Conan Kudo

First of all, if you exclude Dish from the equation, then it was about $30 billion. The majority of that was split between AT&T and Verizon. And here's the thing, most markets did not go for the prices of the top 25. For example, NYC went for about $5/MHz/person. Atlanta went for under $3/MHz/person. Then there were markets like Tupelo and Corpus Christi, which went for under $0.50/MHz/person. At the end of the day, the valuation is based on the trade-off of using more spectrum vs the cost of cell splitting to support the same group of people. In already dense markets, naturally this is a higher cost because it's harder to split cells more. In markets where it's difficult to provision new cells, this is still true. That's reflected in the cost of spectrum.

If you factor out Dish, then the amount of money spent in the auction is exactly what was predicted on the top end. Dish is the only reason it went up by $11-13 billion (depending on whether the FCC approves Dish's DE bidding credits). I find it very shocking that people here keep saying that Sprint needs low-band spectrum to be able to roll out nationally. Sprint already has a national ESMR footprint. While it has taken a long time to get there, we have it now. For Sprint, 600MHz isn't really going to help very much, because we already know that low-band spectrum won't change Sprint's plans on deployment and expansion. As for T-Mobile, I do not believe T-Mobile will bid for 600MHz in areas that they hold 700MHz unless it's cheap. If you take a look at T-Mobile's 700MHz footprint, there aren't a lot of major areas where T-Mobile lacks low-band spectrum. The areas where T-Mobile lacks it today are the same areas that don't get very much bidding, generally. So T-Mobile will not likely have a problem affording the spectrum. You have to realize that outside of the top 25 markets, the pricing for spectrum was quite low, well within the range of reasonable purchase cost (though there are a few exceptions). For T-Mobile, that's perfect.

In T-Mobile's 10-K filing, the company stated it made $247 million in net profit for the full year, with $101 million of that in the fourth quarter. Excluding MetroPCS decommissioning costs ($299 million), it would have had $546 million in net profit. Also of note, churn for the full year is 1.58% for postpaid, and 4.76% for prepaid. Postpaid ABPU was $60.73. Prepaid ARPU was $37.10. It added 8.3 million subscribers across 2014, 2.1 million of which were in the fourth quarter. MetroPCS networks in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento were fully decommissioned in the fourth quarter of 2014. So far in 2015, the MetroPCS networks have been fully decommissioned in Atlanta and Detroit metro area. The remainder of the markets (South California, Florida, New York, and the rest of Michigan) will be decommissioned in 2015. As of the end of 2014, T-Mobile's LTE network covered 265 million POPs, according to the filing. It also released a revised coverage map showing the coverage as of December 31, 2014:

Shoe locker

Sounds like they just switched over the messaging system to Apple for iPhone unlocks to just push a full unlock instead of the janky partial ones.

Yes. CDMA authentication on all Sprint LTE phones utilize the E-UIM (embedded user identity module) that is mandated for the CDMA2000 system. To date, the only carrier in the United States that uses the CSIM instead of the E-UIM is Verizon Wireless, and that's only for 4G devices. Non-4G devices still use the E-UIM, as they aren't intended to be portable. However, like Sprint, Verizon's CSIM registration is tied to the IMEI+MEID whitelist, so it's functionally useless for portability. Sprint UICCs (SIM cards) in iPhone 4S and up contain only a USIM program. The variant used in the iPhone 5 and up have the USIM program updated to connect to its LTE network.

USIM is required on UICCs for UMTS systems (WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, TD-WCDMA, and LTE). It also provides interfaces for authenticating GSM. CSIM is an optional program for UICCs that enables authentication on CDMA2000 systems. A third one, ISIM, is required on UICCs for authentication with IMS subsystem on UMTS systems. Sprint's UICCs lack the ISIM program today. Most of the UICCs also lack the CSIM program, too.

Humblebragging or just plain old bragging, mainly... I don't advertise how much data I use, but there are those who do.

The DTV 51 station in Gary, IN that has an exclusion zone the encompasses the entire Chicago BEA is owned by Fox Television Studios, a division of 21st Century Fox, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

As if he isn't already one now? It's not like people see the guy very often anymore...

Well, the problem with the Chicago license is that Rupert Murdoch has absolutely no reason to cooperate with the wireless carriers. He makes more than enough money to be able to reject any offer made. And he'd prefer to see mobile wither in favor of TV anyway. AT&T would probably not want to deal with that poison, but it may not have a choice.

Do you have a particular reason for doing this? Sprint provides Google Voice integration.