Coming to the the stand: @Sprint's (& @SoftBank's @marceloclaure, questioned by Steve Sunshine who estimates it will take an hour. Thread will continue
Sunshine: Let's start with the cost cutting. How much?
Claure: We took out $10 billion in cost, mostly through layoffs.
Sunshine: Had anyone else tried this?
Claure: No, our competitors used low band spectrum.
Sunshine: What about Altice?
Claure: Same. There's no cable operator that supports it. They are monopolies and they knew that New T-Mobile would compete on in-home broadband
Claure: We concluded that doing a merger with them, there would be no synergies, no new customers and the amount of money it would cost us to build a nationwide network, the combined debt was $48 billion. So it never got serious
Claure: No. It's written all over our public filings. #Softbank is an independent publicly traded company that can only make investments that make sense.
Claure: Correct.
Q: Here's your Nov 4, 2017 press release - do you recognize it?
Claure: Yes.
Q: You said, best to move forward on our own. We have rich spectrum holdings.
Claure: Yes.... We had no choice. We had to continue to operate a stand-alone business.
Claure: Correct.
Q: Cable companies like Altice have limited footprints, right?
Claure: That's correct.
[Judge Marrero has put his head into his hands.]
Claure: Correct.
Q: To DOJ, you testified that Ergen's latest trip is to build a network so he doesn't get in trouble with the FCC?
[Judge Marrero is rubbing his knuckles]
Claure pushes back.
Q: I'll ask the questions, Mister Claure, you just answer them. You met with the NY AG, that is with my office, correct?
Judge Marrero: T-Mobile turned it around, they're on the verge if the merger's approved of becoming #3. If T-Mobile did that, why not Sprint? Why does Sprint need a merger to turn around?
Claure: I think we could go ahead & be a regional competitor, in dense area, with 5G pockets. We'd borrow money from banks
He quickly brags that he "turned around" France Telecom in 2002.
Q: Please describe the condition of Sprint when you arrived as CFO.
Combes: It was January 2018. I did a diagnostic assessment. Things were bad
Combes: Yes.
Q: But you have accelerated your investments since 2017, right?
Combes: Yes. We have started to accelerate.
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Inner City Press: What, beyond Tahoe, Salt and Diamond?
Kapoor: We do network capacity planning process at T-Mobile...
Kapoor: Yes, the speed is very localized.
Q: How we're getting to the sensitive information. I apologize in advance for the awkwardness. Explain congestion.
Kapoor: We measure speed at sector level.
Q: Are you expecting to raise threshold for 5G?
Kapoor: Yes, it will require a transformational.
"It will be the threshold on the sheet." [not public]
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