T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2

[Fraydog]

Speed test still works on a dead SIM. Not bad for edge of cell band 2 IMO. But yeah, this is in an area that still shows 2G on the map.

 

 

 

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[WiWavelength]

Speed test still works on a dead SIM. Not bad for edge of cell band 2 IMO. But yeah, this is in an area that still shows 2G on the map.

 

Not bad -- but still bad.  A 19/1 Mbps speed test suggests that T-Mobile is stacking the deck on signal bars.  Ground mount band 2 in rural areas is, honestly, horse pucky.  But, hey, we can crank up the downlink EIRP to make it look better.  Who cares about uplink reciprocity?

 

AJ

[WiWavelength]

Maybe this is old news, but I just noticed the promotion in an MLB.com article.  The 2015 MLB All-Star Game in Cincinnati "presented by T-Mobile."  Ooh, that has to sting a bit for Magenta.  Among MLB markets, Cincinnati is the worst case scenario for T-Mobile.  That is almost ironic.

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

Not bad -- but still bad. A 19/1 Mbps speed test suggests that T-Mobile is stacking the deck on signal bars. Ground mount band 2 in rural areas is, honestly, horse pucky. But, hey, we can crank up the downlink EIRP to make it look better. Who cares about uplink reciprocity?

 

AJ

I get similar uploads on VZW in their weak signal areas too...which is a lot more places than it seems, even though Verizon is what almost everyone has here. I suspect the iPhone's last few carrier bundles had new baseband software that borked the uploads, but I have no way to ever prove it. See the iPhone threads, I know people on Sprint were blaming the carrier updates as well.

 

 

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[Rawvega]

 

 

I think the issue is that Sprint (and VZW) wouldn't be able to bring much reciprocal roaming to the table, which helps balance out the numbers so T-Mobile (and if they want AT&T) can offset the high charges in those countries against what they're getting from letting Rogers/Bell/Telus/Movistar/Telcel etc roam in the U.S. And Softbank doesn't have much to offer those companies to reciprocate except cheap Japan roaming in return - and that's not exactly a big draw for them.

I wonder if in the future Sprint would be able to offer voice and data roaming to these carriers via Band 2 LTE using MFBI. Of course that would have to be after they refarm more of their A-F PCS holdings and get VoLTE deployed, but a possible maybe.

[Paynefanbro]

Look up Chester, IL (62233, I know it's not that far from you but roll with it) on T-Mobile's site. It still shows up as EDGE. Yet, it's full LTE. T-Mobile isn't exactly fast about updating their maps at this point. Look at Sensorly, there's a bunch of areas like this.

 

Maybe T-Mobile's top brass is overestimating their coverage, but as far as the actual operation of the company, it's still very conservative in estimating coverage. Hence the disconnect.

That's different from what most of us are wondering about. I'm pretty sure Chester already had some semblance of T-Mobile coverage in the form of 2G before T-Mobile announced their network expansion. What I and many others are confused about is how they are covering 290 Million when that should have required a huge expansion of their native footprint, which as far as we all know, simply hasn't occurred. That EoY 2015 coverage map is what I'm assuming 300 Million POP's covered is supposed to look like but T-Mobile's network is not much larger than it was this time last year and I'm supposed to believe they're covering 290 Million people. That just doesn't make sense to me.

[Fraydog]

That's different from what most of us are wondering about. I'm pretty sure Chester already had some semblance of T-Mobile coverage in the form of 2G before T-Mobile announced their network expansion. What I and many others are confused about is how they are covering 290 Million when that should have required a huge expansion of their native footprint, which as far as we all know, simply hasn't occurred. That EoY 2015 coverage map is what I'm assuming 300 Million POP's covered is supposed to look like but T-Mobile's network is not much larger than it was this time last year and I'm supposed to believe they're covering 290 Million people. That just doesn't make sense to me.

That's correct, but without LTE, it was a non-starter for anyone wanting service. The 2G here was often non-functional for data. So, in essence, it is a coverage expansion. Now if one wants to make the argument that T-Mobile should have used 3G UMTS here, I'd agree with that. They might have been growing quicker with rural 3G coverage.

 

 

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[Paynefanbro]

That's correct, but without LTE, it was a non-starter for anyone wanting service. The 2G here was often non-functional for data. So, in essence, it is a coverage expansion. Now if one wants to make the argument that T-Mobile should have used 3G UMTS here, I'd agree with that. They might have been growing quicker with rural 3G coverage.

 

 

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It's an LTE expansion into an existing footprint, not an network expansion in terms of geographic area. It's my observation that in the past 6 months, Sprint has expanded into new areas even more than T-Mobile has and T-Mobile has the 300 Million POPs goal.

[Fraydog]

It's an LTE expansion into an existing footprint, not an network expansion in terms of geographic area. It's my observation that in the past 6 months, Sprint has expanded into new areas even more than T-Mobile has and T-Mobile has the 300 Million goal.

Has Sprint really expanded other than the Project Ocean areas though? I'm not complaining here, there's some Project Ocean around me I may not be at liberty to talk about in detail, but I have seen new adds around me. That said, I don't see massive expansion from either group at this point.

 

 

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[Paynefanbro]

Has Sprint really expanded other than the Project Ocean areas though? I'm not complaining here, there's some Project Ocean around me I may not be at liberty to talk about in detail, but I have seen new adds around me. That said, I don't see massive expansion from either group at this point.

 

 

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You omit Project Ocean but T-Mobile hasn't done anything comparable in size to that as of yet. Additionally Sprint has increased coverage in my own home market with the addition of a new tower in an area that was previously virtually roaming only. (Roaming outdoors in NYC did exist)

[Mercurial1]

Interesting... I was taking a look at T-Mobile's preliminary results for customer adds in Q2, and their postpaid net phone adds dropped from 991,000 to 760,000, and postpaid mobile broadband net additions jumped from 134,000 to 248,000. If you ask me, that looks like they are "padding" lower phone adds with higher mobile broadband adds.

I have not verified this but I was told that T Mobile is counting migrations from their prepaid to post paid as post acts. This is one way they are able to put up the numbers they have.

 

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[mittenmitten]

I have not verified this but I was told that T Mobile is counting migrations from their prepaid to post paid as post acts. This is one way they are able to put up the numbers they have.

 

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not only that but their immensely popular $30 5gb prepaid plan is for new activations only. considering their customers' use of  unlocked phones, people are constantly switching between AT&T and T-Mobile MVNOs. when I had a nexus 4 on T-Mobile, between switching from MetroPCS to T-Mobile prepaid to Straight Talk I must have counted as a dozen activations myself.

 

their postpaid activations are down QoQ, the fun bus is slowing down

[luvixuha]

when I had a nexus 4 on T-Mobile, between switching from MetroPCS to T-Mobile prepaid to Straight Talk I must have counted as a dozen activations myself.

 

You realize they are only counting net activations, right? If you join T-Mobile and then port out to AT&T and then Rejoin T-Mobile (within the same Q), that doesn't count as 2 adds. If you do it a hundred times it doesn't count as 100 net adds, it still is one net add.

[mittenmitten]

You realize they are only counting net activations, right? If you join T-Mobile and then port out to AT&T and then Rejoin T-Mobile (within the same Q), that doesn't count as 2 adds. If you do it a hundred times it doesn't count as 100 net adds, it still is one net add.

 

T-Mobile keeps inactive accounts for 2-3 months, which means they can drop off right after the quarter ends. It depends really, I know VoIP/Google Voice is really popular with those $30 accounts to circumvent the 100 minutes cap, if someone moves from T-Mobile to AT&T then back to T-Mobile (which is more common than you think with people using unlocked phones) using VoIP they likely won't take their 'number' with them, in which case that's 2 accounts. Probably not super common, but we're talking a 300k difference in Sprint's last count compared to T-Mobile's current count, there are a ton of ways these numbers can be inaccurate, and neither Sprint nor T-Mobile are being super transparent about what they do and don't count.

 

When T-Mobile pulls ahead by a couple million, then I'll think of them as #3, but until then, this is just posturing. There's a 20 million customer difference between AT&T and Verizon, and a 50 million customer difference between #2 and #3. meh.

[Fraydog]

T-Mobile keeps inactive accounts for 2-3 months

Yes, there's sometimes where I haven't loaded the $30 SIM for months. I've only had to buy two, for what it's worth.

 

 

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[mittenmitten]

Yes, there's sometimes where I haven't loaded the $30 SIM for months. I've only had to buy two, for what it's worth.

 

 

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I have about a dozen nano sims from MetroPCS, Cricket, and T-Mobile prepaid in my kitchen drawer lol. Still have a T-Mobile prepaid sim kit, was 99 cents, just in case

[Fraydog]

Honestly the 3 vs. 4 debate has got to the point where it is silly. The duopoly is still going to make 90% of the profit and up, maybe even 100% of the profit. Meanwhile, Sprint and T-Mobile stories still generate the most flame wars on the Internets.

 

I can see why some would want the two to combine if for no other reason to resolve the conflict and bring the focus on the Duopoly for the fight.

 

 

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[WiWavelength]

Yes, there's sometimes where I haven't loaded the $30 SIM for months. I've only had to buy two, for what it's worth.

 

The best deal for a highly intermittent T-Mobile user is the $3 per day 200 MB plan.  However, it may no longer be available to new subs.

 

I have reason to use T-Mobile at most two or three times per year.  A $10 refill every 90 days or so keeps my account active and my plan in place.  So, that is an outlay of $40 per year, tops.

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

http://m.seekingalpha.com/article/3317735

 

Interesting analysis, though I would be more concerned about the bad direction in free cash flow even without spectrum acquisition and other intangible assets. It's the bear's case against TMUS - at some point, they have to deliver a nice profit by retaining customers. Zhang's counter is that T-Mobile is greatly decreasing churn. True, but I don't see it lifting profitability on their end yet.

 

 

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[mittenmitten]

Another point to consider would be the early termination fees that TMUS is offering to pay for all new customers who switch to their network. For FY2014, this figure was $58M, which is nearly half of its net profit for the entire year.

 

think about it though. T-Mobile is paying their competitors half of their profits just to claim a customer as their own. their competitors could turn around and spend that money trying to win them back and come out neutral (like Sprint, essentially spending what they're being paid from shedding customers on gaining new more profitable customers using the exact same method as T-Mobile, effectively canceling it out). but most of the carriers aren't doing anything. why? because T-Mobile added 2 million customers. that's just 4/5 of 1% of their collective customer base.

 

If I were Verizon or AT&T or Sprint, I would just let T-Mobile pay me half their profits, conduct business as usual, and wait for the fire to burn itself out. Or, if I wanted my customers back really bad, wait until T-Mobile is broke, which is going to be from now until late 2016, then offer promotions.

[JimBob]

If I were Verizon or AT&T or Sprint, I would just let T-Mobile pay me half their profits, conduct business as usual, and wait for the fire to burn itself out. Or, if I wanted my customers back really bad, wait until T-Mobile is broke, which is going to be from now until late 2016, then offer promotions.

How will T-Mobile go broke?

[derrph]

How will T-Mobile go broke?

I think he means when T-Mobile starts to scale back on promos and or changing of pricing on plans.

 

 

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[mittenmitten]

How will T-Mobile go broke?

 

they paid ~$300-$400 to get a customer on their network, they need to profit that much from them to come out to 0, which will take about a year. they spent a year heavily promoting and advertising, they have to slow it down to actually see those profits a year from now otherwise they'll just keep pushing back the time they'll see profitability. in that year, Verizon and AT&T could spend all that money T-Mobile gave them for their customers on promotions to try to steal them back or gain new ones to replace them and come out to 0. really the only customers T-Mobile will immediately profit from are the ones they didn't have to pay for.

 

it's a good thing T-Mobile started offering leasing, because there's practically no pressure on customers to remain with them so they can see those profits (being 'no contract' and all) should the other carriers decide to drop prices / heavily promote.

[travismheim]

it's a good thing T-Mobile started offering leasing, because there's practically no pressure on customers to remain with them so they can see those profits (being 'no contract' and all) should the other carriers decide to drop prices / heavily promote.

 EIP is essentially the same thing as a contract. The same customers that could not  afford to pay (or did not want to pay) an early termination fee likely can not afford to pay off their device balances in full if they want to leave early. In many cases, depending on the device EIP can have a larger financial burden if you want to leave early after switching or signing a commitment.

[mittenmitten]

 EIP is essentially the same thing as a contract. The same customers that could not  afford to pay (or did not want to pay) an early termination fee likely can not afford to pay off their device balances in full if they want to leave early. In many cases, depending on the device EIP can have a larger financial burden if you want to leave early after switching or signing a commitment.

 

there's no penalty for terminating EIP, you just sell the device to pay off the balance. and you can't completely disregard the use of unlocked devices on their network...