Time, Past Remembrance, and the Future - inspired by my Two (2) Year S4GRU Birthday

[Arysyn]

Wow! I'm amazed it has been two full years as of today, Saturday, April 29th, 2017, which is when after a year or two of me being an unregistered reader of this site, I finally became an official member of S4GRU, by registering and soon after, contacting Robert about becoming a Premier sponsor of, which he helped me with.

 

I've learned alot here from this site and seen through this time a transition from a Sprint network focus, to more all-around network discussions including other carriers more often, and then to being generally what I see here as being a much "better" site to discuss various wireless topics, still with a focus on networks and sight set on Sprint's future, than on sites such as HowardForums,

 

At least, that is my observation of S4GRU. Regarding what I think about networks and wireless, in general, most of you likely know the highlights of my thinking, which is hoping for a change in the way the FCC distributes spectrum, hoping for carriers to get together at a meeting to formulate a plan to swap spectrum in a way to make their holdings more balanced among their markets, hoping for a three carrier U.S. marketplace, a heavier focus on macro site densification and full deployment of all held spectrum done by all carriers, fewer physical carrier retail stores - more focus on improving carrier online stores, rate plan simplification to an individual line focus on postpaid for more fairness to those not needing and/or having the connections and/or resources to have multiple lines,

 

Also of course with regards to Sprint - full spectrum deployment, massive site densification to make band 41 connections at least as good as mid-band spectrum/hopefully better such as between band 25 and band 26 level of connectability, and of course rate plan equality, etc.

 

Anyways, again - those were my highlights and what I'd like to happen, but not necessarily do I believe they will or won't. Some may, some may not. However, I thought to create this thread to express these in my own way today, highlighting the occasion which helped to give me the idea for this thread, which others here can highlight their own memories of S4GRU, network/wireless history and its moments, along with any future ideas making the case for a wireless future, and what you want and don't want both for and from it.

 

 

[JustinRP37]

Happy S4GRU birthday! One thing however, I think you have the wireless industry confused with communism. If the carriers all agreed to have the same spectrum, in store experience, similar network experience, and similar pricing, then how would they be competing exactly? If what you want to happen came to fruition, then we would not be seeing the tremendous competition in wireless that we are seeing today.

[Arysyn]

Happy S4GRU birthday! One thing however, I think you have the wireless industry confused with communism. If the carriers all agreed to have the same spectrum, in store experience, similar network experience, and similar pricing, then how would they be competing exactly? If what you want to happen came to fruition, then we would not be seeing the tremendous competition in wireless that we are seeing today.

Thank you for your reply, Justin.

 

I'd like there to be competition in how carriers decide to use the more level playing field of spectrum. There still are ways carriers could decide to use spectrum for targeting in-home internet services, or continue focusing on being just as a source outside the home away from wifi. These wireless companies could do alot of different things with the spectrum they have. The main thing I'd like to see from this is more of a service-based competition, rather than what it has been for years geared towards who has the better network.

 

I think some of this already is starting to change with the talk of these mega mergers and interest in having wireless converge with content to give these companies more value than just being a pipeline. This is what I'd like to see happen. Also in regards to pricing, yes I do want a more mainstream, simple, streamlined pricing among carriers on the traditional wireless service aspects of the business. However, the competitive parts in pricing Id like to see being done through these added content services, and other kind of additional services unique to each individual company.

 

When it comes to retail, I'd like to see most retail be internet based, which doesn't necessarily have to mean its all going to be the same in that regard. I still favor there being some physical based retail in places where its really needed, but rather than having a bunch of bland storefront retail for carriers as we have now, I think it would be great to lessen them down to where those there are really matter, and can be customized to provide more to the customer than just selling devices and services. Hence why I'd like to see these carrier stores integrated into current large-scale electronics and other stores where its more one stop shop, and each place can compete with their own combined offerings.

 

Of course these are.my ideas and everyone has their own interpretation for wireless. So far though, I really like what I'm seeing so far with the wireless industry and merger talk. I think this is going to be beneficial and from what I can tell from reading the T-Mobile Reddit forum, for example, there does seem to be alot of excitement over these mergers, especially in Dish, which I highly advocate for.

[WiWavelength]

Cue up the world's smallest violin...

 

 

AJ

[Arysyn]

Cue up the world's smallest violin...

 

 

 

AJ

That gave me another memory of when my cousin's middle school did a huge performance of Cats. It was nothing like a typical school play kind of thing, but something they had to put a huge budget into and drew hundreds of people to. This was back in the mid 90s and I was extremely envious of my cousin for being in the production. Although the best part of the performance was the singing of "Memory" by a girl who had this mellow hypnotic angelic singing voice and made a bunch of high school jocks who were there cry. I just sat there amazed by all of it.

[RCM]

[Arysyn]

 

That version was nothing like, in terms of quality, as the original Willy Wonka. Depp really overacted that. Granted, I'm not a fan of high paid celebrities.