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T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

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Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#131

Post by jrootabega »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #22

Also, did no one from Mint's public relations department review the copy for this announcement before it went live? "Two excited guys, one video"? Seriously?

Mint's strategy is to write everything as if their audience is 10 years old. Every single piece of written material from them is soaked in this nauseating tone. Probably to distract you from the 7-8% "recovery fee" they add in right before you complete payment. They are/were just like any other MVNO, a deceptive fee-hungry machine focused on dazzling poor/undiscerning consumers with a cartoon lifestyle brand instead of actual value.

Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#132

Post by ROTMetro »

nebula8804 wrote: post #111
monksy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on how much they oversubscribe their frequency band. As a Verizon, Tmobile, or Att customer you might be able to get 1gbps down .. but why do you need that on your phone? Why are they popular? It makes little sense to pay $90 a month per line. With MVNOs the price is about 20-30$/mo. (Options out there: StraightTalk, USMobible, Lycia, Mint, Visble, Ting, Google FI, etc) Some of these carriers are even…

What about voice quality or prompt delivery of SMS? Its anecdotal but i've had serious issues having delayed SMS on the T-Mobile MVNOs. Voice calls appear have been more spotty but thats harder to measure.

I did have to configure SMS manually on my Pixel to work with Mint and that cleared up any SMS issues. Have never had any voice call issues.

Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#133

Post by starkparker »

pkulak wrote: post #116
wtallis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard to understand: many people simply don't need a high-speed unlimited data plan for their phones. Not everyone makes a habit of streaming video over their cellular connection.

Are we sure that no matter how de-prioritized you are, some data is always available, with reasonable latency? I was just at a large sports stadium last night, and I was able to message my wife to tell her I was on my way home while looking up the best bus to take. I remember that not being possible a few years ago, but I don't know if that's because networks in general have gotten better, or because I'm now paying q…

Odd to mention how restricted tethering is on MVNOs, in the comments of a post about Mint Mobile, which included tethering in every plan.

Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#134

Post by tootie »

joenot443 wrote: post #47
deepzn wrote: post #28

This is Ryan Reynolds' second company he has sold which he has a "significant stake" in after he sold his Aviator Gin to the big whale, Diageo brands. He's been able to leverage his status and marketing talent to grow those brands significantly. Other actors, athletes also do this, but perhaps he is the most noticeable. George Clooney also sold an alcohol brand to Diageo. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-…

Maybe I just have a soft spot since he's Canadian, but I think in this case Mint's provided some real genuine net benefit for consumers and I think using Reynolds positioning helped them get there.

Complete speculation, but I'd hazard a guess that they were able to offer such cheap service during the era of near zero interest rates coupled with their masterful use of celebrity to market their service made them an user acquisition machine and that T-Mobile is now paying a mint (no pun intended) to acquire all those users.

Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#135

Post by ripvanwinkle »

jawns wrote: post #20

I've been a Mint customer for about 4 years, paying the annual upfront payment, which works out to $15/mo. And shaking my head at those who are paying double or triple that rate on T-Mobile, even though Mint uses the same exact network. In terms of why T-Mobile is making this purchase, I'm pretty sure it's to take out someone who was eating their lunch. I've always found it strange that an MVNO is able to operate on…

Tmobile offers a 15$ prepaid plan too. They just don't promote it as much. I've been on it for about 3 years

Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#136

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

bearjaws wrote: post #6

I used to love Mint, but since the population boom in Central Florida it is entirely unusable due to being a low priority network. This means on many occasions you will have almost no bandwidth, I am talking cannot stream Spotify bad. The worst IMO is traffic jams, the one time I really want to listen to music and it will start cutting out. If you're downtown there is a 80% chance you will not even be able to load a…

That's entirely on T-Mobile for not providing capacity. Mint works fine in Manhattan. I could even get service from the basement of a masonry building.

Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#138

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

jrmg wrote: post #73

T-Mobile seems to be collecting pre-pay brands. They already offer Metro (‘Metro by T-Mobile’), the more-T-Mobile-branded branded “Connect by T-Mobile” with similar pricing to Mint (which they seem to try to keep secret?!), and more expensive “T-Mobile Prepaid” plans. Metro: https://www.metrobyt-mobile.com/ Connect: https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect Prepaid: https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/home

I had their classic $30 prepaid plan at one time and you were treated as a second class citizen. My caller ID showed up as someone else's name and they refused to do anything about it. Sorry, you're on prepaid.

Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#139

Post by selimthegrim »

morninglight wrote: post #57
jawns wrote: post #20

I've been a Mint customer for about 4 years, paying the annual upfront payment, which works out to $15/mo. And shaking my head at those who are paying double or triple that rate on T-Mobile, even though Mint uses the same exact network. In terms of why T-Mobile is making this purchase, I'm pretty sure it's to take out someone who was eating their lunch. I've always found it strange that an MVNO is able to operate on…

The Verge reported "The acquisition could let T-Mobile claw back the customers it lost when it sold Boost Mobile". It is especially interesting that this acquisition is taking place at the same time Boost Mobile is experiencing a major technical problem. The problem has persisted for many weeks and has even forced them to shut down payment processing. During this period, their support team has been totally useless. I…

Ting shares some of the same backend as well I believe.

Re: T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B

#140

Post by nwah1 »

babypuncher wrote: post #99
nwah1 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Product differentiation for various markets and price discrimination are both common techniques that even a monopoly can use to extract more profit. They know that not everyone would be able to afford the top tier of service. If Toyota were the only car company, they wouldn't only offer top end Lexus models. They would probably retain the various tiers, and simply try to capture the maximum consumer surplus at each t…

Yep I remember all the great deals on phones and phone service you could get back when Bell was the only option. Good times. /s

Another problem with monopolies is that they atrophy so much that they can fail to even maximize their own profit.

And I didn't say you would get a great deal from a rational monopolist. I said that you would get tiered services that keep consumer surplus as low as possible.

But T-Mobile is not a monopoly.

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