Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S. • Hacker News Board

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#201

Post by ganoushoreilly » Thu, May 16, 2024, 9:47 PM UTC

unsignedint wrote: post #199

andy800 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had a clear hotspot puck in the DMV area, worked well most of the time. I don't think I had any issues with price paid vs performance given the current state of tech at the time. I think targeting homes was just a hard battle, FIOS and others were really ramping up their initial push into fiber and it was just not going to compete sadly.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#202

Post by chrisco255 » Thu, May 16, 2024, 9:48 PM UTC

babypuncher wrote: post #126

aiauthoritydev wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that there is finite spectrum available. The upfront cost of building a national cellular network are also astronomical, regardless of regulatory hurdles. The FCC was created to manage the scarcity inherent to the radio spectrum. It's not an area where regular free market economics apply. GP's proposal would actually make it easier for startups to horn in on the territory of the big established players…

There are finite amounts of everything. Free market economics solve this problem all the time. There are finite amounts of food, land, energy, shelter, human resources, etc. The problem isn't that spectrum is finite, it's that there is no way to prevent interference.

It's questionable if the FCC is really optimal though. There are huge amounts of spectrum still devoted to dying industries like AM/FM radio and broadcast television.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#203

Post by chrisco255 » Thu, May 16, 2024, 9:52 PM UTC

TheAmazingRace wrote: post #25

mchannon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Sprint bankruptcy may have been inevitable, but Verizon and AT&T would have been forced to steer clear (a failed merger having made that inevitable). The private market would have provided a bounty of suitors for Sprint if it couldn't recover from bankruptcy. It may have emerged in a far weaker fourth place, but it would still be around.

The only other possible dark horse that could have emerged was either in US Cellular or Dish Network. However, I believe there were concerns with issues like market capitalization (in the case of US Cellular) or having different priorities (like Dish) that would have jeopardized a proper fourth option for the US. I'm not suggesting the merger was "good" or anything like that. Just that the other options seemed quite…

There is already a burgeoning dark horse competitor to the wireless companies: SpaceX. I believe within a few years Starlink will be a viable global wireless network.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#204

Post by Benjammer » Thu, May 16, 2024, 9:59 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #196

Benjammer wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Why would it be a prudent move to take on the corporate real estate costs associated with RS if it was already a profitable retail channel? What does that change other than increasing overhead for Sprint? And if RS was working, why would converting them to solely cell phone stores make things any better?

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#205

Post by dragontamer » Thu, May 16, 2024, 10:00 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #165

The graph they chose to use in the article has to be one of the main poster childs for 'correlation does not mean causation'. I don't know what's worse, not adjusting for purchasing power, or not adjusting for country size. Also targeting 100GB screams 'writer had an agenda' to me. My screen on time is absolutely atrocious and I still rarely get over 20gb a month. I'm guessing the stats must change if you choose a nu…

I use 2GB a month and I thought I was a doom-scroller...

I guess 2GB of text / forums / newspapers is very different from like, Netflix every day on the phone though.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#206

Post by andy800 » Thu, May 16, 2024, 10:02 PM UTC

unsignedint wrote: post #199

andy800 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's possible but it was a Sprint-branded device bought from Sprint that was clearly supposed to be compatible with its new 4G network. And they charged an extra $10 4G access fee every month!

The other bonus was that being a CDMA device, there was no connectivity when traveling internationally, and no option to buy a local SIM card. Wifi only.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#207

Post by nerdbert » Thu, May 16, 2024, 10:03 PM UTC

aiauthoritydev wrote: post #169

HumblyTossed wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nothing prevents you from working with liked minded individuals to create your own "infra". The phrase "we the people" sounds cool but in reality what you mean is "your money, my idea". Roads is a very common argument, but none of the roads are build by "we the people". Government takes your money by force irrespective of how you think it should be spent and then a completely unaccountable red tapy system that employ…

> There is no need for roads to be public infrastructure. It can be fully privatized and people be asked to pay for its use. (While entire compontent of taxes that go towards road building be returned back to the people.) We will have better roads, less traffic and more money in pocket with that model.

As evidenced by the many successful and popular real-world cases where it's played out exactly this way. For example, um, uh...

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#208

Post by TallTales » Thu, May 16, 2024, 10:08 PM UTC

Benjammer wrote: post #92

TheAmazingRace wrote: post #5

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…

I'm a former engineer at Sprint and I strongly disagree with this characterization. Sprint's goose was cooked but it was due to debt from selling junk bonds to build Network Vision at the time of the original LTE rollout. Their credit was ruined by that point from 30+ years of absolutely terrible and corrupt c-suite executives.

Marcello has a lot of faults but he didn't run Sprint into the ground. He is actually pretty smart and at that time we cut over a billion dollars out of the operating budget circa 2016/2017 iirc. It was an impossible position and it's really sad because it was a great old company in my estimation. T-Mobile is just the worst.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#209

Post by therealcamino » Thu, May 16, 2024, 10:10 PM UTC

johnkpaul wrote: post #156

bt3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data-only global eSims are super cheap. Having done a lot of international travel lately, this is undoubtedly the best way to go. Cheaper and better coverage too.

Where would you recommend someone find one of these? Do they expire, or could I get one to cover years worth of travel? Thanks!

I've used the Airalo app to buy data-only eSims in multiple regions, and they have global ones also. I would guess it's not as cheap as you'd get if you waited to buy from local providers in arrival, but it's very convenient.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#210

Post by TallTales » Thu, May 16, 2024, 10:12 PM UTC

unsignedint wrote: post #199

andy800 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah it depends on the market you were in. I helped build the WiMax network but it was built very quickly and in places it was built by people who didn't care very much.

It was all microwave back hauled so rain fade in stormy weather was absolutely a thing. Most of those were FCC licensed or should have been but I know of at least 1 market where they just never filed the paperwork to get the licenses and built it anyway.