision, though it’s not yet clear if it will go that route. A company spokesman says Samsung plans to thoroughly review the decision before taking any further steps. “We will continue to take the measures necessary to protect our intellectual property rights,” he said.

T-Mobile's Long iPhone Drought Nearly at an End

Ina Fried and John Paczkowski — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:27:14 +0000

After years of waiting, T-Mobile USA is poised to finally begin selling the iPhone.

Parent company Deutsche Telekom said in December that T-Mobile USA would start selling Apple products this year, but didn’t go into any details.

CNET reported on Monday that iPhone details will be part of T-Mobile’s big event on Tuesday.

We’re hearing T-Mobile is expected to soon have a full lineup of iPhone devices, though no announcement of a T-Mobile equipped iPad is expected on Tuesday. Even the iPhones may not be immediately available.

An Apple representative declined to comment; a T-Mobile representative said the company does not comment on “rumors or speculation.”

Scoring Apple products may seem like table stakes these days, but it is a big deal for T-Mobile, which hopes to better compete with its larger rivals thanks to an improved network, lower monthly rates and a better lineup of devices.

For the last few years, T-Mobile has had several strikes against it when competing against other major U.S. carriers.

First, the company is smaller than Sprint, Verizon and AT&T. Second, each of those rivals have now launched a high-speed LTE network.

And, then of course, there was the iPhone.

T-Mobile watched as first Verizon and then Sprint got the device while it remained on the sidelines. Without the high-demand iPhone and an LTE network, T-Mobile has been bleeding contract customers for the past several years.

But the carrier has been working hard to plug those holes. It is expected to announce an agressive LTE schedule on Tuesday. At the same time, T-Mobile has also been working to make its network more iPhone-friendly by making it compatible with the same section of 3G spectrum used by AT&T.

Miss Lee, Run Me Off Another Copy of That "Disappointed in the Ruling" Form

John Paczkowski — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:05:50 +0000

Here’s yet another patent ruling for Samsung to be “disappointed” with.

A U.K. court on Thursday sided with Apple in a patent infringement suit brought against it by Samsung, dropping the hammer on the South Korean company’s effort to bust the iPhone maker for infringement.

At issue in this case were a trio of standards-essential patents (SEPs) covering the transmission of data over 3G networks. Samsung had asserted them against Apple in the U.K. — and elsewhere — in the hope of squeezing it for royalties on the company’s 3G-capable devices. But Judge Christopher Floyd rebuffed Samsung’s claims, ruling all three patents-in-suit invalid.

Floyd’s ruling further undermines Samsung’s already dubiously shaky campaign to assert its standards-essential IP against Apple in the pair’s endlessly metastasizing legal battle. To date, Apple has prevailed against about two dozen of the SEPs with which Samsung has attacked it.

Samsung, as I noted above, was dismayed by Floyd’s decision and rolled out what has become an old chestnut of a statement for times like this: “We are disappointed by the court’s decision. Upon a thorough review of the judgment, we will decide whether to file an appeal.”

Sprint Dips Its Toe Into Shared Data Pools

Ina Fried — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:00:42 +0000

While Verizon and AT&T have shifted their pitch to focus on sharing data plans across multiple devices, Sprint has remained focused on pitching unlimited data plans tied to a single device.

That remains the company’s main pitch, especially for the consumer market. However, the company is testing an offer for small businesses that lets them share a pool of data across up to 30 devices.

Sprint, which announced the plans on Friday, is pitching its shared data plans as a time-limited option through June 13, available only to businesses through certain of Sprint’s channels.

Under the new plans, businesses can share 20 gigabytes of data across up to 10 phones, 40GB on up to 20 devices, or 60GB on up to 30 devices. Customers pay a set fee for the data and the first device, with an additional per-device fee for each phone, hotspot or tablet that is added to the plan.

That’s similar to the way that AT&T and Verizon handle pooled data plans. Both carriers introduced their shared data options last year, and have made them standard fare for new consumers, though AT&T still offers other options.

The move may be a competitive necessity, but erodes the sharp line that Sprint has taken in criticizing shared data plans. The company made the challenges of such plans, albeit in the context of families, a staple of its recent advertising:

AT&T Attacks T-Mobile in New Ad, Says Rival the One Dropping More Calls

Ina Fried — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:32:36 +0000

After enduring years of attacks from T-Mobile, AT&T this week unleashed a rebuttal ad taking shots at its smaller rival.

In ads that ran in major papers this starting on Thursday, AT&T claims T-Mobile drops twice as many calls and has 50 percent slower download speeds. The ads, AT&T says, are a response to T-Mobile’s years of attack ads rather than any one particular spot.

“T-Mobile’s advertising is a combination of being misguided and just plain wrong,” AT&T said in a statement. “This is just a friendly reminder of the fact that independent third-party testing says AT&T’s network delivers faster speeds and fewer dropped calls than them.”

T-Mobile says that AT&T’s move shows it has found a sore spot.

“Looks like we struck a chord,” CMO Mike Sievert said in a statement. “AT&T doth protest too much. Glad they’re spending their money to print our name.”

And, of course, it wasn’t so long ago that AT&T was trying to buy the company whose network it is now is attacking.

For $19, an Unlimited Phone Plan, Some Flaws

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 02:05:28 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

A typical smartphone costs around $200, but it’s usually shackled to a two-year contract that often costs $70 or more monthly and includes limits on data consumption, voice minutes and texts. Even prepaid smartphones, without a contract, can cost $30 to $50 a month and carry limits.

But I’ve been testing an Android smartphone from an upstart carrier that charges just $19 a month for unlimited data, voice and texts — with no contract. That’s right: $19 a month, unlimited.

Motorola’s Defy XT is the only phone that works with Republic’s network.

This carrier is called Republic Wireless, a private firm in Raleigh, N.C., which launched its service in December. The sole phone that works with the company’s technology is a Motorola model, the Defy XT. The phone costs $249 — partly to help offset the low monthly price.

However, as of Tuesday, the company is offering a second pricing option for people who would rather pay less up front: $99 for the phone and then $29 a month, unlimited. That’s still a bargain service price. The phone and two service plans are only available online, at republicwireless.com. The company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. And to sweeten the deal, Republic says Motorola will be offering customers a $50 credit at the Google Play online store, where Android owners can buy apps and content.

So what’s the catch? Well, Republic is using an unusual technology approach that’s smart and may even represent the future. But today, it doesn’t deliver the best voice quality and it requires a specially equipped phone. The sole phone that works with the system now is mediocre.

Republic is mostly able to offer such low monthly prices because it’s a Wi-Fi-centric carrier. That means whenever you make a voice call while the phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network, your Republic phone places it over Wi-Fi rather than using a costlier cellular phone network. The same is true of texts.

You aren’t limited to Wi-Fi calling and texting — the phone can make calls, send texts and connect to the Internet over Sprint’s cellular network, at no extra charge. But Republic believes so many people connect their phones to Wi-Fi so often that most calls and other activity will be conducted over Wi-Fi, saving the company money on payments it makes to Sprint. And it says it has developed a system that properly places 911 calls over Wi-Fi, which has often been a problem.

Wi-Fi phone calls aren’t new, or unique to Republic. You can easily install an app on your iPhone or Android phone that will place calls over the Internet via Wi-Fi, just like Republic. But these apps generally require you to use a separate dialer and have a separate phone number.

Republic’s phone is what it calls a “hybrid” device — the main dialer and text-messaging modules have been configured to work on either Wi-Fi or the cellular network, without the need to launch an app. The phone defaults to Wi-Fi but will place the call over Sprint if it decides the Wi-Fi connection isn’t good enough, or if you manually choose cellular.

In my tests, conducted in and around Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, call quality was adequate, text service worked normally, and Web browsing and apps mostly worked okay, at my home, office and public Wi-Fi hot spots in airports and coffee shops. But there were definite downsides.

First is the phone itself. The Defy XT is a chunky device with a lower-resolution screen than any current iPhone or leading Android model. It comes with only about 2.5 gigabytes of usable storage, compared with a more typical 16GB on other phones, though you can expand the storage by buying a larger memory card. It has a relatively small 3.7-inch display. And when it isn’t on Wi-Fi, it can only use an older-type, slow, 3G network. Plus, it runs a clunky, old version of Android called Gingerbread that was released two years ago.

Republic says it plans to roll out several better phones running current versions of Android and much faster networks, including the best — 4G LTE — starting in late summer.

Second, there’s no seamless handoff between Wi-Fi calls and cellular calls. If you leave a Wi-Fi coverage area, the call drops, and, after a brief but annoying delay, the phone will redial the call over Sprint. Republic says it plans to roll out a feature this summer that will cut the handoff to seconds and make it nearly seamless.

Third is call quality. Wi-Fi calls have come a long way and in my tests, most were adequate, meaning the other person on the call and I could understand each other. But many of my calls had some slight echo effect or occasional clipped words, despite a recent software update intended to fix the problem. There was a noticeable improvement when I made the call on the same phone over Sprint.

The phone even displays a button during calls, called informally “the escape hatch,” which allows you to kill the Wi-Fi call and force the phone to redial the other person over Sprint for no added charge. But in general, I found the Wi-Fi calling acceptable, if not pristine, as long as I wasn’t walking too far away from the Wi-Fi hot spot.

Finally, there’s almost no company-provided customer service. Republic relies on online forums of avid customers — its “community” — to provide help to users with problems. You can get help from an employee through these forums, but that’s not typical.

If you can live with these limitations, Republic Wireless can save you a lot of money.

Email Walt Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com.

Apple Updates iOS 6.1 to Fix iPhone 4S Performance Bug

John Paczkowski — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 20:21:57 +0000

Following outcry over a bug in iOS 6.1 that some carriers claimed compromised the 3G performance of the iPhone 4S, Apple has issued an update to its mobile operating system. On Monday afternoon, it released iOS 6.1.1, which is intended specifically to address an “issue that could impact cellular performance and reliability for iPhone 4S.”

Predicting the Indian Market for 2013: How Will Apple, Google, Facebook, Samsung and Amazon Fare?

Vinodh Bhat — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:37:35 +0000

Taj Mahal image via stockshoppe

Given the enormous growth and development of India’s consumer Internet and mobile market in 2012, we can expect some highly groundbreaking developments in 2013. Despite the multitude of domestic family-run companies from Tata to Bharti, I predict six of the world’s largest multi-national consumer tech companies will drive the future of the Indian Internet landscape.

Quick recap: In 2012, we saw Android take off like a rocket. India became Facebook’s second-largest market behind the U.S. And while 3G was slow to gain traction, price cuts and new marketing initiatives are giving it new life. These changes have led to major consumer brand marketers to finally start embracing digital and mobile media to grow their businesses.

With major industry influencers like Apple, Google, Facebook, Samsung, Amazon and Microsoft leading the way, it’s likely that India will continue its march forward toward becoming the world’s largest open “mobile-first” society.

Many times, it’s the day-to-day activities that cause the greatest inconvenience in India: long commutes and traffic, long lines to purchase a transportation ticket, lack of trust in the postal system, the dearth of organized retailers, overwhelming choice in local markets, the inability to conveniently access and listen to music on demand — the list goes on. In most cases, consumers didn’t recognize these as problems until entrepreneurial companies came around to solve them. People tolerated inferior experiences because they didn’t know what was possible. Companies like Flipkart, Myntra, Zomato, Olacabs, JustDial, MakeMyTrip and my own company, Saavn, among many others, are real consumer technology companies focused on solving real consumer problems.

2013 will mark the year Indian consumers wake up, finally become attuned to what is possible and start to voice their demands for services that make their day-to-day lives easier and more efficient. And the services that will succeed are those that — in the words of Steve Jobs — “just work.”

Here are the trends I’m seeing that put India on the road to consumer enlightenment in 2013. Note that my predictions for these developments in the coming year focus on the consumer environment and do not predict any government legislation, election results, macro economic changes, scandals or irrational outrages.

Winner: Android. There’s almost no question that Android’s market share in India will double in 2013. There are now more than 125 Android devices across 17 global and Indian smartphone manufacturers, and these will continue to bring more and more Indians into the smartphone world.

2012 saw the $100 price-point barrier broken; 2013 will see the $50 price point and a whole new set of consumers trashing their feature phones in favor of Android devices. Android was 30 percent of smartphone sales this year, and by the end of 2013 it will touch 60 percent. According to Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights, only nine percent of urban Indians have smartphones. That number will easily rise beyond 12 percent in 2013.

Great apps positively change people’s lives, and more than 50 million people in India will have access to them in 2013.
Winner: Facebook. India will become the largest consumer market for Facebook. As Facebook has continued to expand, the company has actively worked to get Indians on the Web, many of them for the first time. For many of these people, that first experience will be on mobile, and more specifically, it will be on Facebook. The current 65 million registered user base will double in 2013, putting India on the road to eventually becoming the number one market globally for Facebook. Given the number of holidays and festivals in India (and associated social events), it’s easy to see how Facebook and India are a near-perfect fit. And when it comes to providing an enjoyable experience for Indian users, Facebook is consistently on point.
Facebook’s acquisition of Snaptu in March 2011 translates to a better experience for feature phone users. This is important in a country in which a significant chunk of mobile users still use feature phones.

Indians who do use smartphones can now take advantage of Facebook’s new Messenger service, which launched earlier this month for select international markets, India included. Since it competes with messenger rivals WhatsApp, Kik and GupShup, the move is likely to attract more users in India, as well as solidify loyalty with existing ones. One or more of these rival companies will likely be acquired.
Winner: 3G Data Consumption. 2012 saw India as the cheapest place to make a voice phone call, but the most expensive country in the world to transfer data. Carriers finally launched 3G in 2011, and through iteration and learning in 2012, they have realized that consumer utility and helping people do what they want to do in their day-to-day lives is the killer app of data. No one wants to be called a “dumb pipe,” and the carriers’ investments in next-generation networks will facilitate a rich ecosystem of free and paid consumer apps that improve people’s lives. Music, sports, navigation, social networking and messaging are examples of great reasons for consumers to opt for a data plan, and the carriers’ marketing campaigns will start to reflect that. While 3G settles in and prices continue to drop, the promise of pan-India 4G is still a year away.
Early Loser, Potential Future Winner: Amazon. Domestic start-ups will take the e-commerce crown in 2013. Due to such a fragmented retail market, the unrelenting road traffic in urban areas and increasing middle class wealth, consumer e-commerce will continue its rapid ascent. According to TCS, the overall consumer retail sector stands at $500 billion domestically in India; $27 billion of that is modern retail. Apparel ($40 billion) and Consumer Durables and Tech ($35 billion) will be the fastest growing sectors online. Global brands such as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Ecko, London Fog and LVHM will expand in the offline world.
Amazon set the global standard for technology, experience and service in e-commerce. Now many firms in India, like Flipkart and Myntra, have built the infrastructure to deliver a similar experience and are primed to go public as e-commerce sales in 2013 will set a new record. Amazon will make a big move to India, but let’s see if it is organic or through M&A.
Loser: Third Parties That Push in the Carrier Ecosystem. Over the years, mobile value-added services (VAS) have been marred by “transactionalists” who only care about taking money from the consumer through “instant gratification” and fraud, rather than by providing a compelling value in their offerings. In 2013, consumers will no longer be cheated into signing up for services they don’t want. All players in the consumer VAS world will focus on rolling out products that give the consumer a compelling value, and there will be a real shift toward operating in a “pull” instead of a “push” market. The same implosion happened in Western markets just a few years ago.
Global Bailout: Nokia or RIM. Both Nokia and Blackberry have been out-innovated and out-maneuvered, mostly by the onslaught of Android-based devices. However, their widespread distribution continues to keep them in the game. Amazon and Microsoft now seem to be convinced by the end-to-end success of software/hardware integration, and an acquisition of at least one of these older players seems very likely in 2013. As a result of these moves, several tier-3 OEMS will be acquired or will go out of business beyond 2013.
Early DNP (Did Not Play), Potential Future Winner: Apple. Most Apple products like the MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad are available in India. However, the most recent iPhone launches have a six-month lag before they hit the India market and burgeoning demand leads people to request that relatives bring them in from Western countries. Furthermore, the average income of Indians is $1,000 (or the cost of an unlocked iPhone), and while there is still a market of around 50 million people who could afford iPhones and iPads, the devices are unaffordable for the majority of Indians.
Apple is a company with an acute awareness of market opportunities, however, and if it recognizes gold in the Indian market, you can bet it’ll figure out how to retrieve it. The fact is, Apple hasn’t made India a priority yet, and thus gets a DNP.

But it can become a winner. We predict that in 2013, Apple will release older device models in international markets like India, or even begin manufacturing iPhones with the plastic from old MacBooks. Devices like these could run for as low as $100.
Winner: Samsung Becomes India’s Apple. In Apple’s absence, Samsung’s pace of innovation, great consumer experience and a wide range of devices continue to bolster its leadership in product sales. At 15 percent market share of mobile handset sales, the company’s focus on India puts it very close to unseating Nokia (23 percent market share) at all ends of the spectrum in 2013. Over the next year, Samsung’s share of the smartphone market will increase from 40 percent to above 60 percent. Despite its size, there is a consistent focus on innovation in both products and marketing. Samsung’s nearly 100,000 retail touch points gives it great coverage, and its “Experience Zones” in malls and other high foot-traffic areas allow people to experience the power of its devices.
Samsung’s only possible misstep would be to overextend its reach — for instance, if it started developing its own consumer apps for entertainment, navigation, video, etc., when it would be better to simply partner with the “best of breed.”
Emerging Winner: Wireless Laptops. Wireless USBs for laptops will continue their mass market push. While there is an appetite for broadband in India, it is used by only slightly more than 10 percent of the 120 million monthly Internet users. Anyone who has been to India can attest to the rather chaotic nature of India’s city layouts, so you can just imagine what the wiring looks like below ground. The next step will be laptops with cellular capabilities built in like we see with the iPad.

Agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Vinodh Bhat is the CEO and co-founder of Saavn, the fastest-growing music service for South Asian music worldwide. He is also a Principal and co-founder of 212Media, a privately-held venture development company, which he helped launch in 2005. Follow Vinodh @vbhat on Twitter or check out his playlists on Saavn at http://www.saavn.com/u/vinbhat160.

How T-Mobile Has Been Getting Itself Ready for the iPhone

Ina Fried — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 14:00:51 +0000

T-Mobile USA has long been on the sidelines of the iPhone revolution, but the carrier is working hard to change that.

Until very recently, T-Mobile had very little shot at being able to carry the iPhone. Although it uses the same type of network technology as AT&T, it uses a different band of spectrum for its higher-speed data network.

That has meant that one of two things would have had to happen in order for there to be a T-Mobile-capable iPhone. Either Apple would have to build in support for T-Mobile’s unique spectrum band, or else T-Mobile would have to rework its entire network to carry data over a more iPhone-friendly piece of spectrum.

For much of the past year, T-Mobile has been doing the latter. Several cities are already up and running, with T-Mobile promising even more progress by the end of the year.

Merrill Lynch said this week that the T-Mobile will be taking things a whole lot further with plans to finally start selling the Apple phone.

Without the iPhone, T-Mobile has been bleeding contract customers. In the past two years, not only have Verizon and Sprint started carrying the iPhone, but also a variety of regional and prepaid carriers, as well, leaving T-Mobile (and merger partner MetroPCS) among the few major carriers without an iPhone to sell.

T-Mobile has been careful not to say that it is getting the iPhone, only that it would like to sell Apple’s phone. However, it would certainly help the company justify the big network switchover if it wasn’t relegated to convincing customers to bring their own iPhone.

Though it has never had an iPhone of its own, T-Mobile has long let customers bring their own device. Even before its effort to enable high-speed data for the iPhone, T-Mobile had more than one million iPhones running on its network.

Now, as the company prepares to spend billions on an LTE network and gobble up MetroPCS, it arguably needs Apple now more than ever. And, typically, a relationship with Apple doesn’t come cheap. Companies have to spend a pretty penny on each device and, at least in the case of Sprint, agree to hefty commitments that make the iPhone an expensive, if much-needed, device.

T-Mobile Sees Revenue Decline as Nearly 500,000 More Customers Leave

Ina Fried — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 17:26:00 +0000

Without an iPhone to sell, T-Mobile USA continues to bleed contract customers.

The No. 4 U.S. carrier said it lost 492,000 contract customers in the third quarter. That’s down slightly from the 557,000 it lost in the prior quarter, but more than the 389,000 it lost a year ago. The company blamed the iPhone 5 launch in part for the continued defections.

With the addition of Sprint last year, all three larger rivals now sell Apple’s phone.

The company saw its total revenue drop 6.4 percent, to $4.9 billion, as higher device sales partly offset a larger 8.7 percent drop in service revenue.

T-Mobile is hoping to shore up its business and improve its long-term position with a pending deal to merge with MetroPCS.

Andreessen-Backed Start-Up ItsOn Raises $15 Million to Help Make Mobile Service More Flexible

Ina Fried — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 07:01:40 +0000

Just recently, major carriers such as Verizon and AT&T started allowing customers to share a pool of data among several devices. But that’s just the start of how flexible cellular options could be.

“Most people don’t use the majority of the service they purchase,” says ItsOn CEO Greg Raleigh. Imagine a world where one could buy a day of streaming video, or a week’s worth of Facebook.

ItsOn says its technology — which requires special software on a smartphone — can do that and more. However, ItsOn doesn’t plan to reveal exactly the kinds of service options it will power until it is ready to launch commercially with carriers next year.

ItsOn is announcing on Monday that it has raised a further $15.5 million from backers, including Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake AG Fund and SV Angel.

“We like the big challenges and this is definitely a big challenge and a big opportunity,” Andreessen Horowitz general partner Marc Andreessen told AllThingsD.

Andreessen notes that carriers have had to spend a fortune on capacity to meet growing data demand, but still don’t have all of the commercial options they need to profitably deliver that service without overcharging the average user.

“Today,” he said, “a large number [of customers] who don’t use much data are subsidizing a small number of people who use a ton of data.”

Technology such as ItsOn’s also opens up the ability for sponsors to pay for specific types of data use. A commerce company like eBay or Amazon might happily pay for high-speed access for those browsing the virtual shopping aisles. Indeed, eBay already does something similar for inflight Wi-Fi access on Virgin America. Meanwhile, a snack company might pay to sponsor a streaming sporting event.

Other options, Andreessen said, include being able to split work and personal data use, or allowing parents to reward a child who does his or her chores with extra Facebook time.

“ItsOn,” he said, “is the way all these problems, we think, get solved.”

AT&T Tops Earnings Expectations on 4.7 Million iPhone Sales, Strong Pickup for Shared Data Plans

Ina Fried — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:04:05 +0000

AT&T on Wednesday reported better-than-expected earnings on revenue of $31.5 billion.

The telecommunications giant also said it sold 4.7 million iPhones in the quarter, and signed up two million customers for its new shared data plans in just five weeks. The company said it added 678,000 net wireless customers in the quarter, including 151,000 contract customers.

AT&T said its iPhone sales were hampered by inventory constraints, noting that “the vast majority” of iPhone sales in the quarter went to existing customers looking to upgrade. On a conference call with investors, the company said it activated twice as many iPhone 5s as its nearest competitor.

Overall, the company sold 6.1 million smartphones, with a total of 44.5 million such devices now on its network. That’s up eight million from a year ago, and 1.4 million from the prior quarter.

Confirmed: T-Mobile USA, MetroPCS to Combine in Cash and Stock Deal

Ina Fried — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:56:39 +0000

T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom said Wednesday that it has reached a deal to combine its U.S. wireless operations with MetroPCS.

Under the terms of the deal, MetroPCS shareholders will get $1.5 billion in cash and a 26 percent stake in the combined company, while Deutsche Telekom will own the remaining 74 percent.

The deal requires regulatory approval as well as a nod from MetroPCS shareholders, and is expected to close in the first half of 2013.

“We are committed to creating a sustainable and financially viable national challenger in the U.S., and we believe this combination helps us deliver on that commitment,” Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann said in a statement.

Although the deal would help strengthen T-Mobile’s business, the combined company will still lag far behind market leaders AT&T and Verizon Wireless in terms of spectrum holdings and number of subscribers.

Additionally, the two companies have considerably different business strategies and underlying technologies, issues that could complicate integration.

T-Mobile discussed the deal further on a conference call. Here’s a recap of that call..

HTC Announces One X+, at Least for the Rest of the World

Ina Fried — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:06:11 +0000

HTC on Tuesday announced an updated version of its current flagship Android phone, the HTC One X.

The new phone, dubbed the HTC One X+, features the latest Jelly Bean version of Android, along with a higher-capacity battery, more storage and a faster processor.

It builds on the strength of the One X’s camera by making it easier to take take and view pictures. Another new feature, the self-portrait mode, makes “subtle enhancements to the skin and eyes when taking pictures with the front-facing camera.”

The Taiwanese phone maker said the phone will start shipping in some places later this month, but said a North America announcement is still to come. (Carriers in the U.S. often like to make their own announcements.)

The HTC One X was exclusive to AT&T, while T-Mobile offered the HTC One S, a somewhat different, narrower model. HTC also said it will soon offer an upgrade to Jelly Bean for those phones.

Having pared back its lineup after introducing dozens of phones in 2011, HTC has focused most of its attention this year on the One line, which debuted at Mobile World Congress, and, to a lesser extent, on its line of Windows Phones.

That puts a lot of pressure on the company to come up with a hit with each new One release, as well as to better compete against the gigantic marketing muscle of larger rivals Samsung and Apple.

In an interview last month, HTC President Jason Mackenzie acknowledged that the company needs to do a better job of pitching itself.

“We can’t be quiet,” he told AllThingsD. “As a challenger brand … we have to be more bold.”

Can FreedomPop Make a Business Giving Away Free Mobile Broadband?

Ina Fried — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 06:11:16 +0000

FreedomPop, the start-up backed by Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, says it is ready to begin testing its mobile broadband service.

The company aims to give away 500MB of data each month and make money off various other services. Users can earn up to an additional 1GB or more of free data by taking part in various offers or adding friends to the network.

FreedomPop, which offers service on Clearwire’s network, is offering a data stick and a mobile hotspot. Both will be free, but users will be required to put down a refundable deposit ($49 for the USB stick and $89 for the hotspot).

“It’s a true beta,” CEO Stephen Sokols told AllThingsD last week. “We approach it as a Web company. We are going to work out the kinks.”

The carrier already announced plans for $99 add-on sleeves that can add mobile broadband capabilities to the iPod Touch as well as a mobile hotspot that connects to an iPhone.

Those devices were originally slated to be available by around now, but should be out in four to six weeks.

In addition to the free data, FreedomPop is offering additional gigabytes for less than the traditional carriers. It will offer 1GB of data for $10 a month and 5GB for $34.99, with no commitment or contract.

The company is hoping to make money on various services, including a $2.99-per-month premium support offer that includes device replacement and VIP customer care.

Next year, the company hopes to expand into LTE service using Sprint’s network and to offer a dongle that adds broadband capabilities to iPads and Android tablets, most of which today are sold with only Wi-Fi capabilities.

T-Mobile Says Network Is Finally iPhone-Ready, at Least in Las Vegas

Ina Fried — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:25:28 +0000

Though it still doesn’t have an iPhone to sell, T-Mobile continues to plug away on its effort to enable those bringing their own iPhone to at least get 3G speeds.

The company has hit a milestone on that front, with its Las Vegas-area network now fully iPhone-friendly.

The effort to make its network more iPhone-compatible is part of the company’s big “bring-your-own-iPhone” push.

“As we retune our airwaves to turn on 4G service in our iPhone compatible spectrum in major markets this year, our network is becoming compatible with a broader range of unlocked devices,” CTO Neville Ray said in a blog post on Monday. “Las Vegas is the first of many markets where we’ll strengthen the network this year. … With some sites live in other cities, including Seattle, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and the New York metro area, customers are already experiencing improved coverage and iPhone ‘speed sightings’ on T-Mobile’s 4G network.”

The company also has a brand-new CEO who has promised the carrier will fight to regain lost ground against the Big 3 U.S. carriers.

Ray said internal testing shows the iPhone 4S running faster on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network in Las Vegas than on AT&T.

Until now, customers have been able to run an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile’s network but have been limited to very slow 2G data speeds. Nonetheless, the company has more than 1 million iPhones running on its network.

That said, the iPhone is now speeding ahead into LTE territory, with the iPhone 5 now supporting that higher-speed network on Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint.

Interview: T-Mobile's New Chief Says He's Ready to Fight

Ina Fried — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:06:16 +0000

T-Mobile USA’s new chief executive said Wednesday that those who are counting his company out will be proven wrong.

“If you thought T-Mobile was going to shrink and wither away, you are completely wrong,” John Legere told AllThingsD on Wednesday.

T-Mobile, of course, faces an uphill battle. The carrier has been bleeding customers since before its failed bid to be acquired by AT&T. It also is the only major carrier without an iPhone to sell, and is behind Sprint, AT&T and Verizon when it comes to offering next-generation LTE service.

In taking on the post, Legere said he sought assurances from T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom that it was willing to invest in the resources the U.S. carrier needed to succeed.

“Are you ready to fight?” Legere said he asked DT CEO Rene Obermann. “What I heard from Rene is ‘yes.’”

Legere said his goal is to build a company that is thought of as the “un-carrier,” and more customer-friendly than its rivals.

He indicated that the company plans to continue with its same strategy, building an LTE network to be ready by the middle of next year, as well as offering unlimited data plans to lure customers.

Legere fills the spot vacated by Philipp Humm who left T-Mobile in June, and took up a post at European rival Vodafone.

Obermann told AllThingsD that he was looking for a different kind of leader for the company, and noted that T-Mobile talked to many people over the months it sought a new chief.

“I was looking to find an entrepreneur and innovator, someone who thinks out of the box,” he said.

T-Mobile Launches Big Push to Get Customers to Bring Their Own iPhone

Ina Fried — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:00:11 +0000

Like a host with an empty wine cellar, T-Mobile is throwing a party but encouraging guests to bring their own bottle. Or, in this case, to bring their own iPhone.

This week, the No. 4 U.S. carrier is kicking off a push that will encourage customers to bring their own unlocked AT&T iPhone and pair it with one of the carrier’s plans.

By taking out the cost of subsidizing the iPhone, T-Mobile can offer significantly cheaper rate plans, said marketing director Harry Thomas, in an interview.

T-Mobile plans to put a working, unlocked iPhone in each of its stores, and launch an “unlocked and unlimited” marketing campaign to attract more unlocked iPhones. It already has upward of one million iPhones without heavily touting the option.

Among the plans T-Mobile is pairing with the iPhones are a recently announced unlimited plan, as well as several plans that come with a certain amount of high-speed data and then unlimited slower-speed data. With plans starting at $60 a month, T-Mobile says it can save heavy data users more than $50 a month compared to AT&T.

T-Mobile won’t sell used iPhones, but Thomas said there are plenty of them available on the secondary market. Nor will the carrier do the physical unlocking of devices, but AT&T has said it will unlock customer devices for those who have fulfilled their contract and are in good standing.

There’s one major problem with T-Mobile’s pitch. Its network isn’t yet all that iPhone-friendly given that its high-speed network has historically run in a band of spectrum not supported by the iPhone. T-Mobile is in the process of shifting around its network so that Apple phones can run at full speed, but for now, nearly all customers will be running at far slower 2G speeds.

By sometime in the fourth quarter, T-Mobile plans to offer full-speed iPhone service in a number of cities, although it hasn’t said which ones. T-Mobile is in the process of upgrading its network cell tower by cell tower to support the same frequency used by the iPhone.

Thomas said the company thought about waiting with its push for new iPhone customers, but decided it needed to start now, noting some customers are already bringing their own iPhones.

“We thought we needed to respond to that consumer demand,” he said.

While not broadly available, customers may already be getting the faster data in certain places in certain cities, including Seattle, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C.

Visual voicemail also won’t initially be available, but the company hopes to have an app to enable that feature before the end of the year.

Plus, even as T-Mobile works to make its HSPA+ network iPhone-compatible, T-Mobile faces another challenge. Apple is preparing to introduce its next iPhone this week, and that device is expected to support LTE — another type of high-speed network, and one that T-Mobile isn’t expected to launch until sometime next year.

As for the iPhone pitch, Thomas said that T-Mobile is planning a significant marketing push, but the bulk of its TV and other advertising will focus on its traditional lineup of phones and plans.

Samsung Under Scrutiny in South Korea After Apple Complaint

John Paczkowski — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 22:05:19 +0000

Samsung’s in hot water in its home country of South Korea and archrival Apple is the one that put it there.

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission, the country’s competition watchdog, said Thursday that it is investigating a complaint filed by Apple that accuses Samsung of abusing its standards-essential 3G wireless patents. Because Samsung contributed these 3G patents to a global wireless standard, it is obligated to license them under fair and reasonable terms, something Apple claims it has failed to do.

“We are reviewing whether allegations in the complaint lodged by Apple are true,” an FTC official confirmed. “Apple filed a complaint earlier this year that Samsung is breaching fair trade laws.”

The two companies have been sparring over this issue for some time now in a number of countries. And so far things have not gone well for Samsung. It asserted a number of 3G patents against Apple in the pair’s landmark patent trial earlier this summer, but to no avail. And its handling of this particular portion of its IP portfolio is drawing more and more scrutiny. Samsung is currently the subject of a regulatory investigation in the European Union, and sources familiar with the situation say the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is also eyeing it for misbehavior.

And that puts Samsung, which was recently found to have violated six of seven Apple patents on iOS device design and software, in a tough spot. That said, the company continues to deny that it has done anything wrong. “Samsung has at all times met its obligations to the fair licensing of its telecommunications standards-related patents,” said a company spokesperson, who declined to confirm whether it is under investigation in South Korea.

Carrier Start-Up Ting Will Soon Let You Use Your Old Sprint Phone

Ina Fried — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:00:32 +0000

A whole new crop of start-up cellphone companies are making a similar pitch to would-be customers — namely, that they can deliver lower monthly bills.

However, companies like Ting and Republic Wireless, like the prepaid carrier brands, generally have a similar catch: One typically has to buy a new phone at full price before the savings start.

Ting, though, says it will soon be able to offer a way around that. Starting sometime in the fourth quarter of the year, Ting plans to let its customers use any Sprint phone along with its low-cost service. Customers will pay the same rate as those who buy new phones, with Ting’s pitch being that its customers pay only for the texts, voice and data they use.

Being able to support older phones should allow even more savings, CEO Elliot Noss told AllThingsD.

There are a lot of phones out there that are being passed down or sold cheaply that were high-end models just a couple of years ago.

“There’s incredible value there,” Noss said. “$50 or $100 gets what two years ago was a top-of-the-line phone,” Noss said.

Ting, which is owned by Canadian Internet service wholesaler Tucows, hasn’t said how many customers the service has. However, Noss acknowledged that it is not yet enough to be material to the publicly traded company, which has annual revenue of about $100 million.

“Things have been very good for us,” Noss said, noting that the customers the company does have produce $100 to $150 per year in profits, while still saving them money compared to what they would have spent on a traditional cellphone plan. “We’re very pleased.”

Noss said he is pleased to see the innovation coming not just from his company, but also from Sprint and the other start-up carriers.

“We certainly see our competition as AT&T and Verizon,” he said, noting there are 300 million U.S. cellular subscribers, and only a tiny fraction of those are on nontraditional carriers. “We think we all can learn from each other.”

As for being able to accept the used Sprint phones, Noss said he sees an even bigger opportunity down the road. Eventually, he said, he expects Sprint to find a way to allow former Verizon phones onto its network.

“I think for both Sprint and for Ting, this is really just the warm-up,” Noss said.

T-Mobile Looks to Put the "Unlimited" Back in Its Unlimited Data Plan

Ina Fried — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 04:01:39 +0000

Even as most of its rivals move away from totally unlimited data plans, T-Mobile is looking to get back in the game.

Starting Sept. 5, the No. 4 U.S. carrier will offer data plans that have full-speed service regardless of the amount of data used. It sells a number of “unlimited” data plans today, but it slows the speed once users hit a preset limit.

Many customers still don’t know what a megabyte is, let alone how to keep track of how many they are using, T-Mobile USA vice president Kevin McLaughlin said in an interview.

“They clearly understood minutes and how minutes worked, but data is a whole other story,” he said.

Both AT&T and Verizon have moved to tiered data pricing and, most recently, are focusing their energy on pushing customers to share a pool of data across multiple devices. Sprint, meanwhile, has continued to aggressively market its unlimited data plans.

For its unlimited data option, T-Mobile plans to charge $20 to $30 per month extra on top of a voice and texting plan. That means a single line “value” plan with unlimited talk, text and data is $69.99, while a similar traditional plan (one in which the phone price is subsidized), will cost $89.99 per month.

Those plans are actually $5 per month cheaper than what T-Mobile charges for plans that slow down after 5GB of high-speed data use. However, those plans–unlike the new plans–can be used with the phone acting as a mobile hotspot or tethered to a computer.

For T-Mobile, the move is also its latest effort to stem a tide of customer defections over the last several quarters. The company is also working to rejigger some of its resources to allow users to bring an iPhone onto its network at full data speeds.

T-Mobile currently doesn’t sell the iPhone, but has more than 1 million iPhones running on its network. That’s despite the fact that current limitations mean those Apple phones only get data at slow 2G speeds.

The company aims to allow iPhones to run at full speed later this year and is prepping a big rebranding campaign, also planned for the second half of the year.

Sprint's Chief: iPhone Was Worth the Billions

Ina Fried — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 17:45:43 +0000

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse says the opportunity to sell the iPhone was too good to pass up.

Even though the company has had to spend billions to get that privilege — more than $15 billion in commitments over four years — the company couldn’t afford not to have the devices its customers want.

“You really don’t want to be on the outside,” Hesse said, adding that the company had a lot of longtime customers who stuck with Sprint on the assumption that the company would eventually get the iPhone.

Speaking to a group of reporters touring Sprint’s Kansas headquarters, Hesse said the key was just a willingness on Apple’s part. After years of wanting the iPhone, Sprint’s chance came in a phone call from Apple last year.

“I think the No. 1 thing was getting the call from Apple that they were interested in at least having the opportunity,” Hesse said. Of course, the company and its board had to take a hard look at the economics.

Selling the iPhone is good for the long term, Hesse said, noting that customers are more valuable in the long term. But, in the short term, it is costly, as the company spends more in subsidies to attract those iPhone buyers.

Making that investment was extra hard, as the company also had to invest at the same time as it worked to revamp its network.

“We committed to $15.5 billion over four years in purchases,” Hesse said. “That’s a large commitment.”

He said Sprint looked at Apple and its popularity, and “we saw no reason to bet against Apple.”

The other bet that Hesse said made sense was the company’s move to WiMax, even if it did turn out to be the Betamax of 4G technologies. Hesse said that the company had only two choices — be first with WiMax or last among the majors with LTE. That’s because Sprint didn’t have enough free spectrum to launch LTE when Verizon did.

“Today, looking back, I think it was the right decision,” Hesse said.

As for whether Sprint would like to see an iPad in its lineup, Hesse has clearly learned the right Apple answer.

“I can’t comment on that,” he said.