Sprint CEO: Pivot Going Too Slow
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 8/12/2007 6:00:00 PM MT
Nearly two years after Sprint Nextel and four cable companies announced their joint venture, Sprint CEO Gary Forsee said that the amount of time it has taken to commercially launch the Pivot mobile-phone service has been a “disappointment.”
“The disappointment is, it took us longer [to roll out] because we spent time on the back office, to get that right, before we took it into the marketplace,” Forsee said last week, in response to a question on a call with Wall Street analysts. “And at this stage, there's still some system work to be done to speed up that activation.”
40 PIVOT PLAYS
He added that Sprint and the four cable operators — Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable and Advance/Newhouse Communications — are “committed to make this work.” Forsee also reiterated Sprint's expectations that Pivot will be available in at least 40 markets by year-end.
“So far, the reaction I think from the cable partners is a ramping up that invariably occurs in their call centers and at their point of sale, and getting used to the systems that have been integrated across the company,” Forsee said.
Sprint did not disclose how many subscribers have signed up for Pivot. In June, at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers' Cable-Tec Expo 2007, senior technology executives from Comcast and Time Warner Cable each said their companies had signed up “several thousand” customers.
Announced in November 2005, the Sprint-cable joint venture has begun to more broadly expand service availability in the last two months after initial trials began late last year.
Pivot currently is offered in 20 markets, with Comcast recently expanding around the Boston and Portland, Ore., markets and Time Warner Cable, Cox and Advance/Newhouse's Bright House Networks also going live in new areas.
“We continue to be flexible with the cable companies to try different things by market,” Forsee said. “This is not just a one-size-fits-all approach. Boston may have different needs than Austin [Texas] and Raleigh [N.C.], and so forth.”
Top cable executives have acknowledged taking a measured — if not especially speedy — approach to offering mobile-phone service. “We're probably slow-go on this because we don't want to mess up the customer relationship,” Cox president Pat Esser said on a panel discussion at Cable-Tec Expo.
Last month, Sprint removed John Garcia from his role as president of the Pivot joint venture, bringing on board former BellSouth executive Keith Cowan as chief strategy officer, whose duties include overseeing the cable JV.
Forsee also commented on Sprint's exit from SpectrumCo, the joint venture with same four cable operators that acquired Advanced Wireless Spectrum in a Federal Communications Commission auction last year.
“This event has no impact on our JV, and was fully anticipated by our partners,” he said.
VOIP ADVANCES
Meanwhile, Sprint said the number of cable telephony customers it provides voice-over-Internet Protocol service grew to more than 2 million — a 75% increase from a year ago. The company added more than 300,000 VoIP subscribers in the second quarter.
Time Warner Cable and Mediacom Communications are among Sprint's customers for VoIP interconnection service.
Still No Grand Plan For Going Mobile
04/06/2008Sprint CEO Disconnects
10/14/2007Pivot Gets Tabled
04/25/2008It Wasn't So Pivotal After All
04/26/2008
