Deval

It's in iOS 10 which will be released to the general public next month.

Does not work from iOS 10 Beta to iOS 9.3.4

Just tried it on my wife's phone and the only way HD Voice worked is if we disabled it on our accounts.

And simplicity.

That's what drives subscriber growth.

Give them a simple plan choice that a 3 year old can do, and you'll be in good shape.

60+40+30x8

I see your point but disagree. These prices aren't forever. You want to attract customers. What about the people with 1 line? I bet they are more likely to try because it's "easier" I certainly wouldn't move 4+ lines without trying it out first.

 

Again, you want people to flock to sprint a $50ul plan sounds much more attractive than 60/40/30/30. It's confusing to some.

Sometimes you have to give to gain. It is expensive to run a network, and expand. Sprint should have left the 50/50 run it till Jan 5th or something.

 

Marcelo can still make this plan a big hit if he makes it $50 with an iPhone 7. Remember the crazy deal everyone got leasing last year? Those should be expiring soon sooooo a lot of people will upgrade their lease at the regular 24-30 price and they get $10 off the ul.

 

Btw, Costco and bjs are good for some things others they are the same price.... Sometimes more. thas prolly another thread through.

How is it confusing? $60 a month for a single line, unlimited, no access fees or anything. If someone wants < $60, go prepaid.

Doesn't take a genius...the whole notion of expiring promos and limited time offers makes it complicated for the long run.

Much easier to give a flat rate deal and call it a day. 

Still, there is no need for carriers to attempt making the profit off of the first line the way in which they are doing. Yes, they can make a profit from it, but they are not just doing that alone. They are reducing much profit made from additional lines and placing losses of that profit onto the individual line. Again, this isn't how the industry use to be. Profits were divided more evenly between lines.

 

Its akin to giving families tax breaks while sending their children to public school with monetary relief, then raising taxes on single people to make up for the cost difference. Even with some incentive to multi-line customers, It doesn't have to be this extreme. T-Mobile charging $70 for one line, then going down to $20 for the third line and beyond, is a huge monetary difference, $50 to be exact. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if this were some special rate plan as it has been for quite a while, but now its the standard plan and a huge rate hike for a single line from what has been offered by T-Mobile for several years.

 

T-Mobile could still make plenty of profit by charging say, $60 for the first line, $45 for the second, and $30 for the third line and beyond, not discounting all the way down to $20 for those extra lines.

Actually the industry was always making the most money on every line, regardless of single or family. It just took much longer due to subsidies.

Consider for a second that in 2003, Sprint's Fair and Flexible plan was $35 a month for 300 peak minutes and unlimited nights/weekends. That was prior to the data explosion so 2G/3G was irrelevant at that. In the last 10+ years we've seen networks explode in coverage and upgrades, and devices become much more than something you talk and text on. 

I am keeping n mind how its expensive, but the thing is these individual line rates are increasing too much. Having such a high-rate and only offering unlimited, is going to alienate a lot of customers who don't need much data.

 

With Costco items, yes you pay more and get a lot more for it being in bulk, but unless things have changed since I last went to one of those stores, I think the price was the same for the second, third, and fourth unit purchase of the same item, or perhaps a small markdown may have been offered. However, the markdown on the added lines is pretty huge, especially in contrast to how these family plans use to be priced as. There use to be a reasonable rate for a certain amount of minutes/data, then adding a line was a flat $10 each. It worked for carriers before, so I'm not sure how it couldn't work for them again.

 

At least what could be done not to alienate individual lines with such a high starter cost, would be to say, charge $65, then move down more gradually, to $55, then to $45, and either stop there or at $35, depending on what the carrier wants. A $10 difference makes it more fair to the individual line who doesn't want to make up a bulk of the cost all these added family lines are getting discounted so heavily on.

Sprint is already charging $60 for the first line, $40 for the second, $30 for the rest up to 10. Enough with the significant complicated plans and pricing and usage.

Flat rate for unlimited is the way to go, it's the way of the future.

I've been in the industry since 1999, have seen all the changes and offerings from every carrier, even back when Verizon was still Bell Atlantic Mobile and only offered unlimited weekends and your day and night minutes came from the same bucket.

The industry shift needs to continue towards a single type of plan "Unlimited" with whatever traffic shaping and QoS the carriers need to do in order to keep their networks running.

It comes down to price.

I've been following the whole new T-Mobile One and Sprint Unlimited Freedom news all morning, reading into both subreddits, so I can build a proper opinion. I think I have one.

 

T-Mobile better executed this plan than Sprint.

 

Reason why I say this, despite the fact everyone is more pissed at T-Mobile than Sprint, is because this is the most rock solid business strategy I've seen. All new consumers, whether they want 1GB of data or 100GB of data, that want to do business with T-Mobile, have to pay $70 at least for one line. Their average revenue per new subscriber is gonna go up up up. Taking away options from the people but making it sound great for a price that sounds reasonable is a practical business model that yields big profits. Like some have said, it's so un-carrier that it's carrier.

 

Sprint on the other hand has this new plan, as well as Better Choice, and the 100s of other legacy plans they still support as well as 50% off plans. It's a disorganized chaotic mess. Will Unlimited Freedom bring in new customers? Absolutely. But they're not gonna see increased revenues like T-Mobile because Sprint is still pro-consumer with choice.

 

Sprint is clearly the new un-carrier here for giving people the benefit of choice, but T-Mobile doesn't need that. They're corporations, and what matters at the end of the day is big piles of revenue to continue operating, appeasing stockholders, and increased capex to support growing networks. Sprint cares too much about trying to make new customers happy that its hurting the rest, while T-Mobile is just making bank. Nobody on Simple Choice is porting out because they get to keep Simple Choice, and new customers won't care about the caveats. It's a brilliant business plan, it just sucks for us.

I'm not sure the part of your post makes any sense, since the same applies to existing Sprint customers as it does for existing T-Mobile customers. 

No one is being forced off their plans, everyone stays happy, can switch if they feel the new ones offer more value.

It's a win-win.

It seems many of these carriers are expecting people to sign up with 2 or more lines. They hike up the first line rate for individuals, who seem to be paying off the costs on plans where lines are paying around $30 or less. There really ought to be more balance to these plans, more fairness. I don't see an issue with a carrier making a plan at $45 monthly for all lines, no discounts, and placing a speed cap limitation on it of some sort, video optimization, etc., then lessening those limits on higher rate plan offering of Unlimited Data, such as $60 monthly per line, or $75 monthly per line. The main thing about it is keeping to the flat-rate aspect on every line, without lessening so steeply on additional lines as what is happening currently in these rate plans.

You don't see an issue because you're ignoring how expensive it is to run a network.

Single line plans have to be priced higher because you're not buying in bulk. If you notice the trend, it gets cheaper per unit when buying additional lines. 

Ever been to a BJs or Costco? They stay in business because everything is sold in bulk which has a cheaper per-unit cost associated with it.

Neither t-no or sprint really impress me with these plans. Sprints trial of $50/50 and $25 thereafter would be something to talk about. It was only $10 less a month but the $50 number is what jumps out.

 

One thing I am getting outta this is - sprints network still needs a lot of work - T-no has probably starting to see a decline in the amount of new subs. Not saying they aren't getting any new subs but probably well below what they have been averaging monthly.

$60 is still a reasonable single line rate, $10 less that T-Mobile's exact same offering.

$50 isn't sustainable or feasible, borderline prepaid territory at that point.

Apparently, Marcelo was just on CNBC and said the plans were ready to go live tomorrow. So that's why Legere had to rush and throw together "Uncarrier 12" with no notice at all, and that's why T-Mobile can't launch the plans until September 6th... probably to get the billing software updated.

Exactly!

Meanwhile Sprint's ready to go live tomorrow, and have been testing them for a few months prior.

What is the risk?

You've been on this forum for years, so you should know what the old Sprint was like.

I do think it's a great idea for them to gradually increase prices, especially when their pricing was of the cheapest in the industry for a great product, but they're changing too much at once. People are used to included high-speed tethering (14GB/month was included yesterday.) Today, it's None, and costs $15 for 5GB! People are used to 14 GB included for free. BingeOn was an option for subscribers on older plans. Now, it's required. The pricing is also a bit more than people on the promotional plans previously ($160/4, as opposed to the $150/4 or $100/2 that many people jumped on.) To market this as an Uncarrier movement is rather ironic as there's nothing but adding pain-points, instead of removing them.

 

EDIT: Typo

I think it's geared towards new subscribers, not existing. That's the key difference and it makes sense from an acquisition standpoint. 

The real question is what happens when someone wants to upgrade their phone or make account changes?

Sprint had these "Freedom" plans in trials in Milwaukee and Boston. They must have been pleased with the results, so why not pull the trigger now.

 

Loving the new nimble Sprint.

You and me both.

Well then this plan really is a huge letdown.  They should have kept the ~14GB or so for everything else aside from video and let BingeOn handle the video portion.  They're slowly removing features now.

 

EDIT: It's now $15 for 5GB of high-speed hotspot on the new plans.  Yikes.

Yep, and this is how T-Mobile will try to make more money. They created the welfare economy by offering heavy discounts to attract customers and now have to raise prices to offset the network burden. 

Right. The Sprint ones could have been released the day the new iPhone is released so John decided to one up him and Marcelo may have did a last minute one up on John. Who really knows for sure.

 

 

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Goes to show that Marcelo isn't afraid to take risks with these kind of offers.

I think this all makes sense now. Sprint has been testing this type of plan for a while now to see how people react to them. T-Mo caught wind of it/ the national release and wanted to beat Sprint to it first.

 

 

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Except that T-Mobile's plans are not available till 9/6 and Marcelo is saying starting tomorrow 8/19 for Sprint.

When did they move the site on top of Parkway Hospital? And to where?

 

TS

Right across the street, brand new ALU triband site. I believe they moved it months ago.

New plans announced going into effect tomorrow: Unlimited Freedom

2 lines $100, 4 lines $160

https://twitter.com/marceloclaure/status/766273400046247936

The way I see it, they're now fully in violation of net-neutrality.  You want unthrottled data for certain services?  Pay up.

I disagree, they are actually doing all video traffic control unless you pay more, so it falls under network management.

Also, I just don't watch a lot of video on mobile. That said, if you're on the Note7 that T-Mobile and the other carriers are pimping out, I think a lot of people are going to be able to tell the difference between 1080p and 480p. I can on the Note5 and that is a similar screen.

 

That said I doubt they upsell much video.

 

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That's what they bank on, most users can't tell the difference and don't want movies on their phone all day long.

Well, I don't use much hotspot, but it is incredibly nice to have when you're on vacation with no access to WiFi (for a tablet/laptop.)  Sounds like they'll allow for 480p streaming with unlimited 2G for basic browsing/emails.  For now, I'll hold onto my $150/4 line unlimited promo for as long as I can.  The 14GB hotspot at full speed is too good to let go.

 

Definitely a good offer for new customers though.  Although me personally I'd hold out for another unlimited plan promo.

Well yes and no. The unlimited 2G is for hotspot data, but the language is grey for how video streaming while using the hotspot would be. I read it as all hotspot data is 2G which means video is useless.

Un-carrier 12 Announced

New plans called T-Mobile One are essentially Sprint's Freedom plans being trailed, just priced differently.

1 line = $70

2 lines = $70+$50

3 lines = $70+$50+$20

4 lines = $70+$50+$20+20

Up to 8 lines at $20 if you sign up for autopay, otherwise there is an additional $5 per month per line fee.

$25 buy-up per line for HD video streaming.

No more LTE bucket hotspot, only 2G unlimited hotspot.

$20 for unlimited LTE on a tablet as an "add a line"

Plans available 9/6/16

I always consider AT&T and Verizon's network to always be on par, especially in markets like mine where every carrier is reasonably strong.

Well looks like AT&T is coming out with a new unlimited plan but you get throttled, http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/17/att-introducing-new-mobile-share-advantage-plans/

 

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Looks like the industry is finally getting to that simplified point.

What's T-Mobile's next "uncarrier" move going to be? At this point a lot of the BS points that used to be expressed have been removed, so what's next?

It actually makes a bit of sense in some weird way. If Sprint ultimately wants to merge with T-Mobile, then building out their macro network doesn't make much sense as Sprint could just buy out T-Mobile and use their infrastructure to compliment their current one.

 

It would explain why they've slowed down spending for this year and focused only on small cells (which don't help with indoor coverage as much as 1900/800).

Not really, Sprint has a business to run.

This isn't T-Mobile in 2010/2011 which turned off all their lights when AT&T was taking out to dinner and back home.

Sprint's also deploying new macro sites, but the full focus is densifying the network in which small cells plays a huge role in.

Over the last few weeks a ton of small cells went on-air in Manhattan, expanding capacity 10x for those customers who walk by them daily.

They never left in my opinion. Sprint is basically installing Small cells, while T-Mobile is doing macros and coverage expansions. Sprint doesn't want to install new costly macro sites that would overlap with T-Mobile because they still thinking of going through with the merger.

That makes no sense.