Sprint says unlimited is full speed all the time

Sprint on Friday stated that comments by CEO Dan Hesse which suggested data throttling had been misinterpreted. His remarks were only meant to refer to kicking off or otherwise punishing those who were violating terms of service and ignored warnings, the carrier said. Access was still full speed no matter how much the user had.

The company didn't fully clarify statements about the top one percent. Its stance still leaves it as the only major, national US carrier not throttling those on unlimited plans.

Separately, a leaked memo from Hesse showed that Sprint was merging the sales businesses for both its home and corporate customers. The move seen by Reuters would drop four executives. Chief sales officer Paget Alves would take over all sales functions, while the marketing equivalent Bill Malloy would handle marketing. All handling of machine-to-machine sales would go to emerging and wholesale head Matt Carter.

Hesse in explaining the decision attributed it both to the Network Vision strategy but also the iPhone deal. The "enormous investments" made in the two had led Sprint to be "looking for ways to be more efficient," he said.

Sprint has previously warned that the cost of subsidizing iPhones might not lead to a net positive effect until years later. Whether or not it was factoring streamlining into that forecast wasn't apparent, and it may be hoping to soften the impact and get to profit faster.

By Electronista Staff