maxsilver

No, probably not.

 

Sprint can shut down WiMAX sites right and left.

Right. Except where this court order prevents them from doing so for the next 90 days. That's what we're talking about.

A user suggested Sprint should do so anyway, underhandedly. (In a "It would be a shame if something happened to your service..." manner). And I suggested they shouldn't, because Sprint would probably get fined by the court over it, and I don't think Sprint should waste money paying extra fines.

The rest of your post is all true, but not really relevant. Your arguing against claims I've never made.

Honestly, most of your posts now are against Sprint or in support/defense of T-Mobile.  You really are becoming a bit of a troll.  What do you have to say about that?

Well, my initial reaction is "How on earth could asking Sprint not to get fined by a court, possibly count as being against Sprint?"

But in general, I get the impression that you've decided you don't like me, and your letting your opinion of me as a person invent hidden agendas in my posts where none exists.

I would humbly ask that you try to imagine that I'm not on some anti-Sprint crusade, and that I might just genuinely enjoy some piece of tech, or think something is funny, when you read my posts. Because when I write them, I go to ridiculiously painstaking care to make sure they don't offend even the most sensitive of users.

I do not work for Sprint or have any access that would allow me to do anything mentioned.  However I sure do know how to make things rough.  I could see a WIMAX site failing in Atlanta today and in Chicago tomorrow.  Neither site would have any spare parts available.  Available bandwidth to a site might decrease due to some crazy issue. Nothing would ever get fixed.  If I dispatched a technician, it would be one unqualified to repair a WIMAX site.  A loose connection on a fiber can cause a whole lot of errors.

Most judges will see right through that, and get really upset about it.

Disobeying a court injunction is a great way to get held in contempt of court, with significant fines levied...

Not to mention this is essentially asking for a socialist approach where people run the backhaul and equipment for T-Mobile. We all know how public WiFi is. It's all over, but which is even usable? Does anyone think this is going to be so much better, even if people in heavy T-Mobile supporting places really took it to heart?

"People, what are you all doing? Why are you all paying money for Christmas lights, and then buying electricity to run them, just so *other people* can get free light. What is this socialist approach to lighting? Do you really think these are going to be so much better than regular light bulbs?"

EDIT: Just found out that the 4G CellSpot on T-Mobile counts towards your usage!

https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-21332#question9

That is common for femtocells on every carrier.

I fail to see the purpose of this device, since you're using it to connect to LTE, instead of your own home internet. By definition you would need to have adequate home internet speeds and service in order to use this femtocell, so why bother with it?

Just my opinion, but I think it's nice for not having to authenticate with WiFi, click through a dozen pages of stupid disclaimers, enter e-mail addresses, etc. It's also nice having a known trusted / decent connection (VPN'd for you transparently, automatically, on every device).

For most people's homes, it probably redundant. And they already give away a WiFi Router for that use case too.

But for business, it seems a lot more useful. Especially businesses where WiFi is sometimes worse than useless (Hospitals come to mind)

T-Mobile's launching a LTE CellSpot. This is an actual LTE femtocell (not a WiFi router), with B2 HSPA+ and B4 LTE.

Free (with $25 deposit) for eligible Simple Choice subscribers. Availability begins November 4th.

https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/media-kits/4g-lte-cellspot.htm

Plus, that map of the US acts like they are pretending to have massive coverage when in fact, they now have the least coverage of the National carriers 

I love the dots on that map. Not only are many of them nowhere near Sprint coverage areas, some of them aren't even places at all -- they literally don't exist.

It's like the marketing team got bored and started inventing fake towns just for fun.

Is it possible that this could be the start of AT&T's downfall? Their network is beginning to lag behind their competitors, with Sprint and T-Mobile catching up to them in many markets

I don't think a major downfall is likely.

Your absoultely right that AT&T's unmaintained markets are lagging behind Sprint and T-Mobile's maintained markets, and we're seeing that in RootMetrics. Grand Rapids in 2015-1H, for instance (AT&T had basically ignored their LTE network there since deployed in 2013. When Sprint rolled out Spark in 2015, they roughly matched median data speeds of AT&T's 2013-era LTE networks 2015 data speeds, according to RootMetrics).

But in areas that AT&T has modernized aggressively, they typically hold/retain a strong score. (see markets like Pittsburgh 2015-2H or Ann Arbor 2015-2H http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/pittsburgh-pa/2015/2H )

AT&T has just been slow / lazy about updating some markets so far. And Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint generally haven't been lazy -- they're upgrading all over the place. In 2015-1H, Sprint and T-Mobile had more maintained markets than AT&T did. This hurts AT&T in the short term (as it should, people should pick whatever they prefer most).

But in most markets, AT&T isn't trapped in some sort of "bad situation" -- they just haven't chosen to pay the cash to keep up. If / when performance becomes enough of a problem for AT&T, they will probably just pay for the upgrades to fix it.  They easily have the cash to do that.

I suspect that might have already started in some areas, and we won't see those results until more 2015-2H reports come out.

If some analysts writing some blog posts is enough to impact a companies stock significantly, then the majority of investors never had any real confidence in the company in the first place.

The stock is up ~5%, even after the news of the layoffs.  Maybe the investors like it.  Typically layoffs are usually bad, from the analysts point of view.

I think it's usually the opposite. Stock price normally jumps somewhat at the news of layoffs

(not in every case, obviously. But usually.)

http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2013/10/01/layoffs-stocks/

http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/38856/why-is-it-that-stock-prices-for-a-company-seem-to-go-up-after-a-layoff

http://www.bankrate.com/financing/investing/do-layoffs-always-boost-stocks/

I am anti net neutrality.

 

I don't see why the government should shift profits from pipe to content when the market is distributing it otherwise (i.e. Consumers).

Those two statements have literally nothing to do with each other.

Look, Sprint made a lot of unforced technological errors. CDMA 1X Advanced wasn't one of them. 

I never said that it was a mistake. I literally didn't criticize that decision in any way.

I only said that it's easier to just switch to Sprint, than be upset that T-Mobile isn't Sprint. I sort of assumed it would be the least controversial thing I could say, in this place.

For the argument how it's better to skip from 2G to LTE (which can make sense for dense areas or cities), no other carrier choose to do that as a whole or skip so much, and for a reason. 

Luckily, there's still choice at play.

I hear there's this other carrier that just spent a ton of time and debt buying an all new 3G network on top of deploying LTE. A "network vision" where they "ripped and replaced" 3G.  So if you absolutely demand a "weak 3G" service step in between your 2G and LTE, you can buy that from them today.

I can't quite think of their name...but I'm sure someone will mention them in the thread

Anyone can ask them (don't; rhetorical) the honest question, and it is not trolling, why T-Mobile refuses to complete it's 2G to 3G overlay, particularly in suburban and semirural areas where it is absolutely necessary. 

 

When is that never-ending project going to be declared "substantially complete"? Let alone this new skip 2G to LTE thing.

Well, I can only comprehensively speak on one market, but West Michigan's 2G-to-LTE footprint project has been nearly complete for months (where "nearly complete" means there's just 3 EDGE-only sites left across this entire half of the state.) 

They cannot skip W-CMDA if they are serious about covering these suburban and semirural areas riddled with 2G and LTE islands. Then if you can't get LTE you get the insult of GPRS/EDGE in 2015 or no signal altogether.

That's only true if you assume no new sites. But T-Mobile is adding brand new native LTE sites. (We've had three this year alone in Ottawa County, all in rural / exurban areas).

Sure, T-Mobile could spend lots of good money deploying old technology. But why should they throw money into 2G/3G, when they could throw it into new sites and LTE? Increased density is always better than airlink band-aids.

Their descriptions are barely accurate for low-band LTE, as to when someone would drop to H+ in building (low-band W-CDMA) with their notorious non-urban sparsity. 

T-Mobile's in-building labels are far more accurate than Sprint's "Good/Fair", and AT&T/Verizon's nothing-at-all.

I'm not defending T-Mobile's map, but as they say, "people who live in glass houses..."

Roaming agreements!

 

In return for what. 

It could just be cash.

T-Mobile could open up their network, and I don't see any reason they wouldn't. But they also could simply pay money for roaming too. It's presumably cheaper per unit to roam with these members, than what they're paying AT&T today.

We have too much fooling around with this type of thing.  They should have immediately got the search warrant and if it was intentional interference, grab him and take him with his equipment.    Solve the issue now not later.  Fine him enough to pay all expenses so he never thinks of doing it again.   Nobody obeys the laws anymore.    He probably had some high powered RF amp.

Due process sucks! Let's just round up a mob, attack his house, and make him rot in jail!

...

I will say as a millenial, living in NYC metro area, the ease of access with public transportation is amazing, and the less wear and tear on my car makes me happy. Thankfully this market has affordable housing with yards not too far away in NJ or Westchester County.

Yep. It's my #1 and #2 complaint about the Midwest. There is no useful public transit in most of these cities, and no middle-class-affordable urban housing in most of these cities (unless you qualify for government subsidy). The design of life here economically coerces most people into owning a single family home in a suburb, driving everywhere, and working at that one job forever.

If you like all of that, if you want to live in a suburb next to Sprint's campus and work at Sprint for the rest of your life, then life is perfect and you wouldn't even know this was an issue.

But if you might want to change jobs in the next 40 years without uprooting yourself and/or family, or if you have a spouse who wants to find work in some other field, or you don't want to maintain a poorly-cheaply-constructed suburban house + lawn, it would really suck to be stuck there.

It's the big "Midwest" problem. It's a problem in Kansas City. But the exact same problem exists in Milwaukee, and Grand Rapids, and Toledo, and Dayton, and many other cities.

To look at that from another angle, its presumptuous as best for anyone to assume that the 'best talent available' is always going to be younger....or even for those that fit that bill that happen to be younger, it's presumptuous to assume that they all fall squarely in the center of the stereotypical 'Millennial' mentality or tendencies too.  

To be fair -- this isn't some presumption on our part, the businesses in these cities are saying this themselves.

For instance, Kansas City has http://www.kc2-0.com/about/about.htm . The businesses of Kansas City are saying "we're having difficulty getting the talent we want, and the people we want aren't moving here for these reasons". Lots of midwest cities have similar problems, and have similar programs.

What cities don't have those problems? New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Boston, Austin, etc. They have other problems (housing costs being the biggest, usually) but they aren't typically having trouble recruiting people to live there. 

If there was a lack of suburban single family homes, recruiters might loose talent over that, and therefore focus on it. But since those exist in abundance, in almost every single market across the entire nation, it's not much of a concern.

KC is not a great city for Millennials. Terrible transit, lots of driving to get around, not a ton of density to allow for walkability and community. So it will be harder to attract young talent there. To KCs credit, it is starting to evolve and it has all the ingredients to become a premier city and the nice weather helps. I should note that these challenges are not unique to KC, but KC is definitely coming around.

Yeah, you could repeat this for nearly all of the "medium sized" cities in the Midwest.

Woah! They're calling for you? They gave me the phone to call customer service one time in their store.

In my experience, the first rule of a Sprint stores is  "always always always be a new customer". 

Realistically, I've been a Sprint subscriber since 2007. But when I still went to stores, I'd usually port my numbers out for a little bit before going in. That way, when I enter a Sprint store I am always a "new customer / new line". It's (comparatively) glorious : 

- The rep gets credit towards their quota,

- I get the fair price on whatever new thing their advertising, even if it "doesn't apply to existing customers"

- The sales rep is slightly more likely to care about everything working okay (since their quota is on the line)

- The "computers" are less likely to be "down"

Just remember to call into support afterwards and remove TEP, and your home clear.

http://www.rcrwireless.com/20150813/carriers/att-trumps-t-mobile-verizon-and-sprint-in-purchasing-satisfaction-tag2

 

Sprint continued last place for "purchasing satisfaction". I'll be honest, I avoid local Sprint stores (corporate and non-corporate owned) at ALL costs. They are absolutely horrible to deal with. They always have computer problems. It easily takes over an hour to upgrade your phone in store. Every time I walk in a Sprint store, they add insurance to my line without my permission. Buying on tele-sales or online is a much better experience.

As a former manager of a Preferred Retailer I have to agree. Happy customers are repeat customers. I went out of my way to make it the best experience for my customers.

I've also had lots and lots of trouble at stores. 1+ hour transactions are everyday occurrences. The computers are consistently "down", they are routinely "calling things in". Advertised plans and prices routinely become slightly higher once in-store (occasionally even when the stores own signage suggests otherwise).

It's a huge pain. Since January or so, I also exclusively call in. Telephone support isn't good in any way, but it's worlds better than the stores.

 Saying all Sprint stores suck is about as accurate as saying the Sprint network sucks.  Broad statements are generally not accurate. 

If it were just that, I'd agree with you. But this isn't just some guys statement. It's large scale reputable data.

If RootMetrics says "we've collected thousands of metrics on the network in this market and Sprint's network, on average, sucks" -- then Sprint's network sucks, even if a few spots get good service.  

Similarly, when JD Power says "we've collected thousands of surveys in stores all across America, and Sprint's in-store experience, on average, sucks" -- then Sprint's stores suck. Even if there are a few stores that are still good.

The metric isn't broken. Sprint has won the top JD Power experience spot before (multiple times). They certainly could win it again.

Honestly, U.S. Cellular wouldn't be that bad for branding. People outside of US Cellular's area don't really know the name much, and regular people don't have any associations around "Cellular=Cellular Spectrum Band" or "PCS=PCS Spectrum Brand".

To non-technical people, "US Cellular" would be exactly what it sounds like, a United States Cell Phone carrier

The regional carrier-ness won't really matter. Both MetroPCS and Cricket are regional brands that expanded nationwide with no meaningful problems.

Way better (in my opinion) than rebranding to SoftBank. Anytime I mention "SoftBank" to non-technical Americans, they assume it's literally a Bank. 

This article on Fierce Wireless looks interesting :

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-t-mobile-strike-173m-deal-swap-aws-pcs-spectrum-dozens-markets/2015-08-03

 

The article mentions Illinois, but doesn't say exactly what spectrum is being swapped in the Chicago market, which is where I'm most interested in.

Chicago isn't mentioned, because it's not affected. It looks like no spectrum is changing in Chicago at all.

I'm not familiar with these areas, but they all appear to be rural counties or small cities/towns hours away from Chicago.

http://assets.fiercemarkets.net/public/007-Telecom/vzwtmospectrum.pdf

Alexander, Bond, Calhoun, Clinton, Franklin, Gallatin,

Hancock, Henderson, Hamilton, Hardin, Jackson,

Jefferson, Jersey, Johnson, Macoupin, Madison, Marion,

Monroe, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Randolph, St. Clair,

Saline, Union, Washington, and Williamson, IL

Sprint's church was 1.84% the last quarter...which was much improved from previous quarters. T-Mobile just reported 1.3% church for this past quarter

Just for comparison convenience, that's compared to churn of 1.01% for AT&T, and 0.90% for Verizon