FCC commissioner calls out Dish for Designated Entity bidding in AWS-3 Auction

[Fraydog]

For sprint's sake or TMO/dish?

Sprint would have a harder time selling it's spectrum, maybe.

I don't know what synergy's there'd be in a dish/TMO merger.

Maybe use the 40mhz SDL + other spectrum for rural fixed wireless?

I don't think the U.S. can afford more than three wireless infrastructures. Somebody has to share at this point. More than three carriers? Yes, but network sharing has to become an actual thing at this point.

[lou99/maximus1987]

I don't think the U.S. can afford more than three wireless infrastructures. Somebody has to share at this point. More than three carriers? Yes, but network sharing has to become an actual thing at this point.

Add up all the profit, divide by 4. Is that enough for each? We say that now because att and vzw are so far ahead. But once TMO and spRINT cover MOST locations that duo covers and charges less, the profit distribution will equalize.

[Fraydog]

Add up all the profit, divide by 4. Is that enough for each? We say that now because att and vzw are so far ahead. But once TMO and spRINT cover MOST locations that duo covers and charges less, the profit distribution will equalize.

I don't think you realize how stuck most are to the duopoly. By my sloppy math that's 238 million customers on Verizon and/or AT&T. Do you really think that would equalize? No way. Come visit the rural areas where people don't consider Sprint or T-Mobile. I think you would listen to some of the conversations I heard Sunday at the Super Bowl party I was at and leave in tears. Most people here where I live and frankly in most rural areas don't ever even want to be on Sprint or T-Mobile. I'm not convinced Project 300 Million won't be a net loser for T-Mobile. The market is too set. It needs more massive disruption through a virtual infrastructure.

[lou99/maximus1987]

They don't want to be on TMO sprint for a good reason: coverage and speed

[lou99/maximus1987]

Anyway I don't think sprint and TMO should aim for rurals. They should run up the numbers in urban areas and say "and by the way we have rural coverage too!"

[Fraydog]

They don't want to be on TMO sprint for a good reason: coverage and speed

Most don't even care about speed, they just never see a way T-Mobile or Sprint could ever be equal in coverage.

 

What do you think happens when there's two players in a market spending $10 billion in CapEx and two players spending $5 billion? Who do you think wins? It's basic math.

 

The duopoly has scale. New entrants don't have that. Sprint and T-Mobile really don't either. That's the point. I don't think the two have to merge *completely* but since DT wants out the game is set. Someone has to step in since DT wants more money than what they would get out of slow divestiture.

 

Network sharing is inevitable, IMO.

[lou99/maximus1987]

DT and baldy are free to leave. No ones fault but their own they miscalculated. But they want a big lump sum payment. Tough. That's capitalism.

[Fraydog]

DT and baldy are free to leave. No ones fault but their own they miscalculated. But they want a big lump sum payment. Tough. That's capitalism.

So we have to have massive duplicate networks because MURICA. Got it!

[lou99/maximus1987]

So we have to have massive duplicate networks because MURICA. Got it!

We have to have it because otherwise prices will go up. A lot. Google 3 Austria orange.

Sure it'd be nice to have one carrier and save lots if money and guess where that money would go? Shareholders.

[Fraydog]

We have to have it because otherwise prices will go up. A lot. Google 3 Austria orange.

Sure it'd be nice to have one carrier and save lots if money and guess where that money would go? Shareholders.

The US is already paying some of the highest prices in the world. That's with four carriers. The real issue is that it's not four carriers. It's two strong and two weak.

[lou99/maximus1987]

The US is already paying some of the highest prices in the world. That's with four carriers. The real issue is that it's not four carriers. It's two strong and two weak.

Oh you want three equal carriers. Take a look at canada. Let me know what you think of prices in a three equal carrier country.

[Fraydog]

Oh you want three equal carriers. Take a look at canada. Let me know what you think of prices in a three equal carrier country.

Their slowest network (Telus) is as fast as our fastest per RootMetrics and NetIndex. Do price adjustments off the Canadian and U.S. dollars and their price gap isn't large at all. If anything I'd say Verizon is more expensive than the Canadian carriers and AT&T is right there with them.

[lou99/maximus1987]

Their slowest network (Telus) is as fast as our fastest per RootMetrics and NetIndex. Do price adjustments off the Canadian and U.S. dollars and their price gap isn't large at all. If anything I'd say Verizon is more expensive than the Canadian carriers and AT&T is right there with them.

 

see there's 3 equal sized carriers about as expensive as att, vzw. That's a good thing?

 

Let's see the Japanese's regulator's opinion on Softbank and company

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/softbank-son-oligopoly-idUSL3N0N83E020140423

 

"You could say the mobile market is an oligopoly of the three big companies," Communications Minister Yoshitaka Shindo said at a regular news conference this month.

================================================

 

Or France before Free Mobile joined.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-04-06/frees-low-rates-rattles-french-telecom-industry

 

Free’s foray into mobile has already shaken the country’s top three operators—France Télécom’s Orange, Vivendi’s SFR, and Bouygues Télécom—which until now controlled 90 percent of the market and charged the highest rates in Europe. 

=================================================

 

Or the recent 4 to 3 merger in Austria

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dba557c8-9c91-11e3-b535-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3QhcWD8O3

“We warned that prices would rise,” says Theodor Thanner, Austria’s competition regulator who questioned the EU approving Hutchison’s takeover of Orange last year. “Our forecast has been fulfilled.”

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-25/hutchison-austria-seen-as-lesson-for-eu-in-e-plus-o2-probes

Price increases “were one of our fears and they became true,” Thanner said. “For the future, and this concerns Ireland and Germany, one is well advised to look carefully at Austria’s experience.”

 

 

 

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Not enough money to support 4 players? 

ATT: More than $11 billion returned to shareowners in 2014 through dividends and share repurchases.

http://about.att.com/story/att_fourth_quarter_earnings_2014.html

 

There's plenty of money but it's all going to dividends and share repurchases. Which I'm fine with. But no one can say there's not enough money for 4 carriers.

 

 

3 equal sized companies is the WORST for the consumer and I cannnnnoooot understand why people keep hoping for it as if it'd help you! 

[Rawvega]

I think if dish buys TMO:

1) dish should sell its aws3 to duo

2) TMO should sell its aws3 to duo

 

In return, duo agree to make aws4 SDL + CA B12, 600mhz, aws1/aws3, pcs on all their phones.

 

I wonder how well that would go over as T & VZ are already having garage sales to help pay for the spectrum that they already bought (among other things).

[Fraydog]

see there's 3 equal sized carriers about as expensive as att, vzw. That's a good thing?

 

Let's see the Japanese's regulator's opinion on Softbank and company

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/softbank-son-oligopoly-idUSL3N0N83E020140423

 

"You could say the mobile market is an oligopoly of the three big companies," Communications Minister Yoshitaka Shindo said at a regular news conference this month.

================================================

 

Or France before Free Mobile joined.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-04-06/frees-low-rates-rattles-french-telecom-industry

 

Free’s foray into mobile has already shaken the country’s top three operators—France Télécom’s Orange, Vivendi’s SFR, and Bouygues Télécom—which until now controlled 90 percent of the market and charged the highest rates in Europe.

=================================================

 

Or the recent 4 to 3 merger in Austria

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dba557c8-9c91-11e3-b535-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3QhcWD8O3

“We warned that prices would rise,” says Theodor Thanner, Austria’s competition regulator who questioned the EU approving Hutchison’s takeover of Orange last year. “Our forecast has been fulfilled.”

 

=================================================

 

3 equal sized companies is the WORST for the consumer.

So why is the US still more expensive than the countries you mentioned?

 

Still more expensive than Japan, France, and Austria. The dirty little secret is that T-Mobile raised their prices under Legere, that's what blows the entire premise without context up. Free doesn't have a network infrastructure IIRC, they ride off others. And we don't see the true picture of what happened in Austria from one media account.

 

What's a better path? More than four carriers riding off three networks. That could be achievable with Dish and Google.

[Fraydog]

I wonder how well that would go over as T & VZ are already having garage sales to help pay for the spectrum that they already bought (among other things).

I don't think it would. I don't think the Big 2 are huge fans. That said, if VZW bought out Dish, I would not be shocked.

[lou99/maximus1987]

So why is the US still more expensive than the countries you mentioned?

 

Still more expensive than Japan, France, and Austria. The dirty little secret is that T-Mobile raised their prices under Legere, that's what blows the entire premise without context up. Free doesn't have a network infrastructure IIRC, they ride off others. And we don't see the true picture of what happened in Austria from one media account.

 

What's a better path? More than four carriers riding off three networks. That could be achievable with Dish and Google.

 

My amateur opinion is: 

1) the lack of equal distribution of low-band spectrum has resulted in a duopoly instead of true 4 carrier competition.

2) you CANNOT just do the currency change and compare straight up america to any other country. I almost want to start banging my head against the wall. I will speak about Europe since I've been there. The taxes are higher, cost of living is higher and the population is crazy concentrated. So, infrastructure need is less and the cost of living thing naturally leads to lower prices.

3) I have tmobile - on family unlimited plan. me, wife brother pay $159. I think the prices for tmo are fair even if they've gone up since legere.

And tmo is the reason for almost all the good happening in telecom in usa. Cricket aka att just increased their data (twice now in less than a year) $35/45/55 2.5gb/5gb/10gb or 20gb for limited time. Sprint for awhile has been acting like tmo doesn't exist but is now truly competing. Many of sprint's moves are reactions to tmo instead of leading. THIS is what's making me put in my 2cents to "fight" like hell against any merge regardless of who's CEO.

4) Free is using Orange's network but :

As stipulated in the terms of its licence, Free Mobile is now required to be providing 75% of the population with 3G coverage by January 2015 and 90% by January 2018

http://www.arcep.fr/index.php?id=8571&L=1&tx_gsactualite_pi1%5Buid%5D=1495&tx_gsactualite_pi1%5BbackID%5D=1&cHash=b22eade181

 

Now a better point you could've made regarding Free is that it has a landline business it's using to cushion the wireless' low margins. Fine. Let sprint team up with Google fiber to subsidize rollout and in exchange sprint would get marketing like "google fiber + sprint spark = blah blah blah" I don't know but SOMETHING.

 

5) Austria: then google it yourself. it's all the same story. I gave you two sources.

 

6) Google MVNO sounds good except for what is publicly known: Sprint said "if you get too successful, we get to reign you in". MVNO can't properly compete against its host so that's not real competition.

 

A solid reason NOT to trust softbank+sprint and their "we promise to compete vigorously" is the reuters article i posted above of Japan's mobile market; 3 carriers just doesn't provide enough competition.

[mhammett]

No, no no no. That's not the takeaway from this.

 

The FCC should welcome new entrants into telecom. But spectrum sold should always have strong buildout requirements.

 

All the FCC needs to do is have and enforce strong buildout requirements. Serious new entrants will meet them. Fake new entrants won't, and will loose their spectrum. 

 

There's also the issue of lack of equipment. Unless someone like the big three ask for equipment in that band, it doesn't get made. Just ask all of those telcos that got 700 MHz licenses where the big guys haven't built out (frequency wise). Sprint has done well with their RRPP program. Well, if it pans out.

 

Yes but established telcos - the big four plus regionals - ARE in it for the capacity/coverage that new spectrum provides.

With "new entrants", you don't know if they're speculators or not.

 

And honestly at this point, can a new entrant legitimately compete with >100% saturation? I don't think so.

 

There are a ton of small carriers out there that need moar spectrum.

 

Thats...that's not how government broadband typically works...

 

This is getting offtopic, but I've also built and worked for an independent ISP. I've also met with half-a-dozen other ISP's across Michigan. Title 2 + Municipal Fiber would be a godsend to basically all of them. (Even the ones that already paid to put their own fiber in the ground).

 

Gigabit Fiber to homes, $65/month, from your pick of 8 different providers (on top of regular Cable + DSL services). "Government fiber" is real, it exists today, it's not "controlled" by the government in any noticable manner, and it basically rocks. - http://www.utopianet.org/pricelist/

 

While there are plenty of growing pains with programs like that, it's clearly the right direction to push for. We need people to promote this. Not pretending it's some sort of "government boondoggle"

 

Look at ARRA's BTOP and BIP. Tons of crap came out of that. Illinois got...  $250M? What did we get? Networks that stole the anchor customers from any of their buildouts while providing overpriced transport. Now the independents have a significantly harder time. That model repeats itself...  almost ubiquitously in the government broadband world.

So we have to have massive duplicate networks because MURICA. Got it!

 

Competition, so yeah. Everyone wins. How much innovation was there when there wasn't competition?

 

The US is already paying some of the highest prices in the world. That's with four carriers. The real issue is that it's not four carriers. It's two strong and two weak.

 

Yet we have the largest and fastest mobile networks? Europeans would rather cheap service than good service. I'll take the good service, thank you.

[maxsilver]

There's also the issue of lack of equipment. Unless someone like the big three ask for equipment in that band, it doesn't get made. Just ask all of those telcos that got 700 MHz licenses where the big guys haven't built out (frequency wise). Sprint has done well with their RRPP program. Well, if it pans out.

For mom-and-pop shops, I would somewhat agree. (Although if any meaningful number of them could afford licensed spectrum, Ubiquiti would probably make gear for them)

 

But I certainly fail to see how that applies to Dish. They have no trouble finding vendors to make them custom satellite dishes or custom advertisement-skipping DVR's.  They could get the custom gear they need, if bothered to try.

 

Strong buildout requirements might make "lack of equipment" an issue for tiny providers. But DISH has no excuse on that front.

 

There are a ton of small carriers out there that need moar spectrum.

Agree, 100%. Not to mention rural WISPs who could do some amazing things with licensed spectrum.

 

 

Look at ARRA's BTOP and BIP. Tons of crap came out of that. Illinois got...  $250M? What did we get? Networks that stole the anchor customers from any of their buildouts while providing overpriced transport. Now the independents have a significantly harder time. That model repeats itself...  almost ubiquitously in the government broadband world.

Which is why most people are advocating for Title II + Municipal Broadband. Which would give independents equal footing on every one of those networks, enforced by law. It's not free money like the ARRA's mess.

 

Every example I'm aware of of local Municipal service with Title II (or similar) protections has been extremely popular, and worked really well. If you can point to any examples where that did *not* happen, I'd love to hear them. 

 

 

Competition, so yeah. Everyone wins. How much innovation was there when there wasn't competition?

When there is competition, I'd agree. For instance, mobile is (currently) fairly competitive, in my opinion.

 

But in other areas (landline broadband) -- there's zero competition in almost every market. It makes a lot of since to me for local municipalities to be allowed to build their own last mile, so long as it's protected by Title II. Especially since they often do a good job with it.

[Fraydog]

Yet we have the largest and fastest mobile networks? Europeans would rather cheap service than good service. I'll take the good service, thank you.

I think that's why AT&T and Verizon owned this market - well, that and they rounded up the low band more or less. Fastest? I don't know about that. Australia is pretty good with Telstra. Canada's Big 3 do pretty good there too. Those carriers are all expensive and like Verizon, they also cover rural like crazy. I see lots of parallels there. Only major difference is Verizon is CDMA.

[MacinJosh]

Anyway I don't think sprint and TMO should aim for rurals. They should run up the numbers in urban areas and say "and by the way we have rural coverage too!"

Are you saying that Sprint and TMO should neglect rural areas in a sort? I live in a rural area where even coverage in my house sucks with the duopoly, and the closest AT&T, Verizon, and TMO sites are 3 miles from me, and the closest Sprint site is 5 miles from me, and yet, service is the same for all 4 carriers. Building up your numbers in concentrated areas is like putting all your eggs in one basket. Someone runs into you, you drop the basket, and SMASH!

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk 3.1.1

[lou99/maximus1987]

Are you saying that Sprint and TMO should neglect rural areas in a sort? I live in a rural area where even coverage in my house sucks with the duopoly, and the closest AT&T, Verizon, and TMO sites are 3 miles from me, and the closest Sprint site is 5 miles from me, and yet, service is the same for all 4 carriers. Building up your numbers in concentrated areas is like putting all your eggs in one basket. Someone runs into you, you drop the basket, and SMASH!

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk 3.1.1

I'm saying they should build enough to make the people living in urban areas happy when they travel. My def of urban may be looser than yours. For me urban is anywhere you don't need a car to walk to the next house within 5 mins

[WiWavelength]

My expectation is that mhammett does not want municipal broadband because he does not want that added competition.  That is understandable if his WISP is his livelihood.

 

But some jobs and businesses have to fall by the wayside in the name of progress.  Sorry.  And broadband progress driven by WISPs is not going to be sufficient.

 

Wireless spectrum is too finite.  Only investment in fiber -- to the premises or at least to the node -- is adequate for the future.  It must be run everywhere and offered at utility level prices.

 

For profit incumbents/entrepreneurs are generally not willing to make that longterm investment -- except in select locations.  Municipal broadband may be the only way to fill that digital divide.

 

See Chattanooga, TN and Lafayette, LA.

 

AJ

[MacinJosh]

I'm saying they should build enough to make the people living in urban areas happy when they travel. My def of urban may be looser than yours. For me urban is anywhere you don't need a car to walk to the next house within 5 mins

My definition of rural is when I have to drive over 1 mile to go to a grocery store. I live 6 miles from the nearest grocery store. I grew up in Vegas.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk 3.1.1

[Fraydog]

I'm saying they should build enough to make the people living in urban areas happy when they travel. My def of urban may be looser than yours. For me urban is anywhere you don't need a car to walk to the next house within 5 mins

By that definition Chester is urban. Yet the surroundings are not. Guess what people drive through? The surroundings.

 

Even people who live in the city travel to the sticks. See AT&T and VZ subscriber numbers.