Baited by John Legere, Sprint CEO slams T-Mobile's "Uncarrier bullshit"
T-Mobile's CEO John Legere is well known for his maverick approach to business. The most headline-grabbing man in the mobile industry, his recent exploits include posing as a superhero in a protest against what he sees as a duopoly in AT&T and Verizon, using their financial superiority to hoard the 600 MHz spectrum. T-Mo's Uncarrier initiative, meanwhile, is the ultimate stick-it-to-the-man approach, offering consumers more flexibility and choice. With features like data rollover, it's a response to the 24-month contract, which Legere described in 2013 as "bullshit". Ironically, Sprint new CEO Marcelo Claure has a similar description for Legere, picking holes in Uncarrier while calling it out as a "misleading" package.
Being smaller than both AT&T & Verizon, Sprint should be something of an ally to T-Mobile's efforts, but it's clear that these two carriers have a different outlook on things. Expressing his opinion on Sprint's new 'All-in' plan, Legere lit the blue touchpaper with his less-than-tactful assessment:
As you can imagine, that didn't go down too well with Claure, who quickly came back with his take on matters:
I am so tired of your Uncarrier bullshit when you are worse than the other two carriers together. Your cheap misleading lease imitation is a joke. You trick people to believe that they have a $15 iPhone lease payment when it’s not true. You tell them they can upgrade up to 3x but you don’t tell them the price goes up to $27 when they do. You say one thing but behave completely different. It’s all a fake show. So it’s really #Tmobilelikehell.
Watching two CEOs go at it like kids in a playground is partially refreshing, but if the duopoly is such a threat, a fall-out between the United States' third and fourth largest carriers seems very counter-productive.
Whether this escalates further remains to be seen. But having only just kissed and made up with BlackBerry CEO John Chen -- who threw in a special Batman case to sweeten the deal -- Legere seems to love a spat with fellow leaders.
Whatever happened to 'stick together'?
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