unoriginal

On a side note, I always thought a while back that if Sprint were to rename itself, that Spectrum would be a perfect name, butl TWC took it.  

Charter was the one that first started using Spectrum, not TWC. I also have plenty of mail from Charter over the last few months stating "Time Warner is now Spectrum" on the outside of the envelope.

t of course this promotion does not include hot spot, but that can be added if you need it.

What makes you say that this doesn't include hotspot service? T-Mobile added that to all of the active plans last year. Did something change and I missed it?

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/confirmed-t-mobile-adds-2-gb-mobile-hotspot-data-customers-unlimited-smartp/2015-06-18

"Yes, we've enabled mobile hotspot benefits on all active data plans," a T-Mobile spokesman told FierceWireless. "

Have you looked at getting service through a reseller? DSLExtreme claims to have no caps on their plans: https://www.dslextreme.com/dsl/residential

We use them for Uverse service where we are and have had no real issues in the few months since we signed up. They also have a forum at dslreports.com that is monitored by a couple of their employees: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/dslextreme

I don't believe that T-Mobile has gotten the Bahamas added to their Global Freedom either.

It doesn't seem like it. Looking up Bahamas on their international roaming page it says calls are $3.59/min, texts are 50 cents/ea to send but free to receive and data service is not available. With those other rates how much is data per megabyte that they won't even list the cost?

How about another multi-billion purchase, Ma Bell? Just for fun!

While its not directly related to the wireless side, AT&T is still in the process of trying to buy Directv for $45b. From what little I've read the Wall St analysts are giving the buyout a better shot at happening now that Comcast dropped their plans to buy TWC.

Sprint has 800mhz for voice and lte.

Not a fair comparison.

Not in San Diego or most of Orange County they don't. I'm looking forward to seeing AT&T/Nextel Mexico and Sprint finally work out an agreement so that 800 can finally be deployed around here.

I feel a lot better now. It sounds like the news site was actually doing OK financially.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/technology/personaltech/digital-media-darlings-unfazed-by-the-fall-of-the-news-site-gigaom.html

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gigaom

They raised $8m during their last round of financing in February, 2014 and blew through it all in about a year. I'm not sure I would say that they were doing OK.

Jump program terms were changed back in February 2014: http://www.tmonews.com/2014/02/details-on-upcoming-jump-changes-confirmed-for-feb-23/

Because they are buying out a service contract, a contract you signed when buying x phone. What keeps people with a T-Mobile line from adding a line for free by creating sprint line, and going to T-Mobile and etfing it, they swap phone and now have a phone for free they can use. Kinda hitting the fraud area.

I never even said what phone I was using on the T-Mobile line. You seem to assume that it was a Sprint one. We bought a T-Mo branded Note 3 off swappa for my wife to use with the new line. I simply wanted the $200 credit for the blackberry which in essence gave me free service for almost 4 months.

Switching phones to bypass that can be considered fraud in some states. That is theft by deception.

Huh? T-Mobile's ETF deal simply requires you to trade in a phone and then buy a phone from them. They don't care what you give to them as long as the screen isn't cracked/broken and the thing powers on. I traded the old blackberry in because it was during the time that T-Mobile and RIM were having their tiff and T-Mobile was offering $200 for any blackberry that got turned in. I fail to see how anything that I did could even remotely be considered fraud. So by all means, please fill me in on the details because I am obviously missing something.

You are then going to have to turn in your current phone,

Nope, you can turn in any old working phone and you can buy the cheapest flip phone that T-Mobile sells to get the ETF offer. I traded in a 3 year old blackberry, at the time I was using an S4 with Sprint, when I switched one of my lines last year and bought a $50 phone that I then sold to someone on CL for $30.

can the fcc restrict AT&T and verizons bidding ?

Not at this point, the auction has been running for weeks. Can you imagine how fast Verzion and AT&T would run to court and sue if the FCC changed the rules now?

The 600mhz auction is supposed to have spectrum reserved for smaller companies that will be off limits for Verizon and AT&T. But that auction has been postponed for so long, who knows when it will actually happen.

Here's an official FAQ from Sprint about the new promotion:

http://support.sprint.com/support/article/FAQs_about_the_Cut_Your_Bill_in_Half_Event/aaadfaa2-1717-4cef-9268-f1a5d85ecaea?INTNAV=LP:CutYourBillinHalfEvent:12022014:FAQ

 It just blows my mind how they would turn you down. I say report your experience with the store to dan@sprint.com at least.

 

 

Does dan@sprint.com even work anymore since Marcelo is now in charge? Would the best email address to try now be marcelo@sprint.com? I have no idea as I've never tried to contact Sprint that way.

I mute/silence my phone before the theatre goes dark. I wouldn't have even known I had any texts until I checked once the movie was over.

The page you listed doesn't even mention the international roaming. I just set up my in-laws with a new Simple Choice plan for their three week trip to Europe next month so I know what I'm talking about. The only way to get the included international roaming is to have T-Mobile run your credit and then sign up for Simple Choice. The no credit check and prepaid accounts don't have this add-on. They may include free international texting from the US to other countries but not the free data which is what Mike really wants.

Tmobile's prepaid plans don't include the free international roaming. This is the Q&A, fourth down on that page:

How much will global coverage cost?

Nothing – it is included in your rate plan monthly charge for all Simple Choice customers (excluding no credit plans).

The simple choice plan does but only if you apply for it using a credit check. For just a quick trip I wouldn't want to take a hit to my credit score just to save a few dollars. So for me I would look for a cheap prepaid sim instead once you get there.

I've seen it mentioned here that sitting on a tower and running speedtests virtually non-stop is not the greatest idea in terms of congestion and stress on a tower...and they are doing it with 8 phones at once...?

 

What's the consensus on this method?

All eight phones aren't running against the same network at the same time. From the article link:

we'll have seven LG G2 phones tuned to each of the four LTE networks plus the Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T 3G networks. We'll also have an eighth LG phone for the Verizon 3G network.

And from looking at their twitter feed: https://twitter.com/pcmphones

at least here in San Diego, they are driving several miles in between each test site. So they aren't consistently overloading the same part of the network with repeated speed tests.

This is one reason I keep buying Samsung phones. I love being able to bring 2 or 3 extra batteries with me and if the one in my phone dies during the day I simply pop the back cover off, put a charged battery in and Im ready to go again.

T-mobile simply requires you to buy a phone from them to get the ETF offer. A friend of mine moved from VZW to T-mo and bought a $65 flip phone which was apparently the cheapest thing they had. And earlier in the year T-mobile was promoting the fact that AT&T users could get their ETF paid off, come to T-mo to try the service and if they didn't like then just switch back to AT&T and basically be nothing out of pocket.

Since Sprint is copying the ETF offer, Im sure they will at least require a device purchase to complete the ETF deal with them.

Sounds like something big is launching soon in your area.  

 

Had a talk today with an owner of a site next to the Q. 

Is this site in the group of office buildings between the stadium and the Costco/Ikea shopping center? My company has a office there and I find myself in the area at least 2-3 times a month for meetings. LTE can be hit and miss so it would be awesome to finally get a decent signal while I'm there.

They also did an AMA (ask me anything) over on Reddit as well where they answered some things a bit more in depth:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1mnnc6/we_are_steve_cyanogen_kondik_and_koushik_koush/

Metro pcs is offering four lines unlimited everything for 100 bucks... I don't know poor, but I'm sure they would move if they were promised something better in speed to sprint, they go. I myself have hanged on for too long. But I'm going to wait cuz I need something great to happen while I'm witnessing it

That metro deal only offers 500megs of high speed data for each line. After that they throttle you down to 2G speeds for the rest of your billing cycle. At least on the bright side, metro is now only offering GSM phones since T-Mo is moving all their customers over to that network so you have a much wider selection of phones to choose from.

I'm guessing that this will have tri-band LTE as well?