iansltx

It's official: Google Fiber is coming to Austin. AT&T has also said that, provided they get the same incentives that Google does, they'll run gigabit as well. I trust AT&T about as far as I can throw one of their VRADs, but we'll see what happens between now and when Google connects its first customer, over a year from now.

AT&T bought the wireless arm of XIT, a smaller but similar entity to Nex-Tech etc. I wouldn't rule out a wireless buyout of the same sort, particularly since the sellers could then turn around and resell whoever they thought actually provided the best coverage in the region...and sell top-of-the-line phones on that carrier that they might not be able to get, or get cheaply, alone.

+1 on MetroPCS's network in Florida. Have several extended family members that either used them in the past or still use them, and have never heard about any issues from them. Of course, if you're out of MetroPCS's coverage area then you're roaming on Sprint, but there are worse things (like being out of T-Mobile's 3G coverage area and running on GPRS). I'd say the easiest way to get a T-Mobile line to play with is to wait until the Nexus 4 gets re-certified for LTE (I still think it'll happen sooner rather than later), then grab both it and a plan from a T-Mobile MVNO; I hear that they'll all get LTE (just as Sprint's MVNOs have) and they're a bit cheaper than T-Mobile branded service.

"Essentially free" is right, since it runs on the control channel of CDMA. Doesn't even impact voice capacity. Though if you're in a really congested area, SMS will fail as well. I've had this happen (Heavenfest 2011 and 2012).

AWS LTE is available on iPhones moved from AT&T to T-Mobile. It's AWS (DC-)HSPA+ that isn't available on A1428 iPhones bought prior to 4/12.

Thanks for the corrections. I don't guarantee my next post will be consistent with "knowing what I'm talking about" either, but it's nice to have someone who can give correct information.

I don't think the "data usage plague" is as bad as folks think, at least with regard to the iPhone specifically. Legere said that GS III users on average pull down 3GB per month on their network. With most iPhone users split between AT&T and Verizon, you aren't seeing that kind of average usage there. There's a reason T-Mobile was comfortable with pricing unlimited on-phone data the same as 4.5GB of use-anywhere data, per-line.

Actually, I'll bet Apple's wholesale to TMo for the iPhone is right around $580. Samsung's wholesale for the S III, however, is probably a bit lower than $550.

To my knowledge, both CricKet and MetroPCS are customer-only networks; no one actually roams ONTO either. Show me a PRL other than MetroPCS's that includes a MetroPCS SID and I'll concede that, but even then MetroPCS can just use the same SID in PCS as they use in AWS, since no CDMA phone exists with AWS and not PCS. And MetroPCS + CricKet are the only providers, to my knowledge, who use CDMA in AWS anyway. But I may be a bit more wrong with that statement.

I don't know about "shifted" so much as "made transparent". I foresee an uptick in the number of unlocked T-Mobile compatible phones showing up on eBay etc. as people choose to set their own upgrade cycles. You can do this now anyway by paying your ETF early (and, put another way, T-Mobile is effectively giving you a $480 ETF if you buy their iPhone "on contract"...sneaky) but there's a stigma associated with that. If you don't have to have the latest, greatest phone, you can buy used (probably half the cost of new via EIP, but you have to pay all at once) or get a lower-end phone via EIP, so you're paying $15-$18 per month with less money down, rather than $20 per month. In comparison, Verizon charges more for non-contract than contract, and doesn't differentiate their monthly price depending on whether you get a cheap or an expensive phone, other than the $10 monthly discount for getting a non-smartphone versus a smartphone. Speaking of Verizon, $30 per month under contract for unlimited voice + text and shared data is now obvious highway robbery when you compare to $10 + EIP on T-Mobile, which includes 500MB of data and doesn't preclude getting a smartphone. Funny how you can get an HTC 8X with unlimited + unlimited + 500MB for less per month than a flip phone with no data. Sprint is quite a bit better than VZW in this regard, at least for now, since you're paying $30 per line beyond the first two and, at this point with so many people being cell-only, getting the same thing that you'd get with T-Mobile's $30 per month ($10 + $20 for unlimited data), except without an EIP to worry about.

I'd contend that fixed usage is actually *easier* to deal with, because you can plan for capacity increases, rather than having someone spike in usage in one area, then go to another and spike again. On the one hand, you can add another 5x5 LTE carrier to a single sector, or add TD-LTE, or whatever. On the other, you add capacity willy-nilly and pray that it's enough. Hence why DASes at airports and sports fields are a Very Good Thing ™, and why cell service was spotty at the F1 track a few months ago (where, aside from a couple events per year, the entire network sits dormant).

Or you can pay $90 per month, plus $100 up front. Then $70 after the first two years. Sure, that puts T-Mobile only $20 short of Sprint's Simply Everything plan, or $10 above the 450 + Any Mobile plan that's all most folks need. But that's how most folks will end up getting TMo service anyway; it's just a different way to package the phone subsidy.

Sprint is making 5x5 LTE work, even in NYC. TMo should be fine, though they can't crow about their LTE speeds. As for MetroLTE -> TMoLTE, my bet is that NYC gets reconfigured within three months of the deal happening. Send down a PRL update to the MetroPCS phones to start using T-Mobile LTE rather than MetroPCS, then tell the MetroPCS base stations to stop broadcasting LTE, then tell the T-Mobile base stations to use the now-free MetroPCS spectrum for LTE. There may be a bit of rejiggering as any 1x or EvDO channels in AWS get moved (within AWS or, more likely, pushed to PCS spectrum owned by T-Mobile) but, despite the fact that 5x5 is sorta-enough in NYC, T-Mobile would much rather have more LTE online now than later.

Fact is, T-Mobile will be cannibalizing some of its HSPA+ spectrum in AWS to make way for LTE. In some areas, all of it. Now they'll have PCS HSPA+ for backup, potentially DC-HSPA+ 42 Mbps, but in the same amount of spectrum that T-Mobile uses for DC-HSPA+, Sprint can deploy two 5x5 LTE carriers, with 75% more throughput in ideal conditions. In less than ideal conditions, Sprint can hit speeds on 5x5 LTE that T-Mobile takes DC-HSPA+ (double the spectrum) to achieve. But getting back to LTE, T-Mobile will have a nice, fast network once they're done deploying. They'll have 10x10 LTE with similar cell sizes to Sprint's 5x5. Until Clearwire EBS LTE comes online, that probably means that T-Mobile LTE will be twice (or more) as fast as Sprint LTE...remember that TMo has fewer customers than Sprint. That said, AJ is spot-on about T-Mobile's haves/have-nots situation with regard to network enhancements. I'm pretty sure Verizon and AT&T have less 1x-only and EDGE-only territory, respectively, than T-Mobile does, in an absolute site count sense...and T-Mobile's network is much smaller than either. That says somthing about T-Mobile's priorities. For what it's worth, Verizon's upcoming AWS LTE network will probably cover 80% of what T-Mobile's LTE (AWS) network will end up serving, with not GPRS, EDGE or even HSPA+ but actual LTE (in 700 upper-C) serving as a fallback. Now Verizon's speeds may not match T-Mobile's two years from now when both carriers have 20x20 AWS LTE deployed (I won't be surprised when 100M down, 50M up tests roll in from T-Mobile's side), but that's not due to T-Mobile's inherent network superiority. It's because Verizon will have more subscribers using AWS LTE than T-Mobile; Verizon is 3x T-Mo's size last I checked. That said, I don't have a problem with T-Mobile having higher speeds than VZW due to its lower subscriber cou nt. Keeps them on their un-carrier toes.