Rumors of a Sprint iPhone 5 Give Users an Affordable Option

You’ve probably heard the old cliché that two’s company, but three’s a crowd. That’s only true when it comes to relationships: As Google’s Android has proven, the more carriers who can wield your technology, the more opportunity there is to reach a wide range of customers. That’s why the Droid revolution has managed to match Apple in the smartphone market so quickly: you can get the Android experience on more than one network.

This is the whole point of Apple expanding the iPhone to Verizon.

Yet, while  we have been discussing in other articles the pros and cons of AT&T versus Verizon, few have focused on the viable rumors that the iPhone 5 will not only reside on The Big Two networks, but also on Sprint, the third largest carrier in the U.S.

MacRumors has been reporting on this rumor heavily, and seems to have some sources in place. For Sprint, stocking the iPhone 5 would be a godsend, as their CFO recently reported:

“Sprint has been suffering from subscriber losses and is only now reaching stability. When questioned last week about the possibility of offering the iPhone, Sprint’s Chief Financial Officer Robert Brust said ‘we’d love to have it’, though said he denied any knowledge of it being a possibility.”

To be sure, MacRumor’s shaky rumor source and Mr. Brust’s hopes are not enough to cast the Sprint-iPhone 5 debut in stone, but something has to be said about the CFO of the third largest mobile network saying, “we’d love to have it.” It is a seemingly innocuous comment like this that often telegraphs to us, the consumers, what to expect on the horizon.

Read Why Sprint Makes Sense for the iPhone 5

Just as Google has sought to make its mobile technology available to the top carriers, so too is Apple looking to greatly expand the availability of the iPhone to the U.S. mainstream. Verizon is only the beginning. The plan will be to match the Android wherever possible — and Sprint is the next frontier for the iPhone 5, since they already have Droid in their arsenal.

For Apple, it’s simply about making the iPhone 5 available wherever you find Android phones.

What Sprint Brings to the Table for the iPhone 5

If you’re a big fan of AT&T’s service and speed, then Sprint is not going to excite you: they cannot match either AT&T or Verizon in either speed or coverage, respectively. They have limited 4G in place, but are still only dabbling in it. But if you’re already with AT&T or Verizon, then you don’t have to be excited about Sprint possibly adding the iPhone 5 — the move would be for already-established Sprint customers who will excitedly turn in their old, crusty Blackberries for a shiny new Sprint iPhone 5 — even if the service, coverage, and speeds are a bit diminished.

But Sprint does bring something new to the iPhone 5 market — affordability.

In marketing, a company can be a product leader, a customer service leader, or  a price leader. While AT&T and Verizon duel over who the best “product leader” is in 3G coverage and speed, Sprint takes a different approach: they’re a price leader.

Thus, if a potential iPhone customer is floating around in no-man’s land, open to the prospect of a new service provider, Sprint might be an attractive option for many who are simply looking for an affordable service plan. In short, running Sprint may end up to be the cheapest network for the iPhone 5.

Posted in: Apple