Newly elected Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has stated that the nation’s worst rated mobile network will be ranked number 1 in a few short years. Speaking at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California “Expect in 18 to 24 months, our network will be No. 1 or 2.” Claure boldly stated. On the job less than one year and bleeding customers to chief rival T-Mobile and their Un-Carrier initiative, Claure is hatching a bold plan. Backed by majority owner the Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Sprint plans to rehaul their entire network from the ground up in a plan called “Network Vision”,while keeping cost down because of the loss of revenue directly related to ongoing promotions such as “cut your rate plan in half” and phone lease programs. One way Sprint plans to cut cost is to possibly do away with unlimited data plans long a staple of the company. “Unlimited is not forever,” Claure said while admitting “For now it works very well” but he also stated as data gets better it will eventually rise above their cost of providing unlimited data.
Despite declarations such as this Sprint has added over a million new customers in the last quarter, which is especially good news for the company after the proposed T-mobile merger was blocked by the U.S government in an effort to keep four separate wireless providers. “Sprint now has an opportunity to focus their efforts on robust competition,” Tom Wheeler of the Federal Communications Commission stated last year. Compete they have even causing T-mobile CEO John Legere to take notice saying of Claure, “You have to give him credit for what he’s doing, he’s moving. He’s swinging his bat.” Despite all this Sprint still lost 205,000 prepaid customers causing a write -down of 209 billion. Even with the losses Sprint and Softbank both agree that the only way to improve their network and standing in the eyes of the consumer is to keep spending to get better. “I’m going to build a strong network, We’ve put a relentless focus on getting our network better,” Claure said. For now SoftBank seems to be ok footing the bill but only time will tell and Marcelo Claure is most definitely on the clock.