Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 62 posts

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#51

Post by bobthepanda »

rayiner wrote: post #50
BubRoss wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing awful compared to what? The person I replied to said their municipal water supply was poisoning kids, which is an anecdote that doesn't represent most municipal water supplies. Now you're moving the goal posts to water main breaks for some reason when the point in the first place was that municipal internet is successful.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our water infrastructure a “D.” That’s what I mean by “doing awful.” Poisoning kids with lead is one particular problem, that’s actually fairly common: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lead-in-americas-water-systems-... Safe Drinking Water Act violations are rampant among municipal water utilities: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/city-new-york-comply-federa... ; https://www.…

It‘s worth noting that ASCE has an incentive to parrot out bad infrastructure reports, since the employment of their members can be boosted by big pushes to repair „bad“ infrastructure.

A few years ago Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns pointed out that the ASCE was asking to invest more in roads than the economic benefits that would be realized from them, even according to ASCE‘s numbers. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/3/12/revisiting-the...

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#52

Post by BubRoss »

rayiner wrote: post #50
BubRoss wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing awful compared to what? The person I replied to said their municipal water supply was poisoning kids, which is an anecdote that doesn't represent most municipal water supplies. Now you're moving the goal posts to water main breaks for some reason when the point in the first place was that municipal internet is successful.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our water infrastructure a “D.” That’s what I mean by “doing awful.” Poisoning kids with lead is one particular problem, that’s actually fairly common: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lead-in-americas-water-systems-... Safe Drinking Water Act violations are rampant among municipal water utilities: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/city-new-york-comply-federa... ; https://www.…

> There are isolated instances of successful municipal broadband

There are lots of successes, Colorado, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Chattanooga etc. and those are just in the US. It seems like you have some sort of axe to grind, going on huge rants about water and sewers.

> Most of the top countries, like Singapore and Norway, similarly rely on private companies

Interesting you mention that, since the government layed down all the fiber and lots of small startup companies just ran the endpoints. This example couldn't be more contrary to what you are claiming.

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#54

Post by Aloha »

scarface74 wrote: post #31
Aloha wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its on the order of 375m to build out a market with 500 cell sites, assuming you have no greenfield sites. Thats not a huge number, not for google.

You also have to buy the bandwidth.

compared to like.. power.. bandwidth is cheap

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#55

Post by scarface74 »

Aloha wrote: post #54
scarface74 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to buy the bandwidth.

compared to like.. power.. bandwidth is cheap

I guess I meant spectrum. Spectrum is far from cheap. You have to buy it from whoever won it at auction. The spectrum suitable for cellular signals is limited.

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#56

Post by chowyuncat »

rayiner wrote: post #43
kunai wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average American "small-government" ruling class mentality chronically starves public goods and the commons from widely available resources, and then points to the failure of said services and goods as a reason why government cannot work. Eliminate this vicious circle and you see massive benefits; Chattanooga's municipal ISP has been extremely successful and popular. Also, municipal broadband or publicly owned br…

> chronically starves public goods and the commons from widely available resources, and then points to the failure of said services and goods as a reason why government cannot work This is the lie that people trot out to explain the myriad failures of American government. Our schools suck because they’re “underfunded.” Oh, actually, they’re among the best funded: https://images.app.goo.gl/r4QwEWefuP34DZSj8 . Our publ…

That first graph has no meaning without some granularity. Plot success of school against actual funding. It could easily represent 9 schools with 1000 per student and one school with 9000000 per student and result in 90 percent failing schools.

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#57

Post by soylentcola »

dylz wrote: post #49
rayiner wrote: post #36

Quick question. Why do people continue to use Verizon or AT&T when Sprint or T-Mobile are so much cheaper? It looks like I could cut my Verizon bill in half by switching to T Mo.

I get sub-2 to 3 Mbps speeds on a postpaid business-type T-Mobile plan due to congestion/oversubscription. This is not in a rural wasteland, but in a major tech urban city. Verizon and AT&T do just as badly, but not nearly as much (~8Mbps). Again, congestion, not because there are no towers nearby. I am on business postpaid higher tier plans, and should have tower priority according to them. Sprint coverage disappear…

It really does come down to coverage and (as you say) congestion/oversubscription.

I've used a cheap ($30/mo) prepaid plan on TMo for the past several years and it's only gotten better in my city. Just ran speed tests on 3 different sites from my office (with passable signal strength but not "full bars" and without checking actual numbers).

All three claimed 24-25Mbps download and 5-8Mbps upload with 65-75ms latency. This is more than enough for my cell phone, but I'd imagine any drops or latency would be a lot more noticeable if I was tethered to a laptop.

I guess for me, the main uses of cellular data are web browsing and media streaming when I'm not at home or at the office (when I'd be on WiFi instead). This is plenty for me and I even get coverage outside of the city these days. 5 years ago I might not have said the same.

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#58

Post by wasdfff »

rayiner wrote: post #40
BubRoss wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most municipalities can do that, so the problem is likely more with your municipality than the concept in general. Also why would municipal broadband be a monopoly? There are lots of municipal broadband projects that are one of many ISPs. This isn't a theoretical prediction of the future, there are already lots of examples.

They’re all doing awful: https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/drinking_w... > water consumption is down, there are still an estimated 240,000 water main breaks per year in the United States, wasting over two trillion gallons of treated drinking water > While drinking water infrastructure is funded primarily through a rate-based system, the investment has been inadequate for decades and will continue to b…

Doesn’t matter how many people use the pipes. They get bad over time. Right now a lot of the shit in the suburbs we built for the GIs and boomers is old enough to start falling apart, and public budgets have been cut to maintenance mode.

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#59

Post by toomuchtodo »

bnjms wrote: post #24
rhino369 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My municipality cannot even deliver water without making our kids mentally disabled from lead poisoning. Not sure I want them with a monopoly on telecoms too.

Texas has a quasi private electric grid. It seems like it would be a good model for data too.

ERCOT (Texas electrical grid system operator) is essentially a mutual company/co-op structured as a non-profit, very similar to muni broadband.

"ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature. Its members include consumers, cooperatives, generators, power marketers, retail electric providers, investor-owned electric utilities, transmission and distribution providers and municipally owned electric utilities." [1]

[1] http://www.ercot.com/about

Re: FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

#60

Post by Aloha »

scarface74 wrote: post #55
Aloha wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

compared to like.. power.. bandwidth is cheap

I guess I meant spectrum. Spectrum is far from cheap. You have to buy it from whoever won it at auction. The spectrum suitable for cellular signals is limited.

Which is why this merger makes sense, I honestly believe there is only enough spectrum for three truly competitive physical carriers (networks) in the states.
Post reply on HN