Post merger I went from a $25/month t-mobile plan to a $15/month t-mobile plan. Not entirely apples to apples, but close. My spouse went from $30/month to $25/month on Verizon for more data. And there's lots of options at https://prepaidcompare.net/
The problem with MVNOs, at least that I'm noticing as a Google Fi subscriber, is I believe MVNOs are deprioritized. In a congested area, folks who have direct service with Verizon or T-Mobile seem to have better reception and bandwidth than I do.
Mint is part of T-mobile now so it shouldn't be deprioritized any more.
AT&T we have now is not really related to this old evil AT&T. Actual company that uses this brand in mobile space is used to be called Cingular. They bought AT&T remains and promptly rebranded.
> AT&T we have now is not really related to this old evil AT&T. Yes, it is. > Actual company that uses this brand in mobile space is used to be called Cingular. So, in the beginning there was AT&T, the telephone monopoly. It was broken up into 7 RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies, also called “baby bells”) providing local service (each of which got a corresponding chunk of the AT&T subsidiary doing mobile work…
Verizon (originally Bell Atlantic)'s history is much the same. There's even some back and forth between it and what is now AT&T over who gets what of the RBOCs and their spinoffs/successors.
Now, if Verizon and AT&T merge, then Ma Bell really will be back.
>Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked The reason their goose was cooked is because they previously were planning to acquire T Mobile, but SoftBank got back-channel info that it would never be approved by the anti-trust regulators. At the time they had Marcelo Claure running Sprint, basically a corporate "fixer" guy for SoftBank. So he ran the company into the dirt in order to make the merge feasible to regulator…
Sprint went all-in on WiMax as it's 4G network. I owned an early Sprint 4G smartphone (made by HTC) and the 4G never worked. I would go to the Sprint store and ask to show me a signal with 4G turned on, and they would always blame congestion, or weather, or some other made-up excuse.
I think the only place I knew where WiMAX actually worked properly was in Japan.
I will say, I'm not terribly fond of mergers on principle. However, based on my insight as a former customer and shareholder of the company, Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked to a crisp. If this merger had not happened, I could have seen Sprint file for bankruptcy, with Verizon and AT&T picking the carcass clean. I think folks forget how dire Sprint's straits were at the time, and this specific merger truly w…
>Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked The reason their goose was cooked is because they previously were planning to acquire T Mobile, but SoftBank got back-channel info that it would never be approved by the anti-trust regulators. At the time they had Marcelo Claure running Sprint, basically a corporate "fixer" guy for SoftBank. So he ran the company into the dirt in order to make the merge feasible to regulator…
Let's not forget the amazing Palm Pre that was released 18 months too late. If it could have been released on time, it might have done much to save Sprint. But by the time it was released it was merely competitive instead of compelling.
T-Mobile was the worst, most incompetent company I have had the displeasure of working with in recent years. I fled to Mint. To say I’m chuffed by that acquisition is an understatement.
I'm confused by this. You don't like T-Mobile, but you're happy you'll be returning?
Long ago I had a T-mobile prepaid plan that had the wrong caller ID info. They claimed it couldn't be fixed because it was prepaid and they were unable to properly manage those accounts. Mint has been much better and will remain cheaper for now.
I will say, I'm not terribly fond of mergers on principle. However, based on my insight as a former customer and shareholder of the company, Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked to a crisp. If this merger had not happened, I could have seen Sprint file for bankruptcy, with Verizon and AT&T picking the carcass clean. I think folks forget how dire Sprint's straits were at the time, and this specific merger truly w…
>Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked The reason their goose was cooked is because they previously were planning to acquire T Mobile, but SoftBank got back-channel info that it would never be approved by the anti-trust regulators. At the time they had Marcelo Claure running Sprint, basically a corporate "fixer" guy for SoftBank. So he ran the company into the dirt in order to make the merge feasible to regulator…
Radio Shack was a major retail channel for Sprint since the 90s. By the mid-00s, I would wager most of Radio Shack's gross profit came from wireless retail. They were already more or less Sprint stores with some overpriced PCs and stereos by then.
The best way to resolve these issues is never "force the bad guys to do good things" but rather destroy the walls which enable their rent seeking. Regulators can work to make it extremely simple for new techs in this space to come up so there is real competition for ATT etc.
We the People should own infrastructure. Want to start a new shipping company to compete with UPS? You don't have to build roads, We the People provide those to you. So, do the same with wireless.
And yet even with all that infrastructure, the market has coalesced around 3-5 shipping companies for vast majority of consumer shipments.
I don't think that materially really had anything to do with it. Sprint was dying - with extraordinarily high debt, in 2007, well before Softbank bought them, and indeed they lost money every year from 2008 forward - https://www.statista.com/statistics/481739/sprint-corporatio... The Merger with Nextel managed to kill what was great about Nextel, and what was good about Sprint, and they lost customers in droves (most…
>before Softbank bought Sprint, they didn't have the capital to upgrade their 2G/3G network to LTE, much less consider a merger with T-Mobile. I think both of us can be right at the same time though. Just because they had problems before the SoftBank acquisition as well doesn't necessarily make what I'm saying unreasonable. There was still sentiment in 2013 when SB closed the deal that regulators would not have appro…
I remember saying at one point to my operations manager at Ericsson, "how does anyone make money in this business?" he laughed and said "I have no idea".
I cannot explain how poorly managed Sprint was, it'd take me an essay to just explain the various dysfunctions I saw there.
That said, it did improve some once Softbank bought them.
>Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked The reason their goose was cooked is because they previously were planning to acquire T Mobile, but SoftBank got back-channel info that it would never be approved by the anti-trust regulators. At the time they had Marcelo Claure running Sprint, basically a corporate "fixer" guy for SoftBank. So he ran the company into the dirt in order to make the merge feasible to regulator…
Sprint went all-in on WiMax as it's 4G network. I owned an early Sprint 4G smartphone (made by HTC) and the 4G never worked. I would go to the Sprint store and ask to show me a signal with 4G turned on, and they would always blame congestion, or weather, or some other made-up excuse.
Was it more about the device than the network? I used mobile WiMax from Clear for years until it ended its service. For what it was, it worked great. It wasn't necessarily a speed demon, but it was reliable. I used it to avoid public WiFi congestion, as a backup when my home network was down, and in 'bring your own infrastructure' situations.