Liveblog: CTIA Keynote

May 8, 2012, 6:07 PM: That's it, we're done!

May 8, 2012, 6:07 PM: People will always try to invent the next instragram.

May 8, 2012, 6:07 PM: Hesse is all like, we actually build physical stuff. Good on Instagram for their $1 billion software, but we make plants and real stuff for the real world.

May 8, 2012, 6:06 PM: Cramer is asking them about the valuation of start-ups. Uh, what panel is this?

May 8, 2012, 6:04 PM: Cramer asks Hesse if Skype is a friend or foe. Hesse says friend. "A bit is a bit" However a customer chooses to use that data is yp to them.

May 8, 2012, 6:01 PM: Ralph, Apple is a friend. Better margins, lower churn.

May 8, 2012, 6:01 PM: Cramer asking friend or foe: Is Apple a friend or foe, hurting your margins.

May 8, 2012, 6:01 PM: Ralph says good because it is a major force in the world. Hesse and Humm agree, it's so good for the indfustry. Facebook is very good.

May 8, 2012, 6:00 PM: Cramer is asking about Facebook. Good or bad for your company.

May 8, 2012, 6:00 PM: Cramer is trying to suss out whether or not there are more market consolidation deals in the works. Hesse says Sprint is focused on Network Vision.

May 8, 2012, 5:59 PM: Cramer asks Humm if T-Mobile will go public in the U.S. Humm says no announcements right now.

May 8, 2012, 5:59 PM: Mead says that there is tremendous upward momentum in its smartphone penetration.

May 8, 2012, 5:58 PM: Ralph: We know how to sell a lot of smartphones, and improve margins at the same time.

May 8, 2012, 5:58 PM: Ralph and Cramer are debating how some choices affect the bottom line by percentage points. Boring.

May 8, 2012, 5:55 PM: With out the iPhone, will T-Mobile have to compete on price: Humm: Pure price competition would be the wrong way to go. Point isto offer better choice of plans.

May 8, 2012, 5:54 PM: Humm is talking about overage. Pay what you expect to pay and you don't have surprises. We see big interest in other customers.

May 8, 2012, 5:53 PM: Ralph and Humm tussled a bit over the T-Mobile iPhone commercial.

May 8, 2012, 5:52 PM: Ralph argues that once everyone has LTE, we won't be fighting about speeds, we'll be fighting about ancillary services.

May 8, 2012, 5:49 PM: Hesse: We have some real work to do to get the trust back. We need to focus on rebuilding the trust.

May 8, 2012, 5:47 PM: Hesse: Whem people market, they put their best foot forward. Who's making the money? The over-the-top players (APPLE) or us?

May 8, 2012, 5:47 PM: Cramer: Dan Hesse, you're always out there. I thought that everyone was better than the other guy. Who to believe, who to trust.

May 8, 2012, 5:46 PM: Humm: Clear that acquired companies have a negative performance while the review of the deal. We've done great things to improve our network.

May 8, 2012, 5:46 PM: Cramer: You got $3B and some spectrum. But a lot of your business just stopped in the last year. How are you going to catch up? I have to believe that you lost subscribers.

May 8, 2012, 5:45 PM: Humm: FCC and DoJ were clear, there's no second AT&T deal around the corner. We're looking to strengthen out balance sheet and spectrum position.

May 8, 2012, 5:43 PM: Dan Mead: Spectrum is an industry issue, freeing up gov spectrum, incentives, but tremendous amount of spectrum owned by private companies that needs to be returned to consumers.

May 8, 2012, 5:42 PM: Cramer: Addressing each company specifically now and their intro speeches.

May 8, 2012, 5:42 PM: Mead: LTE, we've been at ai for a while. Having vendors help us has been gerat. We provide huge percentage of the LTE traffic around the world. We were at the beginning before, tremendous reality now.

May 8, 2012, 5:41 PM: Humm: Restarting the company now that AT&T deal os iff the table. MOderninzing the network and building a strong presence. Want to be a challenger.

May 8, 2012, 5:41 PM: Hesse: But Network Vision is the real deal and what sets us up for the future.

May 8, 2012, 5:40 PM: (really, Hesse?)

May 8, 2012, 5:40 PM: Hesse: We have the iPhone, that's a big change for us.

May 8, 2012, 5:40 PM: Ralph: LTe is amazing, infrastructure is great, fantastic OEMs and handsets, and solid apps coming together. 4G is taking it to another level.

May 8, 2012, 5:39 PM: Cramer: What's happened at your company in the last year and in the year ahead.

May 8, 2012, 5:39 PM: Ralph: Thinks it is time for the smartphone to replace the wallet. Mobile commerce, mobile patments.

May 8, 2012, 5:39 PM: Hesse: Privacy, safety, security, that's the story, not speeds and feeds. More customers protecting their devices.

May 8, 2012, 5:38 PM: Humm: Evolve from access provider to value-added eseller, voice and text will decrease.

May 8, 2012, 5:38 PM: Mead: We're going to see a lot more activity from consumer exploring what they can do on the LTE network in terms of controlling thier lives and homes.

May 8, 2012, 5:37 PM: Cramer: next Question. Next year what will we see.

May 8, 2012, 5:37 PM: Mead: Video delivery over mobile devices. Search, downoad, and watch other video content. THe LTE network and customer desire to view video at any time, that's what is changing.

May 8, 2012, 5:37 PM: Humm: Biggest change that 4G has been brought to life, we have the right radio and the right backhaul to deliver change.

May 8, 2012, 5:36 PM: Hesse: (BTW, we gagged Humm last year and left him tied up in the back). But LTE is the biggest thing that's happened in the last year.

May 8, 2012, 5:36 PM: Fastest-changing industry that Cramer's ever seen. Biggest innovation since last year. Ralph: Still shipping more PCs that phones, now that is reversed. Internet is going mobile.

May 8, 2012, 5:35 PM: Speed dating. Gonna answer the same question in the same time frame.

May 8, 2012, 5:35 PM: Cramer is introducing all the CEOs and the ground rules.

May 8, 2012, 5:33 PM: And he's already talking too much. All I want to hear from him is, Question number 1.

May 8, 2012, 5:33 PM: Steve Largent is on stage once more to introduce the moderator, Jim Cramer. Cramer will be moderating the roundtable discussion.

May 8, 2012, 5:32 PM: Ralph is done, time for the roundtable! (thank god!)

May 8, 2012, 5:31 PM: Now showing us a video on the Digirtal Life stuff.

May 8, 2012, 5:31 PM: Ralph de le Vega just described a situation about parents busting their kids from Digital Life tools from 500 miles away. In other words, High Five to Big Brother!

May 8, 2012, 5:27 PM: "Enables you to be at home wherever your life takes you. Making home more than just a place wherein your family lives."

May 8, 2012, 5:26 PM: He's spending a lot of time talking about the new Digital Life thing. Looks like AT&T is going to push it heavily through both its wireless and wireline businesses -- in retail stores, etc.

May 8, 2012, 5:25 PM: RDLV is now talking about its digital life stuff, and how it can be used to control homes and stuff in the home from PCs and mobile phones.

May 8, 2012, 5:18 PM: Most of us have announced plans to roll out AT&T, so I am confident that we'll have the speed out customers need. Not just looking for faster service.

May 8, 2012, 5:17 PM: de la Vega is talking about the results of a speed study by another media outlet.

May 8, 2012, 5:17 PM: hahahaha, de la Vega is fighting back already, saying "it's not all about speed."

May 8, 2012, 5:16 PM: And Largent is back once again to introduce Ralph de la Vega, the last of the four CEOs. de la Vega is, of course, the leader of AT&T.

May 8, 2012, 5:15 PM: Humm says the iPhone will be faster on T-Mobile's network than it is on ATYT. Uh.........

May 8, 2012, 5:14 PM: Humm believes that T-Mobile's brand suffered while awaiting the government's decision of the AT&T acquisition.

May 8, 2012, 5:13 PM: It has a strong balance sheet, is going to spend $4B to transform its network and grow further, and is also looking to re-launch the brand with the new, darker version of Carly.

May 8, 2012, 5:12 PM: He's recapping some of the steps T-Mo has taken during the first few months of the year now that the att deal is off the table.

May 8, 2012, 5:11 PM: 70 million us households have wifi networks. He thinks that can help offload the cellular capacity demands and solve a lot of problems.

May 8, 2012, 5:09 PM: Humm is talking about managing capacity through small cell technology, spectrum refarming, predictive video delivery, and Wifi offloading.

May 8, 2012, 5:09 PM: Spectrum needs to be auctioned and put to good use.

May 8, 2012, 5:08 PM: Spectrum needs to be auctioned and put to good use.

May 8, 2012, 5:08 PM: He's only been talking for 90 seconds and already he's repeating himself. "We need more spectrum, need better management techniques."

May 8, 2012, 5:07 PM: Humm is rattling off a lot of specs and stats that the company has met or lives through.

May 8, 2012, 5:07 PM: T-Mobile consumers are eating 760mb of data per month, which is up 30 times since 2007.

May 8, 2012, 5:06 PM: T-Mobile has 146 times more data transiting its nextwork that just 5 years ago.

May 8, 2012, 5:05 PM: Humm: Intelligent, unlimited rate plans are the future, to manage exploding data demand, we have to have more spectrum and innovation in network management.

May 8, 2012, 5:05 PM: Humm has worked all over Europe, for Deutsche Telekom, Amazon, and others, and now concentrates he energy on T-Mobile USA. He's a Germna, BTW, zo we're talkingk about ze vireless industry.

May 8, 2012, 5:03 PM: And Largent is back introducing T-Mobile USA Philip Humm.

May 8, 2012, 5:02 PM: Dan wants the industry to work together to build trust and innovation.

May 8, 2012, 5:01 PM: Upfront notifications on the device when it is first purchased. String of notifications to offer opt in/out choice.

May 8, 2012, 5:01 PM: Sprint says a third-party company will audit Sprint to be sure that it is complying with its own privacy policies.

May 8, 2012, 5:00 PM: Hesse repeating himself a bit now. New policy to debut later this year that lets customers access and control their personal information better.

May 8, 2012, 4:59 PM: Hesse is talking up the new products announced today, i.e., Sprint Guardian.

May 8, 2012, 4:58 PM: The odds are just 50/50 of getting your phone back, but 90% that your personal information will be breached.

May 8, 2012, 4:58 PM: Hesse says educating consumers is vital. Hesse is talking up the Symantec study it did about a month ago. Scary stuff.

May 8, 2012, 4:56 PM: We want to earn trust, be transparent, educate consumers, and provide with with privacy choices. We will put protections in place to verify via independent audits.

May 8, 2012, 4:56 PM: Dan's really giving the privacy topic a good going over. "In the absense of info, consumers rely on those they trust more."

May 8, 2012, 4:55 PM: Downright fiction dominates over fact and research.

May 8, 2012, 4:54 PM: Safety, security, and privacy are vital, says Hesse, and they need to be addressed.

May 8, 2012, 4:54 PM: Trust and reputation are extremely important, says Hesse.

May 8, 2012, 4:53 PM: Hesse: M2M is vital. Mobile influences everything. Who will the customers trust to provide these services.

May 8, 2012, 4:52 PM: Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon ride "over the top" of the billions of dollars invested by network operators.

May 8, 2012, 4:52 PM: Hesse: Remarkable amount of innovation in the industry.

May 8, 2012, 4:51 PM: Dan is talking up how the indudstry has confused the terminology behind LTE and 4G.

May 8, 2012, 4:50 PM: Hesse: Oil and cable companies rate higher than wireless companies with respect to image. That's a bummer.

May 8, 2012, 4:49 PM: Hesse: LTE = Lot's To Explain.

May 8, 2012, 4:49 PM: Dan Hesse has taken the stage!

May 8, 2012, 4:49 PM: Largent talking up Hesse's commitment to sustainability. Wow, quite a resume on Hesse. He's a graduate of Notre Damn, Cornell, and MIT. Go Dan!

May 8, 2012, 4:48 PM: Largent is back on stage to introduce Sprint's CEO Dan Hesse. Apparently Hesse spent 23 years at AT&T before heading to Sprint. I did not know this.

May 8, 2012, 4:47 PM: And Dan is done!

May 8, 2012, 4:47 PM: Wow, this is a boring re-cap of what Verizon's been up to for the last two months. Nothing new here. Bring on the next CEO, please.

May 8, 2012, 4:46 PM: Verizon is talking up its spectrum plans, pitching the benefits of its AWS spectrum purchase attempt and the company's plans to sell 700MHz a and b block.

May 8, 2012, 4:45 PM: The video was full of pizzazz and lots of sweeping shots of people using mobile devices all over the place. Yippity-skip.

May 8, 2012, 4:41 PM: Showing a video now of have LTE can affect our lives.

May 8, 2012, 4:41 PM: Dan is on stage now, talking up Verizon's selling points, LTE growth, smartphones, tablets, apps, etc.

May 8, 2012, 4:41 PM: Steve Largent provided opening remarks, talking up the industry and introducing Dan Mead, CEO of Verizon Wireless.

May 8, 2012, 4:28 PM: Less than five minutes to go.

May 8, 2012, 4:14 PM: We're seated and ready to go!