"Well the challenges will be really just differentiating our company as opposed to legacy Sprint or legacy Nextel. To get the new brand for the company, we've adopted the yellow and black colors. We have a new logo. And to tell our customers that really, your services aren't going to change but we're going to bring a lot of new capabilities to you. So the challenge is really getting that message out to our over 44 million customers."
The company has set up war rooms to deal with customer issues. Some of the changes… Sprint is now offering plans that include free incoming minutes. A page from Nextel's strategy. And it hopes to compete with Verizon in the high speed Internet access business…by offering free wireless cards to customers signing up for two year plans. Verizon Wireless recently cut the price of its unlimited wireless broadband service to 60 dollars a month. Lauer says….Sprint will be competitive. And new ads refer to the company as not just being in the communications business…but in the entertainment business as well…
"We are the leader in the U.S. with data services. A lot of these data services are entertainment oriented, whether it's games, whether it's music. So we see ourselves getting positioned more and more as an entertainment company along with being a great communications company."
With the goal being to take business from larger rivals Cingular and Verizon. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.