mittenmitten

T-Mobile is the only carrier throwing in tethering, it's not an industry trend, and it's because Legere is the candy man. tethering isn't going to change anyone's mind about which carrier they're going to use. I would be all for CHEAPER tethering and/or bigger pools of data, or throwing it in on Boost or Virgin plans, but throwing it in for free on Sprint is just throwing money away.

I doubt unlimited will go away anytime soon on TMo, but just like Sprint has stated, the future of unlimited is currently unknown.

it's entirely possible that infrastructure will move in pace with or ahead of consumption. the trend shows more consumption of media, but if that media is compressed more and more, and things like wifi become more widely used, it's entirely possible for that trend to stall and unlimited to be feasible for several decades into the future. it depends on whether or not Claure was speaking in terms of the very distant future or near term. im guessing he was waxing philosophical and everyone is blowing this way out of proportion. T-Mobile will follow whatever Sprint does, or vise versa.

I hope they do. Family Share pack of 20GB at $160 for 4 lines. I know not totally apples to apples, but I definitely think its enough to warrant some pricing changes by Sprint. T-Mobile is really smart offering this, starting to phase out unlimited promos.

'smart' has nothing to do with it, they can't afford to keep offering unlimited promos.

It's a fee for terminating your contract early because they have not recouped their subsidy yet by providing you with a discounted device. With a $600 device on Sprint with EIP it's $60 plus $25 a month. Now look at the subsidized $80 plan, with $200 up front. That extra $20 a month in the plan is going towards paying the $400 discount that Sprint gave you up front for the device. Notice how you still pay $600 for the phone over the two years? The ETF starts at $350 and goes down every month, because every month you pay back some of that money they discounted up front.

that's Sprint, not AT&T and Verizon. Sprint is about as fair as it can get with devices. I know that on Verizon, they used to shave money off it each month, but it was only to a point where you would still owe ~$150 after 23 months if you terminate your contract.

It really doesn't cost more. The ETF is basically the remainder of your subsidy that you have not paid by paying your bill over two years, that's why it goes down month by month. The carriers get their money regardless. EIP and contracts are the same, with a different label to make customers think they aren't in a contract.

it's not though, it's a FEE assessed for terminating your contract. lets say I buy an iphone 6 on Verizon. it's $200 up front, + $100 a month for service. Verizon charges $40 a month for the phone on a 2yr contract vs. $27 a month for EDGE, thats $13 a month in device installments. $13*24 = $312 in installments. $312 + $200 upfront = $512, which is about what Verizon is probably paying for the phones. the $350 ETF is a completely separate fee. on Verizon's end, the ETF will cover what they lose on the phone if the customer doesn't pay. on the customer's side, they're paying for the phone already each month, and are charged the ETF as a penalty for breach of contract (though if you fulfill your contract, you're never charged the fee). VERY effectively reducing churn. if you pay like you're supposed to, you pay off the device in full. if you don't, Verizon doesn't lose money.

on T-Mobile, you could sell your phone before even paying it off just by swapping sim cards. get the money, pay for the device, (or don't, and just screw someone else over, you have to wonder how many people are being screwed over on Craigslist since T-Mobile started EIP), you're done. on Sprint, because you can't just swap sims, you're locked into that lease until you pay a bunch of money up front, after cancelling service, then paying the remaining lease payments, plus the purchase option, also getting the phone unlocked, THEN selling the phone. they're both fair, but one is simpler than the other. more loops to jump through = lower churn.

The same could be said for two year contracts, just sell the device to make up for the termination fee. You have to pay either way, both lock customers down the same.

on-contract, device payments for the phone are already built in to monthly charges. most of the people who switched were at least a few months into their contracts. downpayment of $100-$200 + $20 a month*however many months you've already been paying + $300+ ETF, it costs more to terminate a contract than it does to pay off an installment plan, they're intentionally unfair to discourage people from leaving. plus it involves cancelling service.

the point is: easier to pay off phone = easier to change carriers. Sprint has proven leasing puts downward pressure on churn, T-Mobile has had problems with churn specifically because people weren't/aren't obligated to stay with them.

I hate to say it but making service harder and more complicated to cancel keeps people from shifting around all the time. it's kind of foolish for T-Mobile to pay $300 for me to join them when all I have to do to leave is sell my phone on Swappa or Craigslist.

 EIP is essentially the same thing as a contract. The same customers that could not  afford to pay (or did not want to pay) an early termination fee likely can not afford to pay off their device balances in full if they want to leave early. In many cases, depending on the device EIP can have a larger financial burden if you want to leave early after switching or signing a commitment.

there's no penalty for terminating EIP, you just sell the device to pay off the balance. and you can't completely disregard the use of unlocked devices on their network...

How will T-Mobile go broke?

they paid ~$300-$400 to get a customer on their network, they need to profit that much from them to come out to 0, which will take about a year. they spent a year heavily promoting and advertising, they have to slow it down to actually see those profits a year from now otherwise they'll just keep pushing back the time they'll see profitability. in that year, Verizon and AT&T could spend all that money T-Mobile gave them for their customers on promotions to try to steal them back or gain new ones to replace them and come out to 0. really the only customers T-Mobile will immediately profit from are the ones they didn't have to pay for.

it's a good thing T-Mobile started offering leasing, because there's practically no pressure on customers to remain with them so they can see those profits (being 'no contract' and all) should the other carriers decide to drop prices / heavily promote.

Another point to consider would be the early termination fees that TMUS is offering to pay for all new customers who switch to their network. For FY2014, this figure was $58M, which is nearly half of its net profit for the entire year.

think about it though. T-Mobile is paying their competitors half of their profits just to claim a customer as their own. their competitors could turn around and spend that money trying to win them back and come out neutral (like Sprint, essentially spending what they're being paid from shedding customers on gaining new more profitable customers using the exact same method as T-Mobile, effectively canceling it out). but most of the carriers aren't doing anything. why? because T-Mobile added 2 million customers. that's just 4/5 of 1% of their collective customer base.

If I were Verizon or AT&T or Sprint, I would just let T-Mobile pay me half their profits, conduct business as usual, and wait for the fire to burn itself out. Or, if I wanted my customers back really bad, wait until T-Mobile is broke, which is going to be from now until late 2016, then offer promotions.

Yes, there's sometimes where I haven't loaded the $30 SIM for months. I've only had to buy two, for what it's worth.

 

 

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I have about a dozen nano sims from MetroPCS, Cricket, and T-Mobile prepaid in my kitchen drawer lol. Still have a T-Mobile prepaid sim kit, was 99 cents, just in case

You realize they are only counting net activations, right? If you join T-Mobile and then port out to AT&T and then Rejoin T-Mobile (within the same Q), that doesn't count as 2 adds. If you do it a hundred times it doesn't count as 100 net adds, it still is one net add.

T-Mobile keeps inactive accounts for 2-3 months, which means they can drop off right after the quarter ends. It depends really, I know VoIP/Google Voice is really popular with those $30 accounts to circumvent the 100 minutes cap, if someone moves from T-Mobile to AT&T then back to T-Mobile (which is more common than you think with people using unlocked phones) using VoIP they likely won't take their 'number' with them, in which case that's 2 accounts. Probably not super common, but we're talking a 300k difference in Sprint's last count compared to T-Mobile's current count, there are a ton of ways these numbers can be inaccurate, and neither Sprint nor T-Mobile are being super transparent about what they do and don't count.

When T-Mobile pulls ahead by a couple million, then I'll think of them as #3, but until then, this is just posturing. There's a 20 million customer difference between AT&T and Verizon, and a 50 million customer difference between #2 and #3. meh.

I have not verified this but I was told that T Mobile is counting migrations from their prepaid to post paid as post acts. This is one way they are able to put up the numbers they have.

 

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not only that but their immensely popular $30 5gb prepaid plan is for new activations only. considering their customers' use of  unlocked phones, people are constantly switching between AT&T and T-Mobile MVNOs. when I had a nexus 4 on T-Mobile, between switching from MetroPCS to T-Mobile prepaid to Straight Talk I must have counted as a dozen activations myself.

their postpaid activations are down QoQ, the fun bus is slowing down

I just can't believe 1 person with a terrible track record is able to sway so many investors away from their investments. You would think people would go online and research just a little bit before dropping their shares.

Liked, but . Microsoft's announcement yesterday felt like the death of a close friend to me. They've essentially given up on the Windows Phone platform, for all intents and purposes. Reminiscent of webOS.

apparently you haven't been following Windows 10 Mobile...

http://m.pocketnow.com/2015/07/04/lg-g2-android-lollipop

 

And Best Buy has the Sprint version of the LG G2 for $150.

 

Lollipop 5.0.2 with a probable update to 5.1.1

I bought one. The specs looks really decent for the price.

Freedom Fries

Serious question: what allowed Dish to go gangbusters in the AWS auction and not T-Mobile? T-Mobile could have also acquired more debt to finance a better spectrum position. They certainly didn't have to take such a conservative tact. If their thought is "count on Dish acquisition", I wouldn't since Verizon could still act on buying Dish. If Verizon buys Dish that would certainly put T-Mobile in a rough spot. No band 23 20x20, no AWS-3 either. Everyone also assumes Dish won't be around for the 600 MHz auction, but what if they are? That certainly throws a monkey wrench in the proceedings if they go all out.

This is what I don't get either; by going to the FCC pleading for a price cut, Legere is basically admitting he's mismanaged funds. "How can I pay for full-priced spectrum? Ive already spent my money on dozens of promotions, and AWS spectrum a year ago". Claure sold bonds to finance projects Ocean and Cedar. He slashed operating costs to the bone, and flew to Japan to seek funding. Sprint has offered discounted service, but they're not giving anything away. Legere pretty much quit trying to secure funding after DTK told him no. As CEO, it's part of his job to find funding for these purchases, whether its issuing new shares (their shares are overvalue as it is), selling debt, cutting costs, etc. He's been so wrapped up in giving their network away for free and being 'the rockstar', now that he needs money, he doesn't have it. The guy is a terrible CEO, but at least a bunch of 20-somethings think he's cool!

pretty sure only the old 'my way' plans had it, pretty sure family share and the 'new' $60 unlimited weren't streaming video at 3g speeds.

Did anyone notice that all Sprint plans now say "streaming video speeds limited to 3g" ?

ALL of them say it now, not just the 'All-In' plan, even their normal Unlimited plan, and their Family Share plan..I don't remember them saying that a few weeks ago..

http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/media-kits/jump-on-demand.htm

 

Tmobile basically leases phones now....hahahahahahahahahahhaha!

 

After all that damn lease bashing Leger did on Twitter too.

I immediately came here to see if people would be talking about it, they are indeed leasing phones now, this is amazing. It's like a perfect storm; 21gb soft cap/deprioritization, iphones are malfunctioning, 'major news' is leasing Legere was ripping on Claure for, this is the best week ever :*)

I hate Tmo-News, but do open it up every so often.

 

http://www.tmonews.com/2015/06/21gb-soft-cap-quietly-added-to-t-mobiles-unlimited-4g-lte-simple-choice-plans/

 

21GB "soft cap" put on unlimied plans. Kind of interesting...I think T-Mobile is realizing their network is suffering from speed tests and unlimited data.

 

Edit:

 

This is a comment on TmoNews

 

 

That is just mind blowing. This is why they can't offer truly unlimited data, because of idiots like this.

this is what happens when you make using data a 'challenge'. T-Mobile made themselves a haven for 'data hogs', and they're suffering the consequences. hopefully Sprint's Truly Unlimited network doesn't fill up with defectors.

Yes, T-Mobile has very strong service in the center of Easttown (I'm fairly certain their site is on the Kingsley -- the old tall white stone building, next to Sheldon Cleaners and Kava House).

 

I've always gotten full AWS LTE on multiple devices throughout all of the business district there (including inside Harmony Brewing, inside Bombay Cuisine, Argos Bookshop, etc). Service in Easttown has been that strong for years due to the site location, even pre-LTE the HSPA+21 was pretty strong and fast.

 

Now, that particular Easttown T-Mobile site is turned down very low (presumably for density / faster speed purposes?). So even though service in Easttown proper is really strong and fast, it tends to drop out pretty quick as you leave the area.  If you walk down Wealthy street, indoors at Electric Cheetah / Brick Road Pizza / Sparrows Coffee TMO tends to be very weak or no service situations, despite being only one mile away from the Easttown cell site.

I can't get LTE in Erb Thai on Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T, it's madness.

I don't even use more than 20gb of data, but I like the peace of mind of not having to babysit my data usage. If Sprint could keep unlimited but maybe heavily compress the data of people who go over a certain amount, so they don't necessarily restrict their access, I would be okay with that. Or drop them to 3g instead of LTE.

I don't care about throttling after hitting a certain cap, it's the degree to which they throttle that irritates me. If they could just drop people to 3g maybe, instead of 128kbps, I wouldn't mind at all, because 3g still allows for video streaming and general usage. 128kbps is unusable, EVDO is still capable of a couple mbps.

Yep.

 

It's frustrating, since Sprint owns leases on two different cell sites directly in Easttown, that they haven't used.

 

- One is a Clear WiMax tower, on the southeast side of Aquinas College / Wilcox Park. (Aquinas Dept of Safety Bldg)

- One is an ex-Nextel site, on the rooftop of the Kingsley Building, literally in the center of Easttown. T-Mobile is co-located on that, with Zayo Fiber backhaul.

 

Instead of using those sites, Sprint's currently shooting service in all the way from either East Grand Rapids or Michigan St and Plymouth. Which is just way too far away for a dense neighborhood like that, regardless of the spectrum used. (AT&T does this too, with similarly bad results)

my fiance doesn't get T-Mobile service in easttown either, but you say there's a T-Mobile tower there? are they actually using it?

HA, Easttown is listed as 'fair' for Spark. I can't even get LTE in Easttown.