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richy

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Everything posted by richy

  1. I have the tmo (yes boo hiss etc) version which I believe is essentially the same rebranded asus router. It's performed excellently for me. It has a decent feature set (vpn in and out, dish sharing, media server etc). However, at work we have about 100+ Ubiquiti access points and they have fantastic radios in them. while they aren't targetted at home use they are probably about the best radios you can get with regards to reliability and coverage. We are also testing some of their p2p wireless links and they seem very impressive also.
  2. The minimum salary for exempt is something like 23k although it may rise at the end of the year. Not sure if that classes as fairy decent, depends on the cost of living in the area I guess.
  3. Honestly it's pretty trivial compared to some of the stuff they get up to. Using your device that you already own and would have owned anyway isn't the big issue, nor is leaving you to pay the monthly. The kicker is that you are basically on call 24 365. No overtime or on call pay for us 'exempt' workers. I still work way less than when I was self employed or ran a company myself. At the end of the day if I wasn't happy I would walk. There's plenty more jobs out there and if you don't like those you can work for yourself. I work for a good company, they actually do treat me well in general but they do ask some stuff like the cell phones, personal vehicle use and basically being on call all the time. The flip side is when the company does well we get a real cut of the profits. Plus if they gave us company phones they would likely be selected by the bean counters so we would have flip phones on net 10 wireless. Work has nothing on our old HOA for insane policies though
  4. I have to use my cell for work, sadly I get nothing by way of a stipend. I love to go take long weekends at east maui away from any tmo signals. Everytime the boss comments about me not responding to email while away I tel him to get me a Verizon phone or hotspot. Not likely same as he complains about me not being able to pickup supplies on my bike, just waiting on that company car Companies do this all the time, you have to use your cell but we won't pay for it and our wifi is basically useless. Can't wait for band 12 here.
  5. Tmobiles network is an interesting question. I see areas where they need either more spectrum or to density and areas where they are just holding back on upgrading backhaul. Their service is terrible in places, I'm certainly not disputing that. I'm more intrigued by the reason. It would seem they are holding back in spending. To a degree it would make sense short term, more fcf for the auction but not if it starts costing them subs. Sprint has a huge spectrum advantage if they can leverage that. It certainly seems like they are in a position to accelerate now, most of the hard work was done with the NV rebuild already so for the most part it's just turning up additional carriers and backhaul and their small cell project. It's nice to have real options now !
  6. Sorry, I must have misinterpreted your meaning. I'm just hoping in 3 to 5 years we have 4 strong carriers with truly nation wide networks with sufficient capacity. We would then see equalization of subscribers over time. Right now we are headed in the right direction. Sprint and tmo both have their own unique challenges but sprint has done more in the past couple of years to catch up then most people credit them for but there is a lag between performance and it reflecting in their subs numbers. Tmo has done well in overlaying lte and getting it's subs numbers up. They may have adopted a non traditional personal but they have managed to shake things up and sell what they have, now they are facing their own infrastructure issues. Hopefully they will continue to refarm, buy more spectrum, build new towers and upgrade backhaul on existing ones.
  7. Just curious but do you happen to know how much they had refarmed on those cells? It's frustrating to see some of tmos congested cells only having 10x10 or when they finally bump to 15x15 the performance remains the same as they don't upgrade the backhaul. I find it odd, I hope they are just keeping opex down until after the auction to increase fcf. They are in danger of losing subs over their performance in some locations.
  8. Neither is yours? The network varies in performance from amazing to abysmal. I can get 30mbps or drive a little way and get a congested sub 1mbps or drive a little farther and get no signal. Which experience is an accurate description of full network performance? I think the best way to approach it is to compare growth in coverage and capacity year on year and remember that experiences will vary wildly based on location and usage cases. Sprint and tmo have both come on massively over the past few years in performance but there will be area where they will be sub part and areas where they beat the big two.
  9. I like it, the direct to you one is pretty meh (i like the concept of the program, the commercial is just flat) but the 1% message is great in the others. This is exactly what they need to be doing. Saying they are close but for half the price. Frankly thats why I am with tmo and was with sprint, they were \ are damn close for way less money. Plus they are both finding unique ways to position their products and innovating rather than stagnating like the big two.
  10. Yes and no I totally agree that sprint should be selling on the strength of its network, but if they have significant capacity spare there's something to be said for undercutting the competition to get some momentum. It's basically what TMO did, the whole hay cheap unlimited plus shiny crap. They had a spectrum per sub advantage and they used it to give people 10 to 20gb a month for less money than 2gb from the big two. If you can sell cheap and sell on merit and gradually increase your cost over time that's a decent stance to take.
  11. Sorry wasn't trying to pick an argument. What I was trying to say (badly) was I agree for now, but I can see them testing the waters now with their smb offering then pushing that harder when they have learnt their lessons with the pioneer clients. Once they start to see b2c net adds slow and IF they manage to continue to grow their network like they have over the past 5 years I could see them making a small play for the b2b corporate market. I understand they arent and will never be vzw and lots of vzw's corp accounts are never going to move but I could see tmo taking 5-10% of that market if they get it right. Start with a few princess deals for a couple of companies looking to cut costs and lure in some low hanging fruit. They dont have to win the market, it would be enough to add more lines and hurt vzw along the way. They could also completely screw it up
  12. To a degree, but theres probably some wins to be had where companies need to cut their costs. Assuming tmobile does eventually get itself to the point where its network is legitimately on a level with att then it can slowly begin to win some big b2b clients. Tmo can probably score some wins and gain some b2b market share both at a corporate and smb level but I dont think they need it, its a side project for them. Personally I would consider setting up a mvno for businesses or a different brand for business. This teenage rebellion image tmo has is a hard sell to large clients.
  13. Ouch, some unresolved anger issues there But I don't disagree over their exec team. Sadly it seems to be working. Your comment re them being the equal, it's funny how they seem to think its ok to say one thing and then flip later. When the sprint merger was a thing I remember JL saying that t would take decades for tmo to grow organically to match verizon / att. Now for marketing purposes that is totally forgotten. On one level its smart that they are trumping their real network gains, but its sad they are trying to position themselves as an equal on network terms to verizon. I like tmos service but honestly they are just not in the same league. Even att isnt in the same league here. On one level it annoys me because its mostly lies but I try and balance that against the fact that its marketing which is basically all lies. I try and focus on the fact that both sprint and tmo are making huge strides in their networks. I know there is a big fuss about their capex spend but even the reduced capex is 3x higher than it was 10 years ago. capex will always fluctuate and quality of spend is just as important as quantity. Sprint has a plan, it seems to make sense, lets see how the results pan out.
  14. Great thanks! Fi might work well for me on my next trip. 256kb is a bit more usable. I wonder who they roam on in the UK?
  15. is there any benefit to fi over sprint as both plans are limited to 2/3g speeds right? Sorry, just not familiar with sprints plan. The upside is at least we have options these days!
  16. It's the internet, we even hate kittens I can't fault the stats, my only thoughts are that what you actually proved was Sprint sucks in one location but given its for a high school project and you are really just showcasing the ability to analyse some data that's largely irrelevant. However, putting it on youtube was brave
  17. The original deal (made by nextel) was $750m over 10 years i.e. $75m a year but Sprint talked them down to $50m a year in 2011.
  18. What are your thoughts on how they should structure their rate plans after such a merger?
  19. Depending on how you want to do it and if you are ok with either slow or expensive data, 1- tmobile usa sim plus roaming. the upside is its cheap and easy, the downside is 2g speeds unless you buy their higher speed packs which usually means 3g speeds for about $10 per 100mb. 2- EE \ Vodaphone sim in the first country you get to. I lived in europe for 30 years and travelled a fair amount including using cell phones. I used orange and vodafone. I hate vodafones lack of ethics but their service is reasonable. roaming outside your own country in europe used to be insane price wise and often restricted on pay as you go plans. So the best bet used to be a different sim every time you stepped off a plane \ train. In bigger cities you can usually grab one from a stall in the train station \ airport. Takign that sim into a different country, even if that carrier has a network with the same name there can be troublesome and if nothing else more expensive than just picking up another sim. Doesnt sprint have a roaming plan like tmos? most hotels have decent wifi as well so you can save any heavy lifting for that? edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulations according to this, depending on the date you go, you might just get away with one sim as they are changing it so that you can use your home data allowance in any country.
  20. Not quite. It is not robbing Peter to pay Paul as that implies no increase in benefit. When Refarming to a more advanced technology you are increasing the effective capacity of the same amount of spectrum. LTE is more spectral efficient, going to 4x4mimo will increase this again. Yes adding spectrum and density ingredients are other ways to achieve greater capacity and I am sure they are something all carriers consider. You have to factor in feasibility and cost. Refarming is the low hanging fruit so is being picket first.
  21. That will be interesting, assuming they can get the backhaul in place (plenty of sites are still using t3's) and TMO manage to keep up both should fly. Sprint can always roll out a second set of 3xca if they really needed. Oahu probably needs it most.
  22. It's likely partially so they can boast about another wide band market or whatever term they are abusing and partially due to how slowly backhaul gets done. They probably aren't sending enough campaign donations to our esteemed mayor. Could be worse, we could have big islands mayor. The good news is we have plenty to refarm still and 700mhz on the way plus a 10x10 of aws3 at some point. They just need backhaul. It will be interesting to see how they compare against sprint now we have finally gotten some sprint love.
  23. West maui got it as well but no bump in backhaul lol. Speeds are alright on west maui, central was poor today, the WiFi in queen k was faster than tmo. Another reason to dislike going to 'the city'.
  24. Virgin branding doesn't work that way (buying the brand). There are a set of quality criteria to sustain, a % stake in the company, an upfront payment and a yearly fee (theres some variation but generally its this formula). I worked for a virgin branded company and went through the acquisition of the brand. This makes a pile of money, an ongoing income and the ability to terminate the agreement should a company act in a manner which tarnishes the brand. Going forward do they need as many brands, I'm sure sprint reviews the costs and benefits of each owned brand and considers folding them in.
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