Sprint CTO Joe Euteneuer, speaking Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Tech, Media and Telecom Conference, revealed that Sprint will not move forward with the H Block Auction.
Euteneuer said Sprint’s decision is based on the FCC’s rules for the H Block auction and he added that the carrier is focused on getting more low-band spectrum.
Following Sprint’s acquisition of Clearwire earlier this year, the carrier has access to large amounts of 2.5 GHz spectrum that will it deploy LTE in to improve speed and capacity. Euteneuer talked a bit more about how the iDEN shutdown was still affecting churn for Sprint but had high hopes for how that move would affect margins once that 800 MHz is incorporated into Sprint’s LTE network.
Euteneuer confirmed that all LTE phones sold in 2014 by Sprint will be tri-band LTE-compatible and take advantage of HD voice.
In terms of new approaches to plan pricing at Sprint—in line with Sprint’s Unlimited For Life efforts—Euteneuer confirmed that Sprint will make some more pricing moves during the fourth quarter.