Sprint Nextel’s Q2 financial report drew praise from analysts, who looked past the carrier’s $1.37 billion quarterly net loss (CD July 27 p19) to praise indicators they said show its turnaround strategy is working. “Give credit where credit is due,” Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche wrote. “Sprint held its own and clearly gained share in subs during the quarter.” Credit Suisse Equity Research’s Jonathan Chaplin wrote “we got everything we were looking for and then some” out of the report. UBS Investment Research upgraded its rating on Sprint’s stock Friday from “Neutral” to “Buy.” The stock rose 20 percent Thursday, and closed up another 6.4 percent to $4.31 Friday.
Comments on WOW’s request to stop selling circuit-switched phone service in Evansville, Ind., are due Aug. 10 in docket 12-204, an FCC public notice said (http://xrl.us/bnid6s). The cable operator’s application to stop the service in phases over the next few months was made because “the technology used to provide these services is now obsolete,” according to WOW.
The FCC granted Intelsat authority to construct, launch and operate the Intelsat 20 satellite at 68.5 degrees east. Another change lets SES Americom modify the authorization for the AMC-2 satellite “to specify operations at the 19 degrees east ... orbital location, rather than at 4.98 degrees east,” the International Bureau said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bnid5t). SES Americom is authorized to operate the satellite to provide fixed satellite service in the conventional Ku-band frequencies of 11.7-12.2 GHz and 14-14.5 GHz, the notice said.
WGBH Radio and TV Boston bought Public Radio International. They'll “pursue a shared vision for developing and funding station-based and independently-produced content for public media,” WGBH said. It said the move is a response to the “imperative for public media to find new and innovative ways to work more effectively to serve the public.” WGBH and PRI plan to provide public radio audiences with more content choices and engagement opportunities, WGBH said. It said PRI will continue to operate independently and continue to produce The World, The Takeaway and its other programs.
Surrey Satellite Technology said the ExactView-1 satellite separated from the Soyuz launcher in low earth orbit. “Initial system checks have confirmed that critical systems such as power, avionics, telecommand and control are all functioning as expected,” SST said. SST’s ground operations team will work with COM-DEV Canada to commission SST’s Automatic Identification System payload, it said.
SES reported overall Q2 revenue of more than $1 billion, a 4.8 percent revenue increase over the same period last year. Operating profit rose 2.4 percent to more than $505 million, compared to nearly $500 million last year, SES said. North American revenue decreased 2.4 percent, it said. “Available satellite capacity reduced by 28 transponders” compared to the end of the first half of 2011. The transition from analog to high-definition for its satellite TV broadcasts in Germany took place as scheduled and “the remarketing of the newly available capacity is on track,” SES said. SES also launched SES-4, which carries replacement and new capacity for Europe and Africa. SES said it plans to launch Astra 2F in September.
Investors should “stay tuned” to possible future changes to Sprint Nextel’s tablet strategy, CEO Daniel Hesse said during a conference call Thursday. He declined to comment further on the issue, but repeated Sprint’s past assertions that the company has no plans to adopt a shared-data plan similar to those recently introduced by Verizon Wireless and AT&T. “What we want our rate plans to stand for is simplicity and value and ‘unlimited’ is still a significant differentiator,” he said. “And I think our rate plans are significantly simpler for customers to understand.” Meanwhile, Sprint posted a Q2 net loss of $1.37 billion, versus a $863 million loss for the same period last year. The company earned $8.84 billion in operating revenue for the quarter, up year-over-year from $8.31 billion. Much of the loss stemmed from costs related to Sprint’s shutdown of its Nextel network, as well as investments in Clearwire and the ongoing Network Vision improvement project, company officials said during a conference call. The company added 283,000 net subscribers during the quarter. While the company lost 688,000 net customers as a result of its Nextel shutdown, 60 percent of those subscribers remained with the company through the Sprint network. The company sold 1.5 million iPhones during the quarter -- the same as it did last quarter. Sprint’s iPhone sales are critical to its turnaround plans, something Hesse said will keep customers.
House Cybersecurity Subcommittee Ranking Member Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y. introduced a bill Thursday to help the government identify cyber vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure. The Identifying Cybersecurity Risks to Critical Infrastructure Act would require the Department of Homeland Security to identify threats to private sector networks.
Hopes are high at the American Cable Association that Congress will address rising retransmission consent costs, ACA President Matt Polka said. “The next Congress, starting in January, could be the beginning of something truly positive for the independent cable community,” he said. Small cable operators just concluded their annual “Independent Show” co-hosted by ACA and the National Cable TV Cooperative in Florida. “This year’s show was very important in terms of mapping our strategy for the next Congress,” Polka said in a press release.
MetroPCS’s net income rose in Q2 to $149 million, up 77 percent year-over-year. The rise in profits came as the carrier’s customer base dropped by a net 186,000 subscribers. At the same time last year, the pay-as-you-go carrier added 199,000 subscribers. The company attributed its rise in net income to a decision to cut its promotional costs. (http://xrl.us/bnia2k)