maxsilver

No, it is not. They have two entirely separate meanings. SoftBank saw an opportunity to profit and took it. If that perception wasn't there they wouldn't have done it. The government bailouts were done specifically to keep those organization going, regardless of weather or not profits were seen ahead of time.

Your free to feel that way, but the term "bailout" has a well defined meaning and explicitly covers situations like this. If your upset with that then your argument isn't with me, but with the dictionary.

"A bailout can be done for mere profit, as when an investor resurrects a floundering company by buying its shares at fire-sale prices"

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bailout.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailout

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bailout

They didn't get a "bail out" from Japan, they got an investment from a Japanese based multinational. The difference is an investment is made expectant of a return on that investment and a "bail out" is made simple to keep the company afloat. Only governments " bail out" companies.

"Bail outs" are usually investments too, and also expect a return on that investment. For instance, the US government was paid back for their auto bailout, and actually generated $8 billion or so in profit from the the bank bailout.

"Bail out" is a common way to describe an investment that was necessary for a company to continue. That can come from a government, but also from a multinational corporation, or even just a single investor.

Long-term perhaps. But it isn't like it all of the sudden became known that Sprint has high yielding debt with a chunk of it nearing maturity. This has been known for years and is public record through Sprint's SEC fillings. Short-term, the stock this week absolutely was about the re-code article which appears to be sketchy on accuracy at best and several analysts downgrading earnings estimates.

I think it's more "people knew Sprint had debt nearing maturity, and expected Sprint to handle it". Now it's "people know Sprint has high yielding debt, and aren't confident that Sprint will handle it anymore". 

I really don't see the re/code article effecting it much. If anything, Sprint's reluctance to talk about specifics would swing it more than a random blog article.

For instance, If Sprint announced they were selling any spectrum, you'd see their stock price shoot up instantly.

Assuming a buyer was found who paid $1.25 per MHz-POP, Sprint could easily wipe out this upcoming $1.5 billion dollar maturing debt by selling/leasing just 20mhz of B41 in various markets. (That price seems fairly conservative, AWS3 just sold for approx $1.60 to $2.80 MHz-POP).

It would not impact current Sprint service in any way (they'd still have 2xCA / 3xCA in various markets), and would put them on more solid financial footing -- not a permanent fix, but buying them a lot more time to correct their financials.

To be clear, I don't *want* Sprint to sell spectrum, and it's not assured that a buyer could be lined up for it. But if the alternative is defaulting on their loans and/or eliminating cell sites/density -- selling/leasing their unused spectrum is a rational choice that's far better than many of the alternatives.

I think T-Mobile should have (snip)  allow them to enable/disable it by texting BINGEON ON or BINGEON OFF. 

I agree they should have had that ready upfront. But they do offer this now.

You can dial a shortcode to turn on/off BingeOn at any time. (Similar to the data usage and other shortcodes)

#BNG# (or #264#) - Check Status

#BNO# (or #266#) - Turn BingeOn On (Activate)

#BNF# (or #263#) - Turn BingeOn Off (Deactivate)

VoLTE should be an option.

I think a hardware keyboard should be too, but I get why both are ignored.

I was going to make some suggestions but for some reason Netflix thinks I'd enjoy "Fireplace For Your Home".

Well, of course! It's a holiday tradition!

BoJack Horseman is probably my absolute favourite Netflix-created series.

House of Cards, Arrested Development, Master of None are also great.

I get the impression most people don't like sense8, but I really enjoyed that one too. It's slow to start, but starts to click after the third episode.

How common is this? Reason for my asking is I've used VoLTE nearly ubiquitously since October of last year. There were definitely some hiccups in the first few months, but that seemed to be worked out by the end of the year, and the only real issue was in high mobility, not low mobility scenarios.

It's not "common" (I use VoLTE ubiquitously, I also rarely experience it). But it's more common than dropped calls, which happen even less often.

RootMetrics is saying that in NYC, 1.2% of calls are being blocked, or roughly "1 out of every 100 calls". I think sounds about right,  in my experience.

I have used VoLTE and voice extensively with no issues of blocked calls, and have polled other users in my area, both Android and iOS for their feedback, and they too have not had issues with blocked calls, yet RootMetrics reports an 18x increase in blocked call failures, that I have not found. Even when I am in heavy load sectors where I get sub 1 Mbps down even on 15 MHz wide channels, VoLTE never hiccups.

As far as I can tell,  It doesn't matter whether the site is busy or empty. It doesn't matter whether you have a good or bad signal. The network literally doesn't seem to matter at all.

It feels like a server in Bellevue is throwing an error that isn't caught. The phone won't fall back to HSPA+ (because it has a totally fine LTE signal with data and everything) but the call just doesn't go through.

If you hang up, immediately place the same call again (same tower, same reception, same phone number, same everything) it suddenly works fine, no issue.

could this be a difference in vendor hardware that explains this? The reason I ask is that in Midwest and Southern markets T-Mobile uses Nokia. Maybe the Nokia eNodeB's and EPC manages the VoLTE call reliability better.

http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/grand-rapids-mi/2015/2H is an example that comes to mind. T-Mobile Michigan is Nokia, right?

T-Mobile literally didn't drop a single call anywhere in the entire market in any of RootMetrics testing. But they placed last on call ranking due exclusively to call blocking (also at about 1%).

Verizon doesn't have the VoLTE blocked call issues, I know from using it.

T-Mobile doesn't have VoLTE blocked call issues either, in some markets. But in others, they're recording 1% or higher blocked calls, even when data service itself is equally OK.

As far as I can tell, this is not a VoLTE issue at all -- VoLTE itself is fine and very reliable.  It's a "T-Mobile is doing something weird specifically to their own VoLTE in many markets" issue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/3vx5fn/tmo_has_the_third_best_network_in_nyc_behind/

 

 

This conversation is really interesting .

This is pretty common. It's the VoLTE blocked call issue. I've mentioned this before.  T-Mobile has a provisioning issue where calls on VoLTE get blocked, even when data service is otherwise totally fine.

In data speeds, T-Mobile came in 2nd place. And T-Mobile's call reliability is also 2nd place, (less call drops than Verizon or Sprint, according to this RootMetrics report).

If they had fixed their VoLTE call blocked issue, they'd probably have ranked 2nd place. But because they still haven't fixed it yet, they're still recording these high blocked call numbers.

I don't think it's wrong at all for RootMetrics to penalize them for that.

I'm applying it everywhere.  Terms evolve.  (snip).  You can call it whatever you want.  The term doesn't matter.

If someone steals property, they are a thief. That doesn't make them an arsonist. The term "arson" means something specific (setting fire to property) and stealing isn't that, even if the end result is similar.

If you try to warn people about a thief by saying "he's an arsonist", you'll be wrong and appear either uninformed or untrustworthy. It's sort of like crying wolf, it hurts the cause your trying to support.

I'm doing my part to expand the knowledge of the sliminess in anyone who attempts to control content.  Especially through means of giving it away for free, when there really is a huge cost for it.  

That cuts both ways though. You also run a service, on the internet, that controls content using a set of rules you defined (S4GRU Posting Guidelines). The content here is (mostly) free, even though there is a real-world cost for it.  

By your own "expanded definition" of Net Neutrality,  S4GRU.com is also "in violation of Net Neutrality".

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Obviously that's not true, S4GRU.com does not actually violate Net Neutrality. But that's why these definitions are so important --  if "you can call (Net Neutrality) whatever you want" and "the term doesn't matter" then anyone can claim anything and be accurate.

Net Neutrality is a principle that ISP's (and the governments regulating them) should not be allowed to discriminate against content over the net, because they hold an effective monopoly over access.

Amazon's "pay developers for eyeballs" play is slimy, but is not a violation of Net Neutrality by definition.

Net Neutrality isn't a catch-all phrase for any company acting as a "gatekeeper", or using their influence to pick winners or losers -- Net Neutrality is a specific principle against a specific type of transgression. I worry that if people throw that label onto anything that happens to be "bad", it cheapens the meaning.

Is T-Mobile printing its own money over there? How is Legere making the numbers work?

Based on their quarterly filings, T-Mobile's pushing a good chunk of their earnings back into the network. They're spending most of their margins on the network + customer acquisition, instead of recording them as profit or returning them as dividends.

is the clock ticking on the house of cards they've set up?

T-Mobile has been profitable for two years now (all while covering the network upgrade costs, and ETF payoff costs). Factually speaking, they could sustain themselves forever with their current setup, unless something major changes in the future (such as customers leaving, or their expenses rising sharply)

The one and only milan03 on why BingeOn won't break the network, complete with anecdotal evidence.

To be fair, we're only seeing anecdotal evidence the other way too. 

Everyone is just assuming all congestion must be caused by BingeOn, even though T-Mobile is adding a couple million subscribers every quarter, has skipped out on backhaul upgrades in some areas, and has very little spectrum growth. 

Congestion is happening in places, we're seeing that. But I strongly suspect those are the causes, and 

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I understand people's assumption of "abuse" causing problems. Previous unlimited plans often weren't throttled. Just one or two "abusers" could soak up an entire sector, and we've likely all seen that happen firsthand in the past. But  BingeOn is so heavily throttled that it's literally impossible for one or two people to impact the network in any way.

Let's do some napkin math : Even if T-Mobile only had 10+10 LTE in a given market, (assuming 900kbps average 480p video stream) a single 3-sector site could have more than 150 people on it "abusing" BingeOn 24/7/365, and the 151st user could still pull down an average 6-12mbps on a speedtest (assuming good signal and available backhaul).  

That's roughly 15-20% of all T-Mobile's subscribers nationwide (per site, on average) who could all "abuse" BingeOn simultaneously before there was a problem. And that's assuming the worst-case spectrum scenario (most markets have much more than just 20mhz. In many markets, you'd need roughly 50% of subscribers, all streaming *simultaneously* before there's a problem).

Even being heavily-pessimistic with the math, it still works out OK for quite a while.

Just watch what happens if AT&T/Verizon tries to offer a similar offer or even Sprint. T-Mobile will cry foul and the FCC will crack down on them for NN violations in a heartbeat.

AT&T charges providers for their zero rating, and the FCC hasn't done anything about it. (http://www.att.com/att/sponsoreddata/en/index.html)

I'd guess there's zero chance that the FCC will strike down any similar offers that any carrier makes. In fact, it's unlikely that the FCC would enforce much of anything in the future related to Net Neutrality, for any cellular carrier.

Wow. That's a huge stats failure.

Lumping Verizon and AT&T financials together, and Sprint and T-Mobile's financials together, as if they are the same company is an easy way to paint a hugely misleading picture.

"Apple and BlackBerry, collectively, are loosing money on every phone sold!"

I still don't like BingeOn, for all the obvious Net Neutrality issues. But rationally, I don't see T-Mobile's spectrum getting hit because of BingeOn.

Most of T-Mobile's so-called "giveaways" don't actually cost T-Mobile any significant amount money. That's how they're sustainable, they *look* expensive, but are actually really cheap. (Music Streaming, International Benefits, Data Rollover, etc). BingeOn seems to fit that pattern. 

I suspect T-Mobile's available speeds will slowly drop in the future, but due to new subscriber growth, and not because of BingeOn. If anything, BingeOn buys them more time to handle more subscriber growth on their existing spectrum -- it's essentially a 33% throttle on a regular user's most network-intensive activity. That should free up a lot of spectrum and backhaul at a near-zero cost.

The DOW is up 1.5% while Sprint is down close to 10%.

 

That tells me hype was built up and the investors don't feel like it delivered.

 

Those arent magenta fanboys or delusional S4GRU members - they're unbiased investors.

I wouldn't use the daily stock price as a metric for success.

Apple has major announcements of new products, and despite having a consistent history of huge profit margins, their stock drops after most of those announcements.

"Buy the rumor, sell the news" - http://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/buy-the-rumor-sell-the-news/

Does anyone here disagree with the statement that regardless of the merits of the new plan, Sprint over-hyped it?

 

(snip)

 

the countdown clock, the "nights and weekends working" and all the tweets built up expectations way too high.

I was just about to post a similar message.

Sprint seemed to want really high expectations, to drive publicity, generate excitement, etc. This often works really well, if your announcing something interesting or novel. But changing an existing promo slightly doesn't really fit most people's idea of "interesting or novel".

I don't see anything wrong with the promotion. It was fine before, and the new changes are nice. But I can definitely see why people would be frustrated -- this doesn't feel in line with their pre-announcement messaging. 

Whether I loaded both of those sites on mobile or WiFi, the picture was virtually the same.

Sorry, I must have been unclear. Those are not working examples for you to try out on a phone right now. They are screenshots of that effect happening on other peoples phones. (that compression you see in those screenshots does not exist normally, Sprint added it during download)

This is a screenshot of a website normally (through VPN) - http://i.imgur.com/ZvbBle3.png

This is that same page, after Sprint's automatically compressed it - http://i.imgur.com/jTL1VAq.png

I still haven't experienced this media compression that everyone talks about, or rather I don't realize when it happens. Perhaps I'm oblivious or maybe it just isn't that big of a deal to me.

http://imgur.com/wq2VjrM.png and http://i.imgur.com/jTL1VAq.png  are some examples

I don't think it's subtle -- it bothers me a lot when I see it happen. But I'm sure there are some people who won't notice or won't mind. 

Maxsilver, you can add more and more words to your same arguments. But a few more people are seeing the anti-Net Neutrality black lining to these Legere giveaways.

 

(snip)

And when anyone starts to feel like maybe this is a bad idea, they will read your reassuring Neville Chamberlain words, and the Duopoly will give them a new flavor of candy they haven't had before, and it will all go away.

I'll be honest -- I'm not sure why this is directed at me.

I already stated that T-Mobile's plan is an bad move and huge Net Neutrality violation. Zero-rating is bad. It's bad when T-Mobile does it. It's bad when anyone does it. Even Wikipedia shouldn't get a free pass - http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/01/wikipedia-zero-and-net-neutrality-protecting-the-internet/

I can't tell if your preaching to the choir, or if this is a joke that went way over my head.

I'm struggling to see how this could be construed as discriminatory if it includes any video service that signs up, signup being free and there being no bar to entry. A startup offering vod from a vps could sign up, how quickly they got accepted remains to be seen but both ends probably need to consent to having their content downgraded in quality.

You should read Susan Crawford's work on this topic https://medium.com/backchannel/less-than-zero-199bcb05a868

Condensed, your arguing for a benevolent dictatorship. "It's ok that T-Mobile gets to pick winners and losers, because they do so justly." T-Mobile's move is still a major breach of Net Neutrality, because it's still discrimination against certain sources of data. That discrimination is inherently wrong, even if you personally happen to benefit from it in a reduced phone bill.

Being "ok" with how T-Mobile chooses to discriminate, doesn't make the discrimination any better

Net Neutrality mostly stemmed from paying for a fast lane, although admittedly it did include zero rating where specific companies could pay to have their data zero rated. That isn't the case here, there is no fee, nor is any fast lane being used

Net Neutrality has always been about preventing discrimination of data in various ways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality  It did not "stem" from a fast lane, a fast lane is just a symptom of non neutral ISP. Zero rating is another symptom of a non neutral ISP.  Plans that only allow access to certain parts of the internet (like a "social media" Twitter/Facebook/Instagram only plan) are also a symptom of a non neutral ISP.

Remember Sprint DID zero rate their own tv streaming service while charging for others. I don't recall them being pilloried for it

They should have. Zero rating is a breach of Net Neutrality, regardless of who perpetrates it. Sprint fans who choose to ignore Sprint's Net Neutrality breaches (historical, recent, and current) doesn't change that in any way.

The biggest worry here is how their network will stand up to the abuse.

This is would be the least of my concerns.

T-Mobile already gives out unlimited data for anyone who pays for it, for any application. I don't believe letting people stream heavily throttled video streams will cause any more congestion than an unlimited user already could, doing other activities. 

You'll probably see congestion in the future. But not due to this.

(EDIT: highlighted a line that was already present originally, just to make sure people don't miss it)

Magenta is announcing that family plans have no shared data, and double data for family plans.  So instead of 2GB for the whole family, each person will get 2GB.

Didn't they already do that? T-Mobile's current Family Plan promotion already gives each phone their own 10GB.

Find an EBS spectrum lease contract stipulation that Sprint nee Clearwire must maintain a certain coverage footprint, and I will rescind my words.  But good luck with that.  

There are service contracts that specify coverage footprints. It's not necessarily an EBS lease, but many groups / nonprofits have them. The City of Grand Rapids has one, for instance :

http://grcity.us/technology-and-change-management/Documents/Clearwire%20Agreement%20Summary.docx

http://muniwireless.com/reports/docs/Clearwire_Commission_Memo.doc

http://www.rapidgrowthmedia.com/devnews/CLEAR4G0805.aspx

http://grcity.us/technology-and-change-management/Documents/GR-%20Clear%20Agreement%20Summary.pdf

Clearwire promise via contract to cover the entire Grand Rapids legal municipal city footprint with "at least 95% outdoor coverage, and at least 90% of interior rooms in residential, municipal, commercial, and other buildings". It's written directly into the contract.

As part of that bid, they also agreed to offer a "wireless network access that supports video streaming and high-bandwidth applications without a cap on data use" also to offer a low-income unlimited internet plan at $9.95/month for up to 5% of the households within Grand Rapids (similar to the plan in this lawsuit, but not through that specific organization)

--

But again, to be absolutely clear, I'm not advocating any right or wrong on the issue. I'm not in any way "pro WiMax" or "anti Sprint". Just saying that Sprint should comply with court orders they receive, while this gets sorted out.

Asking Sprint to follow the rule of law is not, in any way "anti Sprint".