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T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

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Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#102

Post by icebraining »

masklinn wrote: post #99
praxeologist wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the gov't didn't have its hand in this space for so long, there would be no massive AT&T and there would be way more innovation. You're cheering someone for applying a cast when they also broke the leg.

> If the gov't didn't have its hand in this space for so long, there would be no massive AT&T I didn't expect to see revisionism in here, let alone of such magnitude. Without government intervention, there would be no AT&T, nor would there be alternate carriers. There would only be Ma Bell. And don't bullshitting about Ma Bell's regulated monopoly, the regulation was put in place because Bell was already a monopoly b…

The regulated monopoly started much earlier, in 1876, when they received a State-issued monopoly (patent) on the use of the telephone.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#103

Post by skrause »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #27

And this is why competition and effective government regulation[1] are fantastic things. If T-Mobile wasn't in a distant fourth place in the US market, or if they'd been acquired by AT&T we wouldn't be seeing this, nor would we see Verizon and AT&T introduce their own versions of T-Mobile's JUMP program. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/19/att-tmobile-merger-dead/

This is not really a prime example of good competition. The only reason T-Mobile can do this is because they are basically getting a massive subsidization from the German mother company, the German Telecom, who is behaving in its German home market just like AT&T behaves in the USA. As soon as T-Mobile gains any significant market share it will be just like the others.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#105

Post by praxeologist »

masklinn wrote: post #99
praxeologist wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the gov't didn't have its hand in this space for so long, there would be no massive AT&T and there would be way more innovation. You're cheering someone for applying a cast when they also broke the leg.

> If the gov't didn't have its hand in this space for so long, there would be no massive AT&T I didn't expect to see revisionism in here, let alone of such magnitude. Without government intervention, there would be no AT&T, nor would there be alternate carriers. There would only be Ma Bell. And don't bullshitting about Ma Bell's regulated monopoly, the regulation was put in place because Bell was already a monopoly b…

How about no Ma Bell in the first place... Grampa Graham got his telephone patent in 1876 then in the next 18 years there were 600 lawsuits to defend over 900 patents (state grants of monopoly).

When these patents expired, there were soon 80 competing companies which captured 5% of the market, rising to over 3,000 companies with over 50% of the market by 1900.

AT&T then lobbied for its monopoly status back, saying the telephone "by the nature of its technology would operate most efficiently as a monopoly providing universal service."

Then during WW1, this monopoly was given "for reasons of national security". If you think that the monopoly came about by market forces then government came to save us, yes there is some revision needed.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#106

Post by r00fus »

trimbo wrote: post #60
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #27

And this is why competition and effective government regulation[1] are fantastic things. If T-Mobile wasn't in a distant fourth place in the US market, or if they'd been acquired by AT&T we wouldn't be seeing this, nor would we see Verizon and AT&T introduce their own versions of T-Mobile's JUMP program. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/19/att-tmobile-merger-dead/

It also didn't hurt that AT&T paid T-Mobile $3 billion in a breakup fee. They're spending it wisely, at least. [1] - http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/02/t-mobile-takes-3-bill...

Sounds like that failed takeover bid was the 2nd best thing that AT&T did for US mobile customers in recent history (the iPhone deal with their Cingular subsidiary being the most impactful).

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#107

Post by DrewRWx »

elq wrote: post #61
freehunter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$30/mo for 5GB 4G (then I assume 2G after) is quite a deal! If the minutes were higher, I'd use this as my primary provider. As a data-only plan though, that's not too bad!

Yes. It is quite a deal. I pay .10 per minute after the small allocation is used up, but I've only use all 100 minutes twice in the last year I've had this plan. If I were less lazy and needed more minutes, I'd setup grooveip (or something similar) with my google voice account.

Donating to GVGW ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6524728 ) to use the GSM codec combined with csipsimple ( http://code.google.com/p/csipsimple/ ) has actually been surprisingly usable over HSPA+.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#108

Post by iNeal »

vpeters25 wrote: post #87
fatjokes wrote: post #23

Okay, I was about to quit T-Mo this winter for Verizon, but I'll stick around a little longer. Points for effort. It's desperately needed to compensate for the shitty coverage.

They got this website were you can report coverage issues: http://www.t-mobile-takeaction.com I reported I had barely a signal inside my house, a couple weeks later I had 5 bars.

That is really cool!
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