When President Obama appointed former lobbyist and industry insider Tom Wheeler to head the FCC, I wasn’t a fan. But, less than a month after being sworn in, Wheeler is making the right noises and, more importantly, the right moves, like threatening the cell industry with further regulation if they don’t clean up the cell phone unlocking mess.
Wheeler has some big shoes to fill, because interim chairman Mignon Clyburn accomplished a lot in her six months on the job. Clyburn approved the Sprint/Softbank/Clearwire transaction, which makes probably the weakest mobile provider more of a real competitor. She also did some smart things with wireless spectrum, as well as proposing an end to blackout rules for NFL games.
That Sprint transaction is the bookend to former FCC Chair Julius Genachowski’s decision to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, and it’s hard to overstate the importance of either event to your wallet and mine. As part of the T-Mobile non-transaction, AT&T had to pay a breakup fee of $4 billion. T-Mobile took that money, hired an ass-kicking CEO, and put a rocket behind their rollout of LTE, the state-of-the-art high-speed mobile networking standard. They also purchased small carrier MetroPCS, with the aim of improving their network with Metro’s spectrum.
T-Mobile also introduced an “uncarrier” marketing strategy that’s far more fair and transparent than AT&T or Verizon’s offerings. Unlike the other carriers, at T-Mobile, it’s clear how much you’re paying for service, and how much you’re paying for a phone, because you buy the phone at full retail rather than at the “discount” the other carriers offer. This allows T-Mobile to have contract-free plans that can be cancelled at any time, rather than the usual two-year lock in from the other carriers. In the past quarter, T-Mobile added a million subscribers, the most of any provider, on the strength of this service, and they’re live with LTE in 254 cities.
Sprint has announced a new plan to roll out LTE, called “Spark”, but it’s not clear right now exactly how they’re going to change their plans to be more competitive. My guess is that they’ll need to match or beat what T-Mobile is offering.
There’s no way any of this would have happened in a Republican administration. Michael Powell and Kevin Martin, Bush’s FCC chairs, were deregulators, not regulators.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
The reason I’m on Sprint is no data overages. I have no idea how much data I use – it could be that I’d get a better signal and never pay overages with Verizon AT&T or T-Mobile. My Sprint contract is up though and I’m thinking of switching to T Mobile. How is their network? Especially, how is their network in the DC area? Sprint was making upgrades here the past year and for a while our signal was basically non-existent at our house, but it’s better now and their coverage in the DC area is generally pretty good. I was in San Francisco a week ago and their coverage there, at least in Noe Valley, sucked. I think Sprint may be upgrading in SF as well, and when they do your service temporarily sucks.
BGinCHI
I’ve had T-Mobile since I got a cell phone and I have zero complaints. Every time I (and now we) have tried to change there just is no alternative to their pricing and plans. I’ve had good luck with their service too.
Gian
speaking just for Verizon, their unsubsidized prices seem to be higher than T-Mobile. I suspect they increase the price off contract to try and get you into a contract.
As our renew date is well past up and we have unlimited data with Verizon, and would have to pay more on a contract for a limited data plan (I mean seriously, here, you get less data and get to pay $40 more a month isn’t an offer I’m going to take)
but comparing apples to apples. LG G2 phone on t mobile full price (just looking now) $603
full price on Verizon $699
and Verizon won’t carry the google/nexus phones.
years ago we had sprint and dropped them after they told me I was dead, cut off service and accused me of fraud, for paying the bill on time. (and they cut it off at night and wanted me to go into a store, which was closed, and I’d been in a store, and had shown the store ID to get a phone for my then new wife, after I was supposedly dead)
since this is not the place to ask everyone about their coverage experiences, is there a good location for reviews of service?
gene108
That really pissed off the investor class. They were drooling at the thoughts of all the money the merger would’ve made for M&A type firms and I guess the safety the lack of competition would’ve made for investments in AT&T, after the merger.
PsiFighter37
OT, and apologies – but my desktop BSOD’ed me this morning, and now I can’t get it to start at all. I’m in Startup Repair (using Windows 7), but combing through the DOS prompt, it seems that it somehow reassigned my C: drive to be F:, and trying to start up just leads me to the login screen – except the login prompt never shows up, and the screen just flickers every few seconds.
Any idea what this might be? The machine’s well over 3.5 years old, so maybe it’s just crapping out…but wanted to solicit the advice of Juicers who are more tech-savvy as to what might be the issue.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
Too fucking bad. Keynes once spoke of “euthanizing” the rentiers These maggots need to suffer when they’re expunged from the universe,
Three-nineteen
Granted, the last time I checked this out was over 5 years ago, but back then Verizon and AT&T didn’t force you to buy a two year contract. That was just to get the free phone. You could buy a phone at full price and then have no contract, buy a phone at a discount and get a one-year contract, or get a phone for free and get a two-year contract.
I have bought two iPhones with AT&T, and have not been locked into a contract with either one.
I just went to Verizon’s website, and you can get a Samsung Galaxy phone for $200 with a two-year contract, or for $700 with month-to-month service. At T-Mobile, you can get a Samsung Galaxy phone for $200 with a two-year contract, or for $704 with month-to-month service. They are almost exactly the same. The difference is that if you want to cancel your contract with T-Mobile, you can but you have to pay the $500 you got discounted on the phone. I don’t see that right away on the Verizon website, but I know there is a fee for cancelling, I just don’t know what it is.
Looks like they are all the same to me.
Baud
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Verizon has a really good network and they make it easy to check your data usage. I’ve also found their customer service to be surprisingly good lately. On the downside, their phones come with some bloatware, and they are pricier than other carriers.
BGinCHI
Have had quite a few different phones over the last 10 or 12 years. Didn’t want to shell out for an iPhone. Didn’t think I’d really use it, etc.
But now? Got an iPhone 5 this summer. Pure bliss. There is absolutely nothing that could make me go back to an android phone. I’m not a super heavy user but the design and lack of bloat and bullshit just make it a pleasure to use.
ETA: The iPhone is like the Maine coon of phones.
Davis X. Machina
Obama sold us out.
(I wrote a perfectly good macro for this, and I intend to keep using it.)
Roger Moore
I think their big plan is unlimited mobile data. It’s a pretty good plan on its face, but as a Sprint subscriber I’m waiting to see if their network can back up their promises. They have LTE in my area, but it’s dog slow compared to any other carrier. Unless they can massively improve their service, I’m planning on switching carriers as soon as my current contract runs out.
Frankensteinbeck
I have noticed that Obama likes to hire people who know the enemy intimately, and set them to stabbing their former masters. I can see the logic of it, as long as you find someone who’s actually willing to change sides.
MikeJ
@PsiFighter37: Sounds like a hosed partition table. Try this:
http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download
There’s a version that will run off a thumb drive.
piratedan
@Frankensteinbeck: it is kinda elegant isn’t it?
PsiFighter37
@MikeJ: So download this and boot off the flash drive then?
NotMax
Yup, that merger was something, as Clear (formerly Clearwire) promptly shut down their services here without notice and fled the market.
Roger Moore
@Three-nineteen:
I think the big difference is that T-Mobile is giving cheaper contracts to people who bring their own phones (or pay for them outright), while most of the other carriers roll the costs directly into the contracts and continue charging them even after you’ve had the phone for long enough to pay off the subsidy. Separating out the phone cost from the plan cost will be a big benefit for people who are willing to keep their phones for more than 2 years, or who are able to find cheaper third-party phones.
Ruckus
I believe in many parts of the world you pay for the phone you want and then pay for the service you use. IOW 2 yr contracts are rare. In the long run this is cheaper for the user.
We have a culture in the US that cheap and free is always better. Not everyone subscribes to it but it is for sure out there. Cell phone cos have taken advantage of cheap/free and easy at the expense of our wallets as big corps are want to do. Just like health care insurance you have to do your homework. It’s the only way to get the best phone and service for you. But it takes time, thought and energy. And the way both are set up it takes way too much time and energy. As they were designed to.
Ruckus
@PsiFighter37:
If there is a hosed partition file then this should be able to bring back the old one which would restore your partitions.
If it hosed up something deeper than the partition file you may have to use it to recover all the files/data that you want to save and reinstall your system. I’ve had to do that before, hope you aren’t there, it’s a time consuming pain in the ass.
pseudonymous in nc
Like I said back in the earlier thread, Wheeler’s well respected. He’s not been shy about describing what he thinks the future of the telco industry will be, and functional monopolies isn’t part of that vision.
FWIW, you can buy a Lumia 521 for $100 non-contract and put it on a cheapish T-Mobile plan, and you’re pretty well sorted. Windows Phone is really good on lower-end hardware — much better than Android, and there’s no iOS phone to compare at the price — and it’s finally gaining traction in Europe as a result.
@Ruckus:
It’s not quite that simple. In India and China, for instance, where credit-worthiness is difficult to check, most people pay up front for phones and monthly for service. In Eurocommieland, there’s usually a lot of options, including ones where you pay all the money up front or have a more limited contract where the cost is rolled into the bill. What’s different in Europe is that the base price for service is a lot lower: $25/mo will get you a stack of voice minutes and unlimited data.
In addition, the European prepaid market is both predominant and representative of the total market, unlike in the US where it’s a minority and much more demographically distinct, and hardware/network compatibility means that customers can and do switch provider regularly.
Ruckus
@pseudonymous in nc:
Thanks. This was off the top of my head from experiences with many people I used to know/work with from outside the US.
BTW I use prepaid T-Mobile and have been OK with the service. But I don’t use my phone for anything other than a phone and a thousand minutes lasts me about a year so I’m no longer the typical customer like I used to be.
doug r
@Frankensteinbeck:Well, the guy who started Media Matters is a former Republican hired gun and the best critics of the religious right and health insurance are a couple of former industry hacks.
namekarB
I remember a townhall meeting at Southern Pacific Railroad (SPTCo) shortly after SPTCo spun off Sprint as a subsidiary. One of our more dry-humored conductors asked the CEO if the reason SP got rid of Sprint was they couldn’t make the satellites go as slow as the trains (inside joke – due to poor track maintenance, many sections of track required very slow speeds).
Fast forward and SP’s baby, Sprint, is still growing while SP itself got swallowed up by Union Pacific RR.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Ruckus:
I think it’s slightly different than that — I think our culture says that a low monthly cost is always better than a larger up-front cost, even if that “low monthly cost” means you pay more overall.
I got my iPhone through Virgin Mobile. I had to pay full price for the phone, but I only pay $30 a month for unlimited 3G Internet and 200 minutes (which I’ve never actually used up), so I’m actually going to save $300 when compared to a 2-year contract with a “free” iPhone.
(Virgin Mobile contracts with Sprint, so if Sprint works well in your area, VM could work for you.)
Villago Delenda Est
@namekarB:
How typical…maintenance of mission critical infrastructure which doesn’t have an immediate ROI payoff that’s easy to see on a spreadsheet gets the short shrift by MBA dickheads.
Of course, they’d disagree that having fast moving trains servicing customers is mission critical. As far as they’re concerned, their bonuses and compensation are the mission.
Paula
It’s a bit like whackamole, innit? The second Janet Yellen was appointed and Ray Kelly … wasn’t, Wheeler was THE WORST APPOINTMENT EVUR.
LAC
@Paula: well, thank jebus miserablemix approves now. Whew…