Sprint Edges Ever Closer to Having the iPhone 5 – Which Is Good For Us All

As you know, the iPhone 5 News Blog has reported on the prospects of Sprint getting the iPhone 5 for some time now. As we get closer and closer to the iPhone 5′s official release, more and more evidence is pointing to the reality that Sprint will indeed get the new iPhone along with AT&T and Verizon. The newest report comes today from CNET, which is reporting that “according to Piper Jaffray analyst Chris Larsen, the latest to weigh in on the mounting speculation that carriers beyond AT&T and Verizon Wireless will get the next iPhone, ‘While we remain uncertain regarding the next-generation iPhone’s specs and features, we believe the most noteworthy change could be the device’s ability to run on more networks, specifically Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S.”
Larsen’s memo joins another recent analyst prediction from Citadel analyst Shing Yin, who said that “he believed Apple would begin selling the iPhone for Sprint later this year.”
The move by Apple to include Sprint in the list of U.S. mobile carriers who sell the iPhone 5 is significant, since it will give apple a leg up on Google/Android, which is always selling copious amounts of Android phones on Sprint’s network.
Read Why AT&T & Verizon iPhone Users Should Love Sprint
I’m gonna go out on a limb here: I like Sprint.
My wife is a Sprint customer, and while her new Android-based Kyocera Echo — for all of its dual-screened goodness — falls way short of the quality mark of the iPhone, Sprint is in itself a noble company, as far as mobile carriers go, and it is no fault of their own that Droids are crashy.
Sure, they are by no means a product-leading mobile carrier here in the U.S., but what they do offer is value pricing in a market that seems to be getting less and less competitive between carriers, thus driving the cost of mobile computing up. The mobile market in the U.S. is fast becoming a binary, with AT&T on one end and Verizon on the other. Even if you are not a Sprint customer, you should applaud the fact that Sprint exists: they essentially keep AT&T and Verizon from turning into Ming the Merciless when it comes to data plan pricing and other fees.
In fact, it can even be argued that Verizon dropping its unlimited data pricing this year is a result of AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile: while it may not seem that such a merger would directly impact Verizon, it does: by AT&T taking T-Mobile off the gameboard, all who is left is Sprint/Nextel, meaning that AT&T and Verizon can marginalize Sprint’s pricing by reaching data plan pricing parity with one another, since together they garner the lion’s share of subscribers.
In short, it creates a “binary monopoly,” also known as a “duopoly.”
It is for this reason that Sprint is petitioning against the AT&T/T-Mobile merger (did you know that?), making th point to the FCC. In Sprint’s petition to the FCC on May 31st, 2011, they state:
“The proposed transaction would turn back the clock on competition and innovation and bring this era of unprecedented wireless expansion and technological innovation to an abrupt, but avoidable, halt. The transaction would make AT&T the nation’s largest wireless carrier with 118 million subscribers in total and 43 percent of the post-paid market. Coupled with Verizon’s more than 94.1 million total subscribers and 39 percent of the post-paid market, the transaction would create a Twin Bell duopoly with 82 percent of post-paid subscribers, over 78 percent of all wireless revenues, and 88 percent of all wireless operating profits. The Twin Bells’ market dominance would dwarf Sprint, the sole remaining national carrier, and the rest of the wireless industry, thereby creating an entrenched, anti-competitive duopoly.”
You can read the entire petition here. It is actually very compelling and an interesting read.
Folks, it’s a bad thing that AT&T is poised to subsume T-Mobile and put the finishing touch on AT&T/Verizon’s bid to create a duopoly. If they forced Sprint out of the picture enough, we could very well see a Verizon/Sprint merger in the near future (a hostile takeover), which would be horrible for us, the consumers. For as much as we may imagine AT&T and Verizon to be mortal enemies, don’t think for a second that they are not working together — albeit implictly — to destroy Sprint.
And I’m telling ya, if Sprint folds, the cost of being a smartphone user will necessarily skyrocket. Given the poor outlook of the American economy, this would indeed be a bad thing.
The iPhone 5 on Sprint: Apple Gets It
If Apple forges the deal with Sprint to give them the iPhone 5, for them, it’s all about competing with Android and RIM. But it also may be in Apple’s best interest to keep Sprint alive as well, since an increase in data usage costs in the wake of a Sprint-less vacuum in the future could hurt the iPhone more than Android, since now iCloud will be the defining feature of the “Apple ecosphere.” Since we still don’t know what data usage is really going to look like post-iCloud, if data usage pricing skyrockets, then the iPhone could become less desirable, since users will consider it to be too expensive to run. Kind of like how cars that have poor gas mileage tend to sell poorly in a strained economy.
It very well may be that giving Sprint the iPhone is Apple throwing them a lifeline in the event that the AT&T/T-Mobile merger saps competition even further. By giving U.S. subscribers an unlimited data plan option for the iPhone 5, it will force the Big Two (especially Verizon) to tread carefully when it comes to data pricing.
And for all of us who use AT&T or Verizon, that’s enough to thank Sprint for.