Fraydog

Ars, one difference. The stupid ass DirecTV requirement. 

 

AT&T has to get rid of that stat...right?

Apparently HD streaming can be enabled once on the new plans that TMUS is releasing 2/17 and it will be permanent. 

I know this should be in the Investors thread, but I see S as a spectrum play. Most of the increase is due to people in the market realizing how valuable Sprint's spectrum haul is. I could see myself buying S solely as a spectrum play. Not so much because of Sprint the company. 

T-Mobile just reported 2/3 of their customers on VoLTE. Adds to their spectrum efficiency. Voice calls aren't really that important any more but they aren't dedicating lots of spectrum to old crappy technologies any more. Good move for them.

 

Small cells are starting en masse for T-Mobile for 5G and 5 GHz LTE-LAA spectrum. 1000+ in field. B66 starting deployment as well. 

 

Imagine what they could do with spectrum, oh, who has that? 

If I was Masa, yes.

 

Just goes against what a lot of people on this forum say.

 

Underdog can't compete with big wireless company

Underdog can't be profitable

 

Time and time again, this has proven to be incorrect.  I still believe that four national carriers are the best for consumers - hence why we are getting all this competition and even the little guys can be profitable if they so choose.

 

 

I think a lot of what scares people on here is Masa having both, seeing TMUS is better run, and then taking a flamethrower through Overhead Park. Heck, I'd bet John would get sadistic pleasure on taking a flamethrower through Overhead Park. At the end of the day, this is a relentlessly competitive business and I think more drastic measures are needed to get the job done. 

Earnings just came out for T-Mobile.  Despite the many years of doom and gloom by some people here, T-Mobile continues to improve.

 

Profit rose to 45 cents a share, beating the estimates of 30 cents/share.

 

Sales climbed to 10.2 billion, looks like profit margins improved.

 

 

At the end of the day, this is still good for sprint as well, forces them to better themselves and be better competitors.

 

 

I think that, if anything, it only increases the urgency for Masa to get something done. We're going to see real quick if the smooching up to Trump is worth it or not. 

I'm assuming 720p, I don't know for certain however. On the day passes that are now going away, T-Mobile went up to 1080p. We will have to see what the resolution is on BingeOn now, given that VZW is at 1080p, it makes sense for T-Mobile to get there as well.

https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-and-blogs/tmobile-one-ups-verizon.htm

 

Also in the buried lede department, no more HD Passes, BingeOn streaming is now HD, I'm assuming 720p.

yea but I have NEVER seen Tmo have access fees..... have i just not looked hard enough???  even like a year ago when I switched.... in fact it was the MAIN reason I switched... I got my price for the multiple lines, and its THAT price....

 

 

They're hidden but still there. 

Isnt it funny how these things come back round... unlimited... to tiered, now back to unlimited...

 

Why cant they do a nice basic one, for older people, or for kids who dont need to be on it that much???  Yet still include the unlimited text and calls.. and have a nice little 2-4 gb plan. And NOT those stupid access fees.  I mean really my inlaws and parents shouldnt have to pay an access fee of $20 or so to grab an email on occasion... 

 

First company to cater to older/younger non-power users wins

 

 

If you look at T-Mobile ONE pricing, you'll see that access fees are baked into that plan too. 

 

What customers look at is the total cost they pay. That's all.

I'd like Sprint to at least announce an intent on a merger with T-Mobile, despite that I agree with those here wanting Sprint not to focus on a merger, because an attempt I believe will get AT&T to try again for T-Mobile, which if happens, Sprint should back off and work on network deployment. They could easily be the best with the spectrum they have, if only located on all existing towers, then plan to develop more.

 

 

AT&T has burned through metric tons of capital to buy out DirecTV, Iucasell, Nextel Mexico, and Time Warner. They're running a whole boatload of debt right now. Then you have the fact the Feds turned this merger down once. 

 

See why people say you are being unrealistic on here? 

On another note, John Legere's Twitter seems to be indicating someone gobsmacked because he didn't see this coming. 

 

To be fair, most of us didn't. 

https://np.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/5tpf2t/a_moment_of_silence_for_tmobile_and_sprint/

 

Kinda cocky already?

Those "six figure" folks are already on Verizon.

 

 

Bingo. 

 

Until someone has a quality experience everywhere that beats that, there they will stay. This might be why I am leaning toward a Magenta/Yellow merger where in the past I was cold toward it. 

Your missing my point. When Sprint is averaging 30mbs in NYC and Verizon at 25 you add the extra load of unlimited. It's tough to justify paying 2x so you could have signal a few times a year you travel outside the city.

 

Now if the value proposition is reasonable (it's not gonna be unless Verizon is ready to piss off all there current customers) then yes.

 

Also, the reason I mention thr new FCC chairman is I fully expect this "unlimited" plan to come with a huge ***

Which would most likely not have sit well with wheeler.

 

 I think you may be missing my point. 

 

The people that you know over six figures, what carrier do they use? I'm betting a large chunk of them (if you do know those people) are on Verizon. 

2 things that come to mind, new FCC chairman and Verizon is no longer king in big cities. So unless this is within a few bucks not really a big deal for big city folk.

 

More rural areas I could definitely see the allure. Where sprint and T-Mobile don't do as well.

 

But I definitely see Verizon buckling under the load here in nyc as they have before.

 

I must disagree here, most Verizon users are also in big cities, but they'll use Verizon to have fast big city and rural coverage. For those with money, Verizon is preferred not just because of city coverage but because of out of city coverage. Lots of vacation areas still have what I'd call specious T-Mobile and Sprint coverage. If you're a 1% er you're going to end up paying for the best quality service. T-Mobile has made great strides, but let me tell you, they still don't have the rural coverage yet as far as quality goes to compete with the Big Two. What they have is working LTE in these rural areas but they haven't got nearly as many dead spots covered up. Even if T-Mobile and Sprint merge, there's still going to have to be a lot of additional towers even in the areas where T-Mobile currently covers and Sprint does not (or in rare cases, vise versa). 

It undercuts the shit out of both Sprint and T-Mobile, no question. It also forces AT&T into offering unlimited to non-DirecTV customers.  We're going to see a lot of ramifications out of this. 

 

I was shocked to see my social media feeds on fire over this on a Sunday, last time that I can remember an announcement like this happening on a Sunday was when AT&T tried to buy out T-Mobile. 

I don't think the government was doing this solely for profit, mind you. If that was the aim of the prior Democratic administration, they'd just have no reserve, and Verizon and AT&T would be bidding away. In that situation, they'd be bidding things way up from where they are at now and they'd be LOCKING T-MOBILE OUT. 

Besides the fact that this doesn't really matter at this point, it wouldn't have worked. There's no incentive for other carriers to just allow Sprint to suck up spectrum. They all have decent midband portfolios and were looking at 600MHz to bolster their low end. Furthermore, midband spectrum is very important in a cellular network because it is a good compromise between coverage area and capacity. Divesting midband would be a poor idea.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

 

If anything I'd argue that Sprint and T-Mobile should hold onto midband like crazy if they do merge. 

 

Personally, I am of the view that with 5G spectrum coming up to bat, that Sprint and T-Mobile should be forced to divest nothing at all. What will really happen, likely is that additional spectrum over 225 MHz would get divested. If Sprint comes in with the potential to deploy 20x20 in PCS and AWS in large cities, then that's already going to push the theoretical max of spectrum to 800 Mbps without even throwing in B41 given deployment of 256 QAM and 4x4 MIMO. And even on 2x2 and 64 QAM existing handsets, the speed level would be up to 300 Mbps. Considering that handsets should very soon be able to do TD-FDD carrier aggregation, the potential exists that the merged carrier could be the fastest not just in America but also the world. 

It is NOT that 600 MHz was a flop. It is just that AWS-3 was completely inflating expectation to levels that were ridiculous. That inflation was due to Dish over inflating AWS-3 values.

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Just received this comment (as I was reading this thread) on an article I added to my flipboard magazine regarding the OpenSignal report. It's funny how peoples' experiences differ...

 

IMG_6694.PNG

Living in the Band 2 only areas is rough if you want to give T-Mobile a go. That seems to be where most of the rural complaints come from IMO. If only Sprint had been in a lot of these areas around my neck of the woods, they'd be an option. Band 26 may be more narrow compared to Verizon's Band 13 and AT&T's Band 12 (really 17 but technically 12 thanks to MBFI) but it wouldn't be slow at all. It would be quite useable.

 

Where if Sprint and T-Mo merged here and the existing T-Mobile engineers had access to Band 26, they'd fill in any remaining gaps without low band very quickly.

 

In the b12 places band selection could be used and the new merged company would have equal footing to VZW and AT&T rural wise.

 

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

http://www.fiercecable.com/broadcasting/fcc-waives-quiet-period-auction-rules-for-broadcasters

 

Whoa, Pai just said eff the quiet period rules. Gonna be interesting to see how the last rounds of this auction go now. 

 

Personally, I don't think Pai gives a care about T-Mobile and Sprint and this is just one way he is going to push them together. 

They cannot sell EBS because they are leasing it from educational institutions. They might be able to sublease it.

That literally depends on the entity they are leasing from... some might welcome the change.

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

That would be 14 Mhz 800. Sprint will not give up 2.6GHz. Plus they can sell AWS for a pretty penny. Since 2.6 GHz, except for 60 MHz is leased they can't sell it.

T-Mobile already has a large AWS deployment in the field. Why let that go? If you can get more bandwidth in certain markets with PCS, then use that. I'm fine with that. Treating 2.6 like it is the Holy Grail? I'm not sure that's the best strategy. AWS/PCS can be the base for urban speeds then 2.6 can be the supercharger on top of that.

 

As far as selling EBS, Verizon has been interested in the past, why would they not be interested now?

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

More spectrum math in a hypothetical merger with a very not hypothetical market: New York. This time we'll assume 194 Mhz is the cap with no 600 Mhz factored in.

 

12 Mhz 700

16 Mhz 800

50 Mhz AWS T-Mobile

20 Mhz T-Mobile plus 30 Mhz Sprint

= 128 Mhz before 2.6 is in the mix.

194-128 is 66 Mhz. That's 2 20x20 LTE carriers of FDD, three 20 Mhz carriers of TD-LTE, and a partridge in a pear tree.

 

With 256 QAM it's 2 x 200 Mbps + 3 x 150 Mhz given TD-LTE category 2. 850 Mbps total.

 

 

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk