T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2

[derrph]

Thoughts on this

http://www.tmonews.com/2015/08/t-mobile-running-preferred-wi-fi-network-trial-in-select-markets/

[gusherb]

Thoughts on this http://www.tmonews.com/2015/08/t-mobile-running-preferred-wi-fi-network-trial-in-select-markets/

If well executed it should workout very well. If Brighthouse hotspots are anything like the Assfinity hotspots we have all over here then the trial is doomed out of the gate...

[greenbastard]

If well executed it should workout very well. If Brighthouse hotspots are anything like the Assfinity hotspots we have all over here then the trial is doomed out of the gate...

Xfinity hotspots have become more annoying than helpful. Most businesses don't have them, so they are non existent in a lot of heavy traffic areas. And if you do happen to stumble upon a Comcast hotspot, its very unreliable. Pings most of the times are higher than Sprint LTE and speeds will sometimes bog down mysteriously to a dead hault.

 

Then add the fact that phones like the S5 hold on to WiFi for dear life, and the experience is horrendous. Driving around town and streaming a live music feed causes a lot of headaches. Too many drops as my phone latches on to a fringe WiFi signal as I drive by and doesn't let go.

[tybo31316]

Xfinity hotspots have become more annoying than helpful. Most businesses don't have them, so they are non existent in a lot of heavy traffic areas. And if you do happen to stumble upon a Comcast hotspot, its very unreliable. Pings most of the times are higher than Sprint LTE and speeds will sometimes bog down mysteriously to a dead hault.

 

Then add the fact that phones like the S5 hold on to WiFi for dear life, and the experience is horrendous. Driving around town and streaming a live music feed causes a lot of headaches. Too many drops as my phone latches on to a fringe WiFi signal as I drive by and doesn't let go.

The only Xfinity hot spots that I've found useful. Is ones that run off the xfinity Wi-Fi routers inside of homes. The ones I usually connect to out in public settings are trash.

 

In fact if I was a wireless carrier I would not want to rely on public Wi-Fi as a substitute to your macro network

 

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[derrph]

Honestly I don't know how I feel about this only because it's like a cop out for T-Mobile to have people rely on wifi instead of the network they are paying monthly for. In theory it sounds cool but at the same time it feel like T-Mobile is trying to protect its network for crumbling because of the influx of customers.

 

 

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[joshuam]

It's the same thing Sprint is doing with Boingo in Airports, just on a different scale. I've not used the Boingo service yet, but it is sorely needed judging by the recent RootMetrics report for Airports.

[Fraydog]

The Fabian Cortez comments on Fierce are just too hilarious today.

 

 

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[gusherb]

When I traveled this July I tried to be a "Good wireless customer" and do my part by using wifi as much as possible and I gotta say that was one huge disaster. When staying at Hotels the experience ranged from having to hold my phone in a certain spot in the room and having constant timeouts, to the best being attwifi at a couple of Hilton owned hotels which worked but still wasn't satisfactory.

 

Actually I did have one very surprisingly good experience with public wifi and that was the San Antonio (TX) municipal wifi at the Mercado downtown, which seemed to cover the grounds extremely well and a speed test netted 30 down 50 up (yes 50 mbps up!)

 

My free 30 minutes of Boingo WiFi at O'Hare wasn't bad either, but this and the other one are just the exceptions to what I found. 85% of the wifi I attempted to use was just awful and ended up shutting it off within 60 seconds and just used my LTE. One hotel was so bad I ended up actually tethering my iPad to iPhone because the wifi just disappeared for hours on end.

 

I hope their experiment doesn't go like anything I experienced. I've personally lost faith in public wifi and avoid it as much as possible.

[S4GRU]

I have not been happy with hotel WiFi the past two years.  Of my 2 dozen hotels stays in the past 24 months, only one had a great WiFi experience.  A handful were mediocre, but usable.  The vast majority were under 500kbps.  And a few completely unusable.

[greenbastard]

I have not been happy with hotel WiFi the past two years. Of my 2 dozen hotels stays in the past 24 months, only one had a great WiFi experience. A handful were mediocre, but usable. The vast majority were under 500kbps. And a few completely unusable.

Vegas hotels come to mind. Even when you pay for it, its still slow.

[Arysyn]

I have not been happy with hotel WiFi the past two years. Of my 2 dozen hotels stays in the past 24 months, only one had a great WiFi experience. A handful were mediocre, but usable. The vast majority were under 500kbps. And a few completely unusable.

I've stayed at a few hotels in the past recent years and find the WiFi to be lacking in most of them. Also, it can be really dependant on the location of the room. Some hotels need to either upgrade their routers or install more of them throughout.

[Rawvega]

The Fabian Cortez comments on Fierce are just too hilarious today.

 

 

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That poor fool is truly divorced from reality. It makes trying to have any rational discussion with him seem like  

[bretton88]

I have not been happy with hotel WiFi the past two years. Of my 2 dozen hotels stays in the past 24 months, only one had a great WiFi experience. A handful were mediocre, but usable. The vast majority were under 500kbps. And a few completely unusable.

I've been fortunate to have decent hotel WiFi lately. I find Marriott hotels (all chains) are generally better. But I'm platinum with them, so I get free access to their paid tier.

[EvanA]

Sioux Falls, SD is finally getting the GMO LTE treatment from T-Mobile.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/3g9app/_/

[Fraydog]

Well, now it's the contract thing on FierceWireless. Whatever, but my points today were this:

 

Marcelo can't take credit for the beginning of the shift off contracts, he couldn't even if he had taken the ability of Sprint to sell contracts away. That was already set in motion under the endings of the Hesse era under Framily. Framily had a whole load of issues, but that plan wasn't a contract plan. The contract plans haven't been pushed for a while. Marcelo left contracts on the table, but it wasn't a focus for a long time. Even when T-Mobile eliminated their contract plans in 2013, there was a period where retailers like Costco and Walmart still offered contract plans. Even T-Mobile's transition wasn't a straight 100% to no contract transition.

What I don't understand is the zeal on your part to eliminate contracts as an option for Sprint customers. What do you gain out of this personally? The duopoly used the transition to no contract as an excuse to charge consumers more money. A primary consideration with the elimination of contracts would be "can it save people money?" Honestly, I don't think the transition has been as good as I thought. People are still paying $600+ on smartphones. They're still having to pay off device financing unless they go to T-Mobile, and there's still lots of people unwilling to make that change. T-Mobile's at 1-2 million contracts bought out. JOD doesn't have the contract buyout. I checked, as someone looking at switching from Verizon to T-Mobile.

I think Sprint can say they were out in front of one thing - the transition to leasing. Jump On Demand is being pushed hard at the T-Mobile stores in the St. Louis area. What's on the rate flyers besides phones? JOD. JOD - a leasing program! - is a good thing, I wasn't willing to consider a switch before that.

 

I'll also add here that if I were such a Sprint defender and T-Mobile hater, why wouldn't I just stay on Verizon until Sprint builds out where I live? Some hater I am, clearly I'm not doing the Magenta hating thing right. 

[Fraydog]

Also, on Reddit, people are talking Legere's Periscope today. 

 

He hints at T-Mobile making an acquisition. People seem to think it's USCC or CSpire. 

[lilotimz]

Also, on Reddit, people are talking Legere's Periscope today. 

 

He hints at T-Mobile making an acquisition. People seem to think it's USCC or CSpire. 

 

Softbank/Sprint will go into a bidding war for both. Both are far too strategic to Sprint for them to let them go without a fight. 

[Fraydog]

Softbank/Sprint will go into a bidding war for both. Both are far too strategic to Sprint for them to let them go without a fight.

I hope you're right. If Sprint loses both, or doesn't get at least one...

 

 

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[caspar347]

Also, on Reddit, people are talking Legere's Periscope today.

 

He hints at T-Mobile making an acquisition. People seem to think it's USCC or CSpire.

CSpire makes little sense for T-Mobile network-wise (didn't stop them with Metro of course, so it's obviously possible) and so far it doesn't look like USCC wants to sell. I'll believe either when I see it.

[Mr.Nuke]

The whole Deutsche Telekom suddenly giving them money to buy another carrier when they haven't seemingly offered a lot of support/had been actively shopping T-Mobile seems sketchy too.

[sbolen]

The whole Deutsche Telekom suddenly giving them money to buy another carrier when they haven't seemingly offered a lot of support/had been actively shopping T-Mobile seems sketchy too.

Especially with the 600 auction coming up. Why all of a sudden fork over lots of cash for a M&A?

 

I would expect SoftBank to open up their checkbook to buy USCC before TMO. Then again, this could be a play to get Sprint into a weaker financial position heading into the auction...

[lilotimz]

Especially with the 600 auction coming up. Why all of a sudden fork over lots of cash for a M&A?

 

I would expect SoftBank to open up their checkbook to buy USCC before TMO. Then again, this could be a play to get Sprint into a weaker financial position heading into the auction...

 

Really a double edge sword if they do force Sprint into buying USCC. On one hand Sprint has to no doubts spend billions to acquire USCC and merge its network. On the other hand, T-mobile screws themselves over by letting Sprint acquire a huge fuck ton of complementary coverage in areas where neither Sprint or Tmobile have much presence and locking in those millions of subscribers in rural areas. That's 8000 additional cell sites to Sprint instantly in addition to 700A, cellular 850 (some areas have BOTH A and B blocks), PCS, and AWS spectrum. Sprint wouldn't even need to bid on 600 in those areas at all. 

[sbolen]

Really a double edge sword if they do force Sprint into buying USCC. On one hand Sprint has to no doubts spend billions to acquire USCC and merge its network. On the other hand, T-mobile screws themselves over by letting Sprint acquire a huge fuck ton of complementary coverage in areas where neither Sprint or Tmobile have much presence and locking in those millions of subscribers in rural areas. That's 8000 additional cell sites to Sprint instantly in addition to 700A, cellular 850 (some areas have BOTH A and B blocks), PCS, and AWS spectrum. Sprint wouldn't even need to bid on 600 in those areas at all.

How many POPs are in a fuck ton? [emoji23]

[caspar347]

That's 8000 additional cell sites to Sprint instantly in addition to 700A, cellular 850 (some areas have BOTH A and B blocks), PCS, and AWS spectrum. Sprint wouldn't even need to bid on 600 in those areas at all. 

Their low-band holdings in NC would be a godsend for Sprint subs here especially around Asheville and all along 74 and 95. The extra sites would mean entirely new service through all of rural and semi-rural far eastern and western NC. It would make Sprint a real option for a huge number of people here that are currently served by 1x800 and roaming. Plus all of the people that frequently travel from the metro areas out to see relatives in more rural areas (like me and many people I know) might consider Sprint over Verizon if they have usable service on the road.

[thefisch6]

Really a double edge sword if they do force Sprint into buying USCC. On one hand Sprint has to no doubts spend billions to acquire USCC and merge its network. On the other hand, T-mobile screws themselves over by letting Sprint acquire a huge fuck ton of complementary coverage in areas where neither Sprint or Tmobile have much presence and locking in those millions of subscribers in rural areas. That's 8000 additional cell sites to Sprint instantly in addition to 700A, cellular 850 (some areas have BOTH A and B blocks), PCS, and AWS spectrum. Sprint wouldn't even need to bid on 600 in those areas at all.

Don't tease me like that. Dear Lord, this would be amazing pretty much nationwide.