Sprint CEO slams AT&T, Verizon with latest iPhone compliment

In an interview with Forbes, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse managed to slide in a compliment for the iPhone, now that he actually likes it. Don’t be fooled by its seemingly kind nature. This is a double-whammy compliment, because while it may praise Apple, it secretly slams AT&T and Verizon in a brilliant way. Hesse claims that the iPhone is so data-efficient that it will actually help Sprint keep its unlimited data plans.

Burn.

As you, the reader, may or may not be aware, AT&T and Verizon have each resorted to tiered data plans for their smartphone customers. This is very likely as a result of the iPhone’s availability on both carriers, and the iPhone has been known to put quite a dent in a network — ahem, AT&T. Sprint’s data plans have remained completely uncapped. Now that Apple and Sprint struck a deal with the iPhone 4S, we were all expecting a turn for the worse, but Hesse saved the day.

Specifically, the Sprint CEO had this to say:

“One of the beauties of carrying the iPhone is it extends the period of time and increases the likelihood of us maintaining unlimited data longer because it uses our network so efficiently.”

So if the iPhone uses Sprint’s network so efficiently, how come AT&T and Verizon are forcing us to choose between capped data options? Ah, that’s the exact question he wants us to ask. Granted, I rarely come close to using 2GB of data per month on AT&T, but there’s still a clear difference between limited and unlimited. Well played, Hesse.

[via Forbes]