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In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

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Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#51

Post by terinjokes »

spiralpolitik wrote: post #41
mdasen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT&T isn't in as nice a spectrum position as Verizon, but the situation isn't what you've portrayed. AT&T has AWS spectrum in most markets, but it isn't a 40MHz chunk. That's still additional capacity. AT&T is also re-farming spectrum previously used for 2G/3G services for LTE. Likewise, the 150Mbps theoretical speed won't happen in real-world conditions (just as 10x10 LTE doesn't give you 75Mbps speeds). It will off…

Do T-Mobile and AT&T still have the roaming agreements with each other in place from back in the day when they were SBC/PacBell and Voicestream respectively ? I seem to remember in the early days of T-Mobile in California for the most part you were roaming on AT&T and T-Mobile branded phones had the firmware hacked to show 'T-Mobile' instead of 'SBC'. (I noticed a month or so ago my T-Mobile SIM ended up on an AT&T n…

I've had strange things happen out in the middle of no where deserts, such as my T-Mobile SIM'd Nexus 5 ending up roaming on Sprint‽

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#52

Post by nitrogen »

Guvante wrote: post #23
xnull1guest wrote: post #14

It's a sort of an accepted insanity that the positions which these large businesses take are considered important. Certainly information from these businesses on how they believe different legislation will effect them is useful to voters, their representatives and their appointees in performing a legislative calculus. But what certain companies 'advocate' for? This is hardly useful information for the design of legis…

Why is it insanity? You are implying that the companies are adding no value to the discussion by chiming on the topic. Shouldn't the entities most impacted by the change be listened to when it comes to decide on policy? You can certainly make a case that you need to adjust for their self-interest, but ignoring them completely is even more questionable than taking their statements at face value.

Shouldn't the entities most impacted by the change be listened to when it comes to decide on policy?

I think the parent's point is that the people are the entities most affected by change and their voices should be the ones that matter.

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#53

Post by forrestthewoods »

venomsnake wrote: post #50
forrestthewoods wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly? Who has a cell network monopoly? Prices are going down and features up due to ever increasing competition.

I was able to get in austria in 2006 3g for 1 EUR/GB . How are prices falling down?

Are you for real? It's easy. Look at prices and services from all major carriers in the US over the past 5 years. the prices are going down and you're getting more for less. It's a tough back and forth and every month or two they try to one up each other. So that's how prices are going down.

What you got in a different market doesn't matter. It's inarguable that prices are going down and it's inarguable that there is no monopoly. There isn't even a duopoly. What is arguable is that you should perhaps get more for what you pay. But the velocity is still down, even if it's not yet as low as it should be.

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#54

Post by quonn »

venomsnake wrote: post #50
forrestthewoods wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly? Who has a cell network monopoly? Prices are going down and features up due to ever increasing competition.

I was able to get in austria in 2006 3g for 1 EUR/GB . How are prices falling down?

In South-East Asia, you often get a prepaid contract including 5 GB for between $5 and $20. This is 10x cheaper. Sure, salaries are lower, but the equipment is the same.

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#55

Post by skywhopper »

drawkbox wrote: post #2

Best marketing Sprint has ever done. Granted this position probably helps them against the bigger competitors, that is why competition is good. Already we are seeing network providers start to jockey for competitive positions just at the hint of change. Imagine the competition when this actually happens. This position stands in stark contrast to what other carriers, including Verizon and AT&T, have espoused. In parti…

The very fact that Comcast, Verizon, TWC, et al are arguing that consumer-side bandwidth pricing is inadequate incentive for them to upgrade networks is strong evidence that the market is so broken that net neutrality and municipal broadband are the right policies.

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#56

Post by msh »

adventured wrote: post #46
duaneb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that's an entirely different problem. It's not like imposing fees after a certain point of use will help that problem at all, it would make more sense to a) absorb it and raise the monthly subscription when necessary, b) charge per byte, c) charge based on your % of network, or charge maintenance or service fees and don't charge for bandwidth at all. The current, tiered model only makes sense to use "overloa…

The US mobile network system has plenty of competition presently. In fact, it's competitive enough that it has evolved faster faster and better than most European mobile networks. It took nearly all of Europe a very long time to get 4G adoption above even 50% of the population.

But they needed it less. Verizon and sprint only had slow evdo 3G while Europe had fast hsdpa.

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#57

Post by morganvachon »

warfangle wrote: post #13
rcraft wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, in most cities, it's impossible to take advantage of Sprint's "unlimited data plans" because their data speeds are abysmal. I would love to go back to sprint eventually, but for now I'm happy with T-mobile in Denver/Chicago.

Their coverage map shows solid 100% 4G coverage for me. I live in one of the most populous cities in the US. I'm lucky if I get two bars of 3G. Looking to move to T-Mo soon.

Here on the outskirts of Atlanta, Sprint and T-Mobile have more or less equal coverage, with one picking up where the other doesn't most of the time. The issue with T-Mobile is that it's more difficult to get a signal indoors, depending on the building material.

For example, at my job we're in a large warehouse with metal walls and framing, lots of pipes, and suspended ceilings. That makes the building difficult but not impossible for radio waves to penetrate. All four major carriers saturate the area; stepping outside you get full service on all of them. But of the four, only T-Mobile has zero coverage once you step inside the building. The rest are usable to varying degrees, with AT&T and Verizon the two best, and Sprint is decent inside.

And just so this isn't purely anecdotal, T-Mobile has acknowledged issues with using their service indoors:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/t-mobi...

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#58

Post by lsaferite »

JoshGlazebrook wrote: post #9
Afforess wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, the fact that Sprint still offers (real) Unlimited data plans in the US is the best marketing they have ever done in my book.

That is true, but that doesn't make up for the sheer glacial speed that Sprint is moving at to improve their network. They have the most spectrum of all of the carriers but do not use it properly. Quarterly announcements of the Spark network upgrades not meeting their own expectations seems to have become common. You may have LTE but it's not very useful if you can barely get 1Mb/s. T-Mobile on the other hand is havi…

Maybe you guys can answer this. With mainland Europe using GSM across the board, do they have these frequency allocation problems across providers? It seems to me like it would be in everyone's interest to have a large shared pool of frequency allocations and share the burden of maintaining a network using them. Then you significantly more bandwidth capability per tower.

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#59

Post by warfangle »

Havoc wrote: post #40
Dylan16807 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phones have a clear indication of whether they are connected to 4G or not. What basis do you have to say that warfangle's signal strength is good in the buildings they spend the most time in?

Nose's point is that signal strength does not necessarily imply good Internet connectivity. Kinda like you can have great WiFi signal because you're sitting next to the router but unless the router is connected to a good ISP its still going to suck. Ie you can have 4G connectivity and it can still crawl if the backhaul sucks.

My point was that I usually don't even have 4G connectivity :) Even outdoors.

Re: In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality

#60

Post by warfangle »

morganvachon wrote: post #57
warfangle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their coverage map shows solid 100% 4G coverage for me. I live in one of the most populous cities in the US. I'm lucky if I get two bars of 3G. Looking to move to T-Mo soon.

Here on the outskirts of Atlanta, Sprint and T-Mobile have more or less equal coverage, with one picking up where the other doesn't most of the time. The issue with T-Mobile is that it's more difficult to get a signal indoors, depending on the building material. For example, at my job we're in a large warehouse with metal walls and framing, lots of pipes, and suspended ceilings. That makes the building difficult but…

Yeah, it's because of their high frequency signal.

Luckily, most of my time is spent within 20 feet of windows in brick buildings, so I don't think it will impact me that much.

On the other hand, have you looked at getting a femto cell for your warehouse (or using a service like Google Voice to get wifi calling)?

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