pyroscott

AT&T and Verizon are definately at the top of the food chain of wireless carriers. They have the most customers and they have large profit margins. They have more borrowing ability and more capital to work with to expand/renovate their networks. There are several ways that they could mismanage their networks and start bleeding customers, but it would take a lot of churn for them to lose much ground. Verizon and AT&T have premium networks and charge premium prices. This gives them a higher profit margin. Sprint and T-Mobile have less customers and charge their customers less, giving them less profit to reinvest in their networks. T-Mobile's operators Deutche Telekom has shown little desire to invest in their network. Sprint, however, wants to build a premium network (as witnessed by NV), but doesn't have the cash to do so.

Can Sprint keep up with the big boys and attract enough customers with unlimited data to become a top dog? Or are they destined to stay as a bargain brand?

This link details why Sprint and T-Mobile will "never catch AT&T or Verizon" but I don't know if I completely agree with that assertion.

http://www.vision2mobile.com/news/2012/02/sprint-t-mobile-can-t-catch-at-t-verizon.aspx

LightSquared is doomed. Spending their money on a lawsuit will only make things worse. I guess it's time for them to throw in the towel. One less backup for Sprint. Maybe Dish will get regulatory approval for an LTE network.

I hope so, and I hope they don't make a deal with AT&T. AT&T could easily drive up the price if they don't end up buying the spectrum or doing a hosting agreement.

yeah I was wrong not "years" but "quarters" instead. lol. Last they said was they "...had enough cash to keep the company going for several quarters..."

 

http://gigaom.com/br...f-lightsquared/

Yeah, I saw that a while ago and it seemed wierd that all of a sudden they had money to keep it going when they kept getting denied at every turn.

Wonder what that lil cube guy costs btw. lol

Yeah, the AirRave wasn't very expensive, but it only acted as voice and 3G and didn't have much range. It would be nice to have something like this mounted on my house so I get perfect reception all the time.

cool to know. I mean from their previous talk they have funding to still grind this out for at least a couple years and try other things, whatever they may be...

They would probably have to come up with something new for the FCC to take another look at it. They are pretty much closing the book on it for now.

It does have a lot of nice features built in and my wife and daughtere loves it. In fact looking at new phones they won't even look at anything but htc phones.

And that is why they cram it down everyone's throat, because it sells phones.

We all knew it was pretty much inevitable. The FCC had the National Telecommunications and Information Administration look into the potential interference and the NTIA recommended that "It is our conclusion at this time that there are no mitigation strategies that both solve the interference issues and provide LightSquared with an adequate commercial network deployment." It was a great plan, but it looks like the end of the line for LS2.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/14/3429658/lightsquared-dealt-blow-by-regulators.html

Schoolhouse bully. At this point, I'm pretty sure I will never buy another crapple product, ever.

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LoL. Reminds last week when I was complaing at work. So the girl I work with on att and me both did speedtest. I got 67kbps. She was like thats faster than me. I only got 58.

 

Had to explain hers was 5.8mb so was 5800 to my 67.

 

She was like "and why do you pay for that?"

 

Sadly, I really had no answer.

it's sad, I think my 2G is faster than 3G. Lol

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His iSpot bricked halfway through sending the message

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My wife is big picture taker. And takes a lot of pics at my daughters games and toureys to share with family members, facebook, ect. And with sprints current speeds, that makes what she uses her phone for most, almost impossible. Just wish that the 3G would improve enough to make due. We'd settle for 300 to 500 kbps speeds. Thats still slow, but we can work with that. And honestly I don.t think those speeds are too much to ask for.

I talked to someone in tech support at Sprint and they told me that anything from 400 to 700kbps is "good 3G speed" I asked them if they knew what the 3G speeds were on other networks and they refused to comment. I'm not asking for much, constant 500k would be plenty, but as my dad would say, don't pee on my boots and tell me it's raining. My boss is getting 4 to 7 mbps on att's 3G.

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I wish Android OEMs would wake up and update their handsets more. With the amount of custom roms out there, they should allow more customization, keep the OS updated and they could keep the boot loader locked. Instead, they let other people do their work and convince us that they are doing us a favor by making it easier to unlock the boot loader. Thanks...

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Yea, I really want to hold out for NV. I guess it is just going to depend on what kind of time table we are looking at for this area. Like you, between wifi at home and work, I can make do. I think the decision to port all our lines out is going to come down to my wife. She is out and about a lot more than I am, and is close to just saying to hell with it. At least she has a 4G signal where she works most of the time. If not, i'm sure we would have left months ago.

I use WiFi 90% of the time too, and as I look over, the wife has her phone on 3G... She doesn't care that much though...

Turn around is fair play. Now Apple gets to see what its like. Although implausable, can you imagine what would happen if Apple lost the iPad for the China market?

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Interesting article. I wanted more info about how the thing worked though.

 

S4GRU is now mobile...posted via Forum Runner

The second link at the bottom where I found the picture has better technical info.

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I've spent less than 24 hours in a Wimax area since I bought a 4G phone. I wish I saw any speeds approaching 2mbps off wifi... I leave the house and my connection slams to a screeching halt.

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Worm hole

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Hop scotch

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hip hugger

 

Apple is the most controlling of them all out there so anything is possible. I just know I wont ever own that phone. No way.

Maybe it's my inner rebellious teenager coming out, but I feel the same way. Apple comes across to me like they are saying "this is what you shall think, you stupid consumer. Keep filling our pockets with cash!"

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Don't think its the contract stating the carrier has to subsidize X amount. The contracts with apple have more to do with exclusivity and # of units guaranteed to sell(buy from apple). So if say sprint finds itself in a hole and can't fulfill the # u could see them do some crazy special on them for cheap if the $ worked out right.

 

They might stipulate a floor for iPhone prices in the contract though I doubt it, but they likely don't state you have to sell it for X amount. Apple gets paid the same amount no matter what the carrier charges as they are buying them from apple anyway...

 

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True, but Apple would see a drop in the amount sold if they weren't priced in the ballpark of Android models. If the carrier cut the subsidy in half and you were faced with a $400 16GB iPhone 4S or a $200 16GB Epic 4G Touch, then $36 activation fee, screen protector, case, charger, etc. The extra $200 could come into play.

Maybe you are on to something with the amount Sprint needs to sell. Nobody knows how many iPhones AT&T and Verizon have agreed to sell, maybe all 3 are subsidizing to keep the iPhone moving so they can fulfill their contracts.

Nokia Lumia 900 or better WP7/WP8 phones (I would like Sprint to have at least 3 in their lineup)

Don't let the HTC Zero sour you on Android. Not sure what your thoughts are on it, but I wanted to throw mine against a wall. The E4GT has redacted my previous experience and I am a fan of android once more.

It is a complete dream scenario, but I would love to see Motorola build the next Nexus model (and have radios in it that have no signal issues). Also, I would like the bootloader to be easily unlocked like the rest of the Nexus line. Furthermore, and this is probably where my hopes vanish into the wind, I would like to see the Nexus released in the same timeframe as the rest of the flagships with comparable specs. We saw the Nexus S released as the last flagship single core phone right before dual core phones started releasing. Now the Galaxy Nexus comes out with a dual core as phones are rumored to be packing quad core processors and releasing soon. We have all been thinking that Motorola will be bringing a successor to the Photon to the LTE party. Maybe the next Nexus will be their entry in the same timeframe that the Photon came out last year. This is my hope, but then again maybe I should hope in one hand and crap in the other and see which gets filled first... Google will probably stick to their "release the nexus in the lull between the last wave of flagship Android and iPhone and before people get a look at the next wave strategy." The hardware is probably cheaper by then as it is on its way to the bargain bin with newer, more powerful hardware on the horizon.

In the article "Sprint in talks for network gear from Alcatel-Lucent" it talks about the "Rubik’s Cube-sized device that contains radios and antennae and can be mounted on rooftops, phone poles and bus shelters to expand a network’s capacity in a given spot." This device can be connected to the infastructure and used to boost the performance of the network and reduce strain on the spectrum without the need to build the expensive towers in dense population areas. Sounds like an Airrave on steroids.

Could this be the future of network technology?

image from http://www.fiercewir...gear/2012-02-14

whistle blower