The last newsletter was published on March 28, 2008. This issue contains three articles, two of which have been reprinted at seekingalpha.com. My author biography and an index of articles is at: http://seekingalpha.com/author/ed-ketchoyian. These are practically identical to the articles here at the EKTAN, but at Seeking Alpha, as usual, there are interesting comments. It's curiously satisfying to be called an idiot for stuff that you write. It's also interesting when people add color to what you've written or additional facets that validate your points.
There is a third article also in this issue written by the first guest analyst to the EKTAN, Mr. Martyn Roetter, Ph.D. I met Martyn through his writing on the Gerson Lehrman Group web site and have become a big fan of his writing and analysis on the wireless industry and technology issues in general. Martyn approaches issues from a detailed and many times historical perspective, which I appreciate. He has staked out what I would characterize as a reasoned, but skeptical position regarding WiMAX. With Martyn's permission, I am republishing a recent article that he wrote on the private GLG web site. A brief bio for Martyn is at the end of the article.
Sprint Nextel of course had its 1Q earnings call and annual shareholder meeting this week. Some striking stats for me were the following: ARPU of $56; iDEN ARPU less than $56; CDMA ARPU greater than $56. Back in the day, iDEN ARPU was the leader of the industry, but those days are obviously long gone. CDMA ARPU popped up by $14 data ARPU. If my math is correct, total iDEN subs, post-paid, pre-paid (Boost), and Power Source is about 17.3M. That's a lot higher than I thought it would be. Without Power Source, iDEN subs are at 15.7M. I think predictions of iDEN subs going to below 10M are still a little ways out into the future. Senior team largely in place. For some reason, it was important to mention that Sprint has $4.8B in cash and marketable securities.
Subjects still on the plate for future articles are, besides the popular Sprint Nextel Watch series: LTE deployment issues, 700 MHz post-auction analysis - part 2, Motorola, and a suggested topic called Near Field Communications.
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