maxsilver
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Everything posted by maxsilver
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The Q1 number is artificially low because of the Data Stash revenue deferral (approx $112mil) -- it cost them nothing on a per subscriber basis, but it makes Q1 look much worse than it factually was, and makes Q2/Q3/Q4 look slightly better than they actually are/will-be (since Q2/Q3/Q4 are recording some amount of revenue/profit from sales that already happened in Q1). http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/2015-q1-earnings.htm http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/04/28/t-mobile-rising-street-cheers-net-adds-improved-profit-profile/ It's not a huge change or anything. But the profit between Q1 2015 and Q2/Q3/Q4 2015 is slightly less volitile than it might appear to be, if people are just glancing at the final number for each quarter. And that should remain that way through 2015, unless they run some new promotion that requires a new revenue deferral.
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It's really a market-by-market thing. For instance, lots of rural Minnesota is still EDGE only. But in Michigan, they are basically finished -- 99% of sites are converted, there's just 5 or so EDGE-only sites left across the entire state. They're running a lot of upgrades at once, and not all areas get even resources simultaneously. (That sounds eerily familiar... )
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Yes, my experience is similar. Phones are a lot better than they used to be. I'm feeling less and less need to upgrade each year. If there was any easy way to swap out new modems / radios, I wouldn't really feel the need to buy new phones at all. Since there isn't, getting new LTE Bands / CA / other network improvements is really the only reason I buy new devices anymore. -
I think there's a big logical fallacy in there. Most of the things he's asking for are great (Resolution of Dish, More Home Fiber Service, Hybrid Fixed Mobile services). But then he's promoting another cellular merger -- he's promoting the one action that's guaranteed to get less of all of those other requests. At least with 4 players, there's still some level of competition in wireless today. When Wireless calms down, that competition could spill over into wireline. (We've seen that start to happen before with Clearwire's home internet service, and Dish's fixed wireless attempts). With only 3 in wireless, there will be no competition in wireless *and* still no competition in wireline *and* no incentive for that to ever change.
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Not really. Just because Verizon does something, doesn't make it inherently bad or evil. Verizon and T-Mobile are in the same exact business, offering identical services on identical devices. So of course many of their actions will look identical, especially on the network side. For example : both run LTE over AWS. both run LTE over 700 (in some areas). both use VoLTE. both support Carrier Aggregation. both adding new cell sites to their networks. (new) both are investigating LTE-U In all of these ways (and more), T-Mobile is "marching in lockstep with the rival they want to knock off the block the most". Yet despite matching Verizon in all of these areas, none of this has prevented T-Mobile from implementing a bunch of consumer-friendly policies. While I don't like LTE-U from the spectrum-usage standpoint, and agree with you completely that LTE-U shouldn't occur, I don't see how T-Mobile adding LTE-U makes them any more "Recarrier". This is all true, but I don't see how that addresses anything I said. Triopoly is bad, we agree on that. And both Sprint and T-Mobile are attempting to form the same exact Triopoly, we seem(?) to agree on that. I don't think the rest of it even matters. Does it even matter if they are headquartered in Overland Park or Bellevue, or "who torches what". The combination would have major nationwide impacts far more significant than which suburb happened to keep some jobs.
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Agree completely. 5ghz is unlicensed for a reason, and there's precious little unlicensed spectrum available. I believe cellular companies should be blocked from using unlicensed spectrum in this way -- they have plenty of privately owned spectrum between themselves, and multiple large swaths of new AWS/600 spectrum coming soon. Not to mention the large blocks of spectrum they already own that's unused or underutilized. I get that it's a unwritten rule here to hate on T-Mobile, but I don't see how this statement has anything to do with LTE-U. Verizon is also testing unlicensed LTE. Are they part of T-Mobile's "Recarrier" plan too? And when Sprint and AT&T jump onto LTE-U, is that part of T-Mobile's "Recarrier" plot too? If Verizon and T-Mobile are allowed to deploy unlicensed LTE and have any significant success with it, Sprint and AT&T *will* copy them on it eventually. Triopoly is a bad situation -- I agree with you on that completely. And I'm glad it was shot down. But remember, it was Masa Son who begged the government to let him buy T-Mobile, he too really wanted that "Tripoly" situation. And in case we've forgotten the obvious, that man still owns and operates Sprint today. Masa Son has literally gone on record asking the government for a Triopoly - http://www.forbes.com/sites/joanlappin/2014/03/13/softbanks-son-talks-his-sprintt-mobile-deal-directly-to-america/ There's no factual way to paint T-Mobile as "pro Triopoly", that doesn't equally place blame against Sprint/SoftBank.
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Leasing in general just looks like a bad deal to me, regardless of who's offering it or who happens to be cheaper. The math on the plans doesn't seem very good, especially if there's any chance a person will damage their phone. Other people seem to like it, and that's great for them. I don't see much harm in offering it. But I don't think I'd ever recommend leasing to someone -- it looks like you need a very specific use case to get a good deal out of it.
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And for the folks who felt like The Verge was ignoring Sprint: http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/2/8882415/sprint-ceo-calls-t-mobiles-uncarrier-movement-bullshit
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Thanks, but I'm probably too late for that. After 10 days of constant back and forth with Sprint no resolution / no working data, I just ported out temporarily so I could get working data again. I'll call them though, and see what they say.
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YES! I'm on the other side of the state, but I've had this same issue on my G3. Phone will see LTE, connect to it for 10-30 seconds with no data transferring, then get pushed back down to EVDO/1X. It will stay there, forever. Does this same thing on literally every single tower in every single town for at least 30+ miles. I thought for the longest time it was some account/provisioning issue. I had them destroy and re-make my line's account twice, reran hands-free activation at least two dozen times, factory reset my phone three times, etc. No luck. I've been back and forth with Sprint for weeks on this. They've been swearing up and down that my device was defective. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only person dealing with this right now, and that Sprint might try to fix this.
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I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the legacy plans are unaffected. And even if legacy plans aren't effected today, I wouldn't be quick to assume that will continue indefinitely. Previous "network load reduction" changes have sometimes hit legacy plans (such as the double compressing of images).
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I've hit this before. Sprint is paranoid about device IDs. I moved a Sprint device from Ting back to Sprint Postpaid six months ago. It was a completely ridiculous ordeal, requiring about ten phone calls and a fax, over two weeks, before it was finally resolved. Apparently, at that time there was no procedure for it at all -- officially, it "couldn't be done". Unofficially, you simply call in over and over again, hope you get escalated high enough that someone has database access, hope they take pity on you and decide to manually edit the raw list to move your device over, and then wait however long it takes them to get around to doing that. Taking a device *to* an MVNO is simple, and almost entirely automated. Leaving that MVNO to take a device back to Sprint is incredibly difficult.
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Yep, this is probably the biggest issue. The densification just has to happen as soon as possible. Sprint seems to finally have people in place who have learned this. But it also makes everything pretty quiet (or would be anyway, once you remove the forum drama and off-topic stuff). There's really not much to talk about until that plan gets finalized and released. How they handle that (the specific sites they pick, the number, the locations, the timing) will be the biggest factor for Sprint's future, more than anything else.
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I think it's simpler than that. The Verge is talking about T-Mobile, because T-Mobile is asking people to talk about them -- they're making ridiculous cartoon/advert/things, sending out Press Releases, along with YouTube "vlogs" and a host of other social media noise about the auction. http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/23/8834307/heres-why-t-mobile-wants-you-to-get-mad-at-the-fcc Since Sprint isn't generating tons of noise about it, they aren't getting nearly as much focus on this issue. Squeaky wheel gets the press.
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AT&T's deployment is pretty bad (being market dependent). And T-Mobile is struggling with a call block issue. But other than that, VoLTE is awesome on both carriers. It "just works", and really well. Voice quality is great. Data is still present, speeds are fast. VoLTE calls also help the phone hold LTE longer in weak areas, which is a nice upside, but still falls back to HSPA+ if absolutely necessary. In many cities/suburbs, VoLTE actually drops less calls than CDMA 1x voice does (both in my experience, and according to RootMetrics recent market testing). So, that's a nice bonus too. VoLTE is simply really nice technology.
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I haven't seen any new organic coverage to date. Not a single site. However... - They have added B12 to many sites here, and it's surprisingly fast. - They have been very aggressive in converting EDGE to LTE (less than 4 sites remain here). - Their GMO rural LTE is surprisingly fast, and coverage is much better than I expected. You can't tell it's GMO from the service quality in any way. - They have integrated most of the MetroPCS sites into the network, and added lots of new backhaul to all of them (this includes new coverage for T-Mobile users in some areas, and extra site density in some cities, especially in Grand Rapids). In my humble opinion, T-Mobile is fixing their freeway / suburban problems in Michigan faster than Sprint is fixing their urban problems in Michigan. So, normally I wouldn't fault them for the coverage -- I can see tons of work happening, it's all really great work, and it's happening really quickly. --- But T-Mobile did promise to cover all these new areas by end of year 2015, and despite all this work, I still think there is a 95% chance they won't actually finish by that deadline. (As almost everyone predicted when they announced it). There's still roughly 16,000 square miles of new coverage they promised, just in Michigan alone. None of that is live yet. Not to mention all the other states worth of new coverage they promised
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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.
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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)
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Yes. HSPA+ is still 100% live. Just AWS-specific HSPA+ is gone. So only AWS-exclusive-HSPA+ devices are even effected. Which, from what I'm told, is less than one percent of their postpaid subscribers. And T-Mobile has already offered those people free phone upgrades.
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Yeah, their old map was much better. From 4 being "darkest", and 1 being "lightest", - 4&3 meant "works everywhere, basically flawlessly". - 2 meant "works ok, but only outdoors. (Indoors was EDGE only, or no service)". - And 1 meant "no service of any kind, no roaming" Now that it's flattened, it's way harder to read. But they seem to use the same scale, it's just hidden in those text descriptions : 4 = "Connectivity in most big buildings" = works literally everywhere, basically flawlessly. 3 = "Connectivity in most homes" = works well almost everywhere. A few tricky buildings/spots may issues 2 = "Satisfactory in some homes" = EDGE only or no service indoors. Outside is usable, but very weak 1 = "Limited indoor connectivity" = complete lies. No native service of any kind, and all roaming blocked
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There's one nice aspect of this that I like. The spark map is now somewhat useful in that most of the areas of the city that have no working data are presently labeled "Spark: Fair". So, if you interpret the Spark areas of the map by reading : - "Spark: Good = Some sort of working data. Might be anything between EVDO/B25/B26/B41" and - "Spark: Fair = Effectively no usable data coverage. Mostly 1x, some unusable B26/EVDO", then the coverage map as it is today is now (very roughly) accurate.
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I understand what your saying. I just don't agree with it. Customer additions are often worth their cost, we agree on this. But customer retention is often also worth it's cost. Especially if it's just tethering, since the actual cost to Sprint for this service is tiny. I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here around costs. Legere's throwing pennies at customers to get them to stay. If customers stay just a single month longer because of this move, he's made back 50x or more of his cost for that promo. It only looks like double dipping. And that's good for his "UnCarrier" marketing. But it's really not, the cost is so low it probably won't effect the quarterly statement in any meaningful way.
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That's a ridiculous argument. This isn't free unlimited tethering. They're just adding on a couple of gigabytes to people who are already paid customers. And some of those customers are already paying slightly more per month than their Sprint counterparts. Once you already have a paid subscriber, it costs almost nothing to give that subscriber an extra few gigabytes of data -- the network costs are mostly fixed and already sunk. And there's lots of promos that are offered that "typically aren't deal breakers for customers". Like international roaming. You know what, your right. Good thing Sprint's pricing isn't lower than many of T-Mobile's plans (especially the "Unlimited" plan with all those high data users). And it's a good thing Sprint's never run any sort of "cut your bill in half" or "double your data" promotions, or stopped charging for international data. Because, as you say, those would be "desperate moves" because they are "forgoing profits they would otherwise earn". Claure is way too brilliant to offer anything like that. /s If you feel Sprint's network is so congested that they can't comfortably offer 1GB of extra data to their paid monthly subscribers, perhaps the promotion isn't the real problem....
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That seems like a lot of wild assumptions. Even if this happens, they probably won't do anything too crazy. They still have to be competitive in pricing/plans/policy with Sprint and Cricket, so it's very unlikely that they'd drastically raise prices or anything. That's ridiculous. Dish could bring a lot of bad to T-Mobile, but T-Mobile isn't dying now. T-Mobile is recording strong growth, healthy revenue, and lowered turnover, and increasing profits.
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It's being discussed in the T-Mobile thread http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/6950-t-mobile-lte-network-discussion-v2/page-13
