jeffcarp

Comparing a network to the speed of a car is apples to oranges. You can control the speed of your car but you can't control a network but I get what your saying.

 

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It is not apples and oranges. The point is this: just like a cars acceleration, whether the network is 5MB, 15MB or 25MB, whether one network is 25MB and the competitor is 17MB, it's all still significantly good enough for 95% of the needs just as the acceleration of a fast car is good enough for 95% of the driving situations. It's characterized as good and bad and that's nonsense.

Oh I know that. Im looking at the 2nd half still underway and Sprint is definitely not beating T-Mobile at the moment. Plenty of markets left though.

 

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The whole concept of one carrier "beating" an other is kind of a tired argument. A luxury car that does 0-60 in 5 seconds beats a car that does it in 4 seconds but you know what? I'd drive either one and they'll both get me there faster than I probably needed to. A "4th place" carrier does not equal a bad carrier.

Very true. The only question left is if 480p netflix is sufficient for tv viewing. I am guessing it wouldn't be good enough and would bother most people to watch on a screen larger than a tablet.

You're kidding right? You realize that the world has been watching TV just fine at much less than 480p for over 50 years? On big boy TV's nonetheless. The idea that we're talking about whether 480p is "acceptable" for a 5" screen is ridiculous.

actually reddit has a lot of comments on that, the general opinion is its good enough. that surprises me I figured it would look fair on a mobile screen and poor on a big screen, I have not see this myself I did a test on my iphone 6 plus playing 420P it looks ok... but certainly nothing i would want on my 55 inch flat screen, so either t mobile is using some advanced form of compression, its not truly 480P (720P?) or people just don't know what they are talking about.... this will get sorted out in time and we will see the true effects of this "free" service soon^tm.

I signed up a spare Nexus 5 and it wouldn't activate. Filed a support ticket, tried chat and tweeted for 10 days without a response. Finally had to dispute the charge on my credit card to resolve it.

You like candy. I get that. I like candy too. That makes it hard. But sometimes you have to say no to something that seems good, for the greater good.

 

You ultimately are saying you trust Legere to be the gatekeeper. But he will not be the only guardian of the gateways. This is about to explode everywhere.

 

#SayNo2FreeCandy

 

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I get the slippery slope argument. I'm more commenting on the merits on the situation as it exists today. I'm not much of a slipper slope guy.

I don't understand an argument that suggests what T Mobile is doing is bad. And I say that as a Sprint customer and not a Legere fan. The baseline of service is clearly that all data costs you in terms of going against your allotment. It would be a significant issue if he was somehow restricting that baseline service but he's not. What he is doing the saying that OK now building upon that baseline service I am offering partnership perks for the following services. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's a business decision. It's like when you fly Southwest Airlines and they give you more mileage perks only if you use an Alamo rental car or when you shop at Costco and they give you perks only on partner products. I just don't get this argument.

Seems to me that the problem is that Sprint is capping their plan at 6GB before throttling. It seems pretty clear that the lease terms require Sprint to offer the best retail available plan under the EBS program. That would be a 30GB plan. Not sure why Sprint just doesn't offer 30GB and be done with it.

Well said. In my opinion, the most egregious thing the author did was say how T-Mobile built its own fiber network to the towers but not actually acknowledge why it did. Of course, acknowledging why T-Mobile did this would have undermined the whole premise of his article to begin with.

What is the story on that? Why did they do it?

Personally I too support the idea of Sprint acquiring US Cellular.

 

Especially since both Sprint and US Cellular are CDMA.

Short of a hostile takeover, a company has to want to be acquired which as I understand it is the problem in this situation.

I wonder what the cost to Sprint the roaming charges will be billed to Sprint by US Cellular. If it is anything high like what I've heard other carriers charge them, then I think it would just be better for Sprint to try acquiring US Cellular.

 

I know how roaming is a nice convenience for Sprint customers, but is it really that important to have it in spite of all these mass layoffs, health benefits being cut, etc. to its employees? I'm talking serious things here, not just perks like free snacks and yogurt. Although all of these things being taken away from Sprint employees while other carriers, even T-Mobile includes them.

 

This considering how much of a cutback John Legere is.

But isn't there a reciprocal benefit to USCC by gaining access to Sprint network as well?

I thought that The Verge was a more intellectual site, above the "click bait" headlines of BGR, etc. I guess not.

 

And writer Nick Statt may not be an idiot. But he was wearing his idiot cap today, also grinding his axe against Sprint.

 

AJ

I hit Nick Statt up on Twitter today because his article griped that Sprint is advertising "unlimited access..." which they are doing no such thing. The phrase "unlimited access" does not appear in the Sprint release for this plan. He didn't respond.

I'm not a big T-Mobile follower and don't know much about their service. What is the general consensus complaint about T Mobile's coverage claims? Are they just exaggerating the coverage areas where they are at or are they parsing some technical argument that gives them a claim to coverage that doesn't exist? I'm just curious.

I'm just curious what other people think of this idea. I've always been frustrated by how long it takes Samsung and LG to update Android versions with the carriers. It seems like there is a great opportunity for Sprint to differentiate themselves by associating with a small handset manufacturer that they had some leverage with and providing a line of flagship phones that had guaranteed Android update timelines. I've always thought Blu would be a great manufacturer to partner with.

 

I know the Nexus line exists but it would be nice to have another option.

It's funny but as someone who has used Sprint for over 14 years, I never came across a time where I needed sim-voice/data. Perhaps its my usage, but for those who have been around for a while, it's not like we expected it to come eventually.

I mostly agree with you but there is one huge exception that gets me all the time and it is obtaining the traffic feed in Google Navigation while I'm on a conference call. That is the reason that I carry a Verizon mifi.

Sprint executives were charging limousines and drivers to the company? Hilarious.

You really think that is unusual for a company of Sprint's size? I think that's pretty par for the course in my opinion.

I'm having freezing and lagging and I bought my phone this month..not sure if it'd a premonition of issues to come..

 

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Did you get a firmware update in that time?

First one didn't made to the third month... And froze half the screen .... But the biggest disappointment was the battery ...... I mean...... I confirmed that all the battery reviews are crap... Because im a mild to heavy user and it doesn't last a working day.... (thats 7.5 hours)...

 

What really impressed me was the camera .... This is on way another league.....

 

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I think all this focus on battery life and all these reviews that purport to suggest what battery life people should expect are such a joke anyway. The battery life is so heavily dependent on the network signal strength that it is just impossible to know what level of battery life to expect when network strength varies block to block.

We will see. If any of the other carriers jump on this like they do when tmobile does things I will be the first to eat my words. If they don't then clearly Sprint is the only one that thinks this is a good investment. I'm betting the other carriers are going to ignore this though.

 

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The other carriers don't have a significant need to add customers. They're already adding customers without this program because of their reputation and their network. Sprint historically has had neither, needs customers and needs to try things to get them. It doesn't mean the program doesn't work. It means the other carriers don't need to spend money on it.

This is why it's dangerous to use terms like "most." Only 55% of the US population has a smartphone. That's expected to climb to over 70% in the next five years. That's 45 million new customers for the carriers. That approaching the size of Sprint's existing customer base.

 

If Sprint can get even a percentage of that new user base by doing something unique then it could be worth it. No one here knows that that program costs.

If you ask advocates of net neutrality it isn't, why? Near as I can tell because it benefits them, i.e. Content providers. I for the life of me don't understand why consumers care, But it a strict sense yes it is.

 

 

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I don't see anything wrong with offering features like this when they are strictly impacting billing and not monetarily penalizing those that prefer to use services. It would be different if they were speeding up or slowing down the network for certain services. They're not though. And they aren't charging people more who make other choices. This is simply a free perk.

 

An analogy would be like the airlines charging for luggage but then offering the customers using their credit card free bags.

I think I screwed up. Once a month or so I usually clear the cache partition by rebooting to recovery. This morning was the morning that I did that. I noticed that I had the new system update notification but didn't realize that the cache is apparently where the update is stored. So when I cleared the cache I also lost the update. Now when I check for the update it does not show that an update is available. Have I lost this permanently somehow or will I just get back in line and be offered the update again at some point?

I think that is a bad analogy because it doesn't include the requirement to use services to get that free ride. The reason this is an issue is because T-Mobile effectively drives users on the network to certain providers of services such as the already mentioned music services. It also plays favorites with the Ookla Speedtest.net App being exempted but others such as Sensorly Speedtest are not. Thus it is no longer neutral in providing bandwidth as it disincentivizes apps that are not exempted and further it raises unfair barriers to entry for new apps that may have otherwise been on even footing aside from established apps having a larger userbase.

 

Sorry but I simply don't buy the 'no harm because it is free!' Line of thought on net neutrality because it is an incomplete line of thinking that assumes no potential harm is being done.

I don't feel that positive incentives are the same thing as negative penalties. As long as I can use the core service with the services I want I am fine with companies creating partnerships that add additional value.

Assurion handles the insurance for all of the major carriers, so they are kind of the only game in town if you want a carrier based insurance solution. But hey at least you don't have to pay off you phone and buy a new one.

Other than not knowing there are other alternatives why would anybody specifically seek out a carrier-based insurance product versus a non carrier based? Worth Ave Group has to be the worst marketers I've ever seen but their insurance product is vastly superior. SquareTrade is doing much better in the advertising realm right now and while their product isn't as good as Worth Ave Group, it is still superior to the carrier products.

When did Bahamas get added? That's an expensive place to get service on most of the world sim providers. That's a great add!

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprints-claure-gives-himself-3-5-years-turnaround-after-1-year-job/2015-08-25

 

Marcelo is saying he gives himself 3 to 5 years to turn Sprint around. What happened to the 24 months of being no. 1 or 2 for the network?

There's more to the turnaround of a company than being the number one or number two rated network.