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Old March 20th, 2011, 07:20 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Default AT&T Buys T-Mobile (And Why It’s Bad)

AT&T has purchased T-Mobile for $39 Billion, immediately making them the largest carrier in the United States. The process could take 12 months to complete, but if and when it does, there could be some pretty crazy implications. If you take the statements from AT&T and Deutsche Telekom (parent company of T-Mobile) you’ll predictably get [...]

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Old March 20th, 2011, 10:05 PM   #2 (permalink)
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T-mobile had been placed on the list of companies that would be out of business in 2 years.
I think this takeover is great for T-mobile and AT&T customers. Also, the way Verizon has been behaving in a "we're great we'll do as we please" mentality, it may make them re-think their NE2 elimination and their $350 ETF.
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Old March 20th, 2011, 10:45 PM   #3 (permalink)
 
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Originally Posted by pool_shark View Post
T-mobile had been placed on the list of companies that would be out of business in 2 years.
I think this takeover is great for T-mobile and AT&T customers. Also, the way Verizon has been behaving in a "we're great we'll do as we please" mentality, it may make them re-think their NE2 elimination and their $350 ETF.
Why should they, att is tiered plans now. Att etf is $375 and they dont offer upgrades every year.

Why should verizon really care, all it comes down to now is who do you hate less. If you hate att, your only option is verizon. If you hate verizon, good news, you have att.

Sprint is a 3rd option but has a lot of coverage issues.

Having only 2 players in the game means they simply set the price they think the can beat out of the customer. Once the highest price they can set with out major protest, they just keep the price high and hand off customers to each other. In a lot of places, the 1-2% churn rate will be 1% from verizon to att and 1% from att to verizon.
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Old March 20th, 2011, 10:54 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RiverOfIce View Post
Why should they, att is tiered plans now. Att etf is $375 and they dont offer upgrades every year.

Why should verizon really care, all it comes down to now is who do you hate less. If you hate att, your only option is verizon. If you hate verizon, good news, you have att.

Sprint is a 3rd option but has a lot of coverage issues.

Having only 2 players in the game means they simply set the price they think the can beat out of the customer. Once the highest price they can set with out major protest, they just keep the price high and hand off customers to each other. In a lot of places, the 1-2% churn rate will be 1% from verizon to att and 1% from att to verizon.
Sad day
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Old March 20th, 2011, 11:04 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pool_shark View Post
T-mobile had been placed on the list of companies that would be out of business in 2 years.
I think this takeover is great for T-mobile and AT&T customers. Also, the way Verizon has been behaving in a "we're great we'll do as we please" mentality, it may make them re-think their NE2 elimination and their $350 ETF.
I can assure this is not great. The term oligopoly comes to mind for carriers overall and monopoly for GSM. With only three major carriers, prices will only go up, data caps will now be the norm as well as overages for data (see AT&T), customer service for T-Mobile users will drop like a rock, basically the carriers will be able to get by with just about anything.

Hopefully, and this is hopefully, the FCC won't approve it. That's the last shining bit of hope in this. I don't want AT&T's draconian policies or pricing.
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Old March 20th, 2011, 11:20 PM   #6 (permalink)
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If it goes through, good bye tmo, hello sprint. Evo 3d looks ba.
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Old March 20th, 2011, 11:26 PM   #7 (permalink)
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It's not pleasant but the economics of bandwidth, with everyone wanting streaming netflix and 2 way videochat (upload speeds are never as good as downloads) is just unsustainable. T-mobile tried to be like a nice little 'mom and pop' carrier that everyone loves but that just doesn't work for the high bandwidth smartphone era.
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Old March 20th, 2011, 11:34 PM   #8 (permalink)
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I'm gonna have to switch from T mobile to maybe Sprint or Verizon. Bad news :/
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Old March 21st, 2011, 12:02 AM   #9 (permalink)
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I switched to Sprint. Couldn't be happier so far. VZW is greedy and has long since forgot what customer service is.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 12:25 AM   #10 (permalink)
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I had verizon about three years ago started off with prepaid then switched to a monthly plan because my wife and i were using two different companies. thought it would be cost effective. our first bill was about $200 for activation fee's, the next month it went to $350(+) month three it went to $500 and something, i couldn't get an explantion why month four $600+ month 7 good bye verizon

we owe them $1,500 for termination fee's and other mystery fee's. when they offer me a settlement offer i will consider paying them off

so it looks it will be Sprint, Virginmobile(which i have now) or BoostMobile
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Old March 21st, 2011, 01:49 AM   #11 (permalink)
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Its like the Forecloser Market. Which was supposed to be fixed by the
current government. They all offer A NEW DEAL and it is always the
old deal of screwing the have nots by the have lots. Anyway.. long live
the ATand T. T-Mobile was bound to die the techy death. They employed
to many people named: " Peggy ". Which was a great thing in that they
had jobs. Just not good jobs with benefit plans. So there you are. No
rewards by management.. no real work will be done. By By T-Mobile. AT
and T better be able to help Ameritech...refugees.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 02:51 AM   #12 (permalink)
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I'm just really concerned about Sprint because they bungled up 4G with wimax. they have to move to LTE and soon.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 08:13 AM   #13 (permalink)
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For what it's worth, T-Mobile UK has merged with Orange UK in a venture called Everything Everywhere jointly owned by France Telecom (Orange owner) and Deutsche Telecom (T-Mobile owner)

All we have noticed so far is better coverage. In the first instance this has been provided by Orange and T-Mobile users being able to roam onto each other's networks. Further down the line will be full integration into a single, very comprehensive, network.

This could actually turn out to be a good thing for USA customers. Just sayin'.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 08:45 AM   #14 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RiverOfIce View Post
Why should they, att is tiered plans now. Att etf is $375 and they dont offer upgrades every year.

Why should verizon really care, all it comes down to now is who do you hate less. If you hate att, your only option is verizon. If you hate verizon, good news, you have att.

Sprint is a 3rd option but has a lot of coverage issues.

Having only 2 players in the game means they simply set the price they think the can beat out of the customer. Once the highest price they can set with out major protest, they just keep the price high and hand off customers to each other. In a lot of places, the 1-2% churn rate will be 1% from verizon to att and 1% from att to verizon.
AT&T's ETF is $325 - $10 per month.
I didn't realize their ETF was that high though.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 08:47 AM   #15 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Drhyde View Post
I can assure this is not great. The term oligopoly comes to mind for carriers overall and monopoly for GSM. With only three major carriers, prices will only go up, data caps will now be the norm as well as overages for data (see AT&T), customer service for T-Mobile users will drop like a rock, basically the carriers will be able to get by with just about anything.

Hopefully, and this is hopefully, the FCC won't approve it. That's the last shining bit of hope in this. I don't want AT&T's draconian policies or pricing.
I said it's great for AT&T and T-mobile customers. AT&T customers get more coverage, T-mobile customers don't get dumped because T-mobile went out of business. If it isn't approved, T-mobile will most like go out of business soon along with all of their employees being out of work.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 09:03 AM   #16 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ari-free View Post
It's not pleasant but the economics of bandwidth, with everyone wanting streaming netflix and 2 way videochat (upload speeds are never as good as downloads) is just unsustainable. T-mobile tried to be like a nice little 'mom and pop' carrier that everyone loves but that just doesn't work for the high bandwidth smartphone era.
Bandwidth is not an issue. Trust me on this one. Since the RF at these frequencies is only Line-of-site, and low power; contention for the channel is really at a minimum should proper network and protocol designs be used.

And, they can always buy more spectrum... Or, ask the Government to just give it to them, like they usually do.

A 25KHz channel can easily support a full 768Kb/768Kb channel for about 50 users per tower (Since tower interference is nil).

The "not enough bandwidth" argument only comes into play when you leave Line of site frequencies (sub-VHF), or start using monster power (Not the 25mW transceiver in a phone).

Think about it for a second: On a part 15 device, you get a full 54Mb/sec channel... With old technology. Split among 5 users, that's still 10Mb/sec per user. And, that's on a 2.5KHz channel, not a 25Khz channel.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 09:26 AM   #17 (permalink)
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I am sure there are a lot of people that were around when we had the phone tethered to the wall and you could not replace it without calling AT&T.
Your bills were high and you had no choice....

Why we are letting AT&T buy everyone up is beyond me.
The only people making a lot of cash here are company executives.
The people screwed are the customers of AT&T and T-Mobile.

It's about controlling the market, not about the 'customers' as these companies keep putting in cookie cutter press releases.

Then idiots read them and believe it.
AT&T needs to be broken up - not allowed to keep buying back all the bell companies and it's competitors.

We are almost back to 1982 all over again!
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Old March 21st, 2011, 10:31 AM   #18 (permalink)
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Bandwidth is not an issue. Trust me on this one. <SNIP>they can always buy more spectrum... Or, ask the Government to just give it to them, like they usually do.
<SNIP>
Think about it for a second: On a part 15 device, you get a full 54Mb/sec channel... With old technology. Split among 5 users, that's still 10Mb/sec per user. And, that's on a 2.5KHz channel, not a 25Khz channel.
Think about this for a second and - Remember this? "--- is now the new ---" ... The phraseology could have been: The old demon is now using ---'s good name! It wasn't long before we newly initiated felt the talons of the old demon. One should never expect the leopard to change its spots because it has gobbled up more prey. Lessons learned.

Some serious questions need to be posed. Are they Android-centric? Do they have a Google philosophy of openness? Is Tethering called illegal if they can't slap an extra charge on you for it? Never mind that you are ALREADY paying for unlimited phone service and paid a wad for your SMARTphone for all of its capabilities. I got the feeling that they wanted to extrapolate every iota of money from every crevice that they possibly could, and even then, I had to watch my bottom line. A new fee for this, an added fee for that... and none of them explained to my satisfaction.

A rose by any other name is still a rose. This one stinks!

Generally, one company doesn't buy out another to keep the buyee the same. They buy to own more assets...not to keep the company as you knew it, the same. The bought company assumes the culture and the leadership of the purchasing company. Even if they take on leaders from the bought company, the old leaders don't have enough leverage to wield any power in the new agreement. They are in effect, romantic figure-heads. They had better be happy with the purchase price because that is often the most they'll get.

As the cog that runs the wheel (we consumers) we can safely say that "Nobody asked US!". They never do, LOL. But how we respond is the name of the game. The squeakiest wheel gets the most oil.

Because this merger would make one company the sole front-runner, I think that if this deal is allowed to go through that the government should mandate a heavily announced 30-day period for all who want to leave without penalty to do so. We, the people should demand it. This is after all, America...of the PEOPLE, by the people and for the people...not the conglomerates. Or is it? Damnation. This economy has taught me far more than I ever wanted to know, LOL.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 11:44 AM   #19 (permalink)
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@NowVoyager - Ah-****ing-men!!!

If this deal is allowed I will be extremely pissed. AT&T has some of the worst customer service and their plans are almost as expensive as Verizon without having the coverage. Their phone lineup sucks and if it wasn't for iPhone, they'd probably have gone under alot sooner.

I was thinking about joining Sprint a couple of months ago and I definitley be willing to jump ship if this is about to happen but only if Verizon isn't allowed to touch Sprint. I'm very dissappointed in this move
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Old March 21st, 2011, 12:02 PM   #20 (permalink)
 
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I'm just really concerned about Sprint because they bungled up 4G with wimax. they have to move to LTE and soon.
Why? If they go to lte, they will be on their own. You can not transfer phones, it will not improve coverage, it will not improve speed. All it will do is offer what the other guys have, just with a weaker foot print.

It would be like a store having everything that the other stores had, but less product for more money. They tried that with cdma and that has dumped them into 3rd place.

They have nothing to gain and if they switch, it will cost billions more then wimax.

The safest bet is to offer wimax for cities and lte for rural areas. But to move from wimax to lte would be just stupid, but we are talking about sprint here, they do stupid things.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 12:12 PM   #21 (permalink)
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Tmobile customers why are you so bitchy? Do you not like shiny new things for christmas? Ah but it comes at a price which no one even knows yet. At least wait till we can get more information on how this will affect plans & pricing. In the meantime be appreciative that your network just expanded. Before this you weren't sniffing LTE, you were the little fat boy who never got picked in a pickup game. Now you get to run with the big boys.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 12:24 PM   #22 (permalink)
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Default Customers Are Not Commodities....

....To AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile..Customers are a commodity to be traded. I am not a commodity!!! In economics a market is only so big. The U.S. Cellular Market is one example. If there are four players competing for a finite set of customers this is infinitely better than having the market divided by only 3.

... Whatever customer service AT&T exemplifies for it's cellular customers is surely impacted by the fact.. A customer has 3 other choices (not counting prepaid services like Metro PC, Boost, Cricket etc)

.... This is not a good deal by any stretch of the imagination. Period!!!

.... I've been with T-Mobile since before it was T-Mobile!!! I love their customer service.

.. And as for coverage area... Where are you going? Antiqua? The Bahamas? (Every carrier covers all of the major metro's.... The coverage is more physical in nature i.e. where is the closest antenna to you 'at the time') at the end of the day I've traveled all around the country on TMO , never had a dropped call, and never roamed!!!
... COVERAGE AREA IS A NON ISSUE

...TAKE IS FROM A TRAINED COMM GUY.. THIS DEAL IS ALL ABOUT T MOBILE NOT KNOWING HOW TO GROW THEIR BUSINESS. THEY ARE GIVING UP!!! SIMPLE!!!
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Old March 21st, 2011, 12:31 PM   #23 (permalink)
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If we don't learn from history, we're bound to repeat it!! When was the last time AT&T actually lowered it's actually usage pricing? It's ok... I'll wait. At TMO I have a finite plan for my 3G Phone...Unlimited Talk, Text and Web.. No hidden side charges...and a bill that has stayed within a 1% to 2% fluctuation month in month out like clockwork for over 9 years~~~ AT& T gouges you because you have no choice!!! If they are gouging now 'wait until they get their hands on a new 30 customers ...14 million of which are on plans...LET THE BLOOD FLOWING BEGIN!!!.. If this deal closes, I'm gone....QUICKLY!! No good will come of this. NONE
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Old March 21st, 2011, 01:42 PM   #24 (permalink)
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Why? If they go to lte, they will be on their own. You can not transfer phones, it will not improve coverage, it will not improve speed. All it will do is offer what the other guys have, just with a weaker foot print.

It would be like a store having everything that the other stores had, but less product for more money. They tried that with cdma and that has dumped them into 3rd place.

They have nothing to gain and if they switch, it will cost billions more then wimax.

The safest bet is to offer wimax for cities and lte for rural areas. But to move from wimax to lte would be just stupid, but we are talking about sprint here, they do stupid things.
wimax has poor building penetration. I can't even consider Sprint until they switch.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 02:15 PM   #25 (permalink)
 
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Originally Posted by pool_shark View Post
AT&T's ETF is $325 - $10 per month.
I didn't realize their ETF was that high though.
I have no idea where I got the 375 from, it is 325 for the record.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 02:23 PM   #26 (permalink)
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Bandwidth is not an issue. Trust me on this one. Since the RF at these frequencies is only Line-of-site, and low power; contention for the channel is really at a minimum should proper network and protocol designs be used.

And, they can always buy more spectrum... Or, ask the Government to just give it to them, like they usually do.

A 25KHz channel can easily support a full 768Kb/768Kb channel for about 50 users per tower (Since tower interference is nil).

The "not enough bandwidth" argument only comes into play when you leave Line of site frequencies (sub-VHF), or start using monster power (Not the 25mW transceiver in a phone).

Think about it for a second: On a part 15 device, you get a full 54Mb/sec channel... With old technology. Split among 5 users, that's still 10Mb/sec per user. And, that's on a 2.5KHz channel, not a 25Khz channel.
There is a long term bandwidth congestion issue if you think you can give everyone unlimited data plans with hi-res 2 way video calling and netflix streaming for a low price. It just isn't going to work for a small company. It's hard enough even for Verizon.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 02:30 PM   #27 (permalink)
 
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Originally Posted by ari-free View Post
wimax has poor building penetration. I can't even consider Sprint until they switch.
LTE has horrible interference with anything with power running through it about 3% degradation.
LTE sends the data and forgets it, so instead of making sure your download is 100% perfect, it just assumes it is. If you lose your signal or the data gets corrupted, lte does not even know. That song may have parts corrupted, but since you can not redown load it and you dont have a service that makes sure it was not corrupted, your lost.

The best part about this is, wimax only has about 3% average degradation with buildings, as low as 1% and as high as 18%. Which is the same degradation as lte and power lines or you tv, when it is turned on.

But wimax works at 2.5ghz spectrum which means that the data corruption is very little. For places with poor coverage you can stack as many repeaters as you want in almost any size foot print. LTE works at the 700mhz which means data corruption can get pretty bad. At 700mhz you can not stack any more towers in the same foot print. In fact you have to have about 1 tower per 3 miles. Which means that if you got horrible reception, it is not going to be easily fixable.

But only wimax as a system for making sure the data that is being transmitted is 100% uncorrupted. LTE just can't tell.

I have done this in a lab, if I give wimax a data song, and start to degrade the signal, wimax will stop, back up, find the uncorrupted part, start the down load, byte for byte. Sure it slows it down but will make sure the data is 100% uncorrupted. But lte will just ignore it. It will down load the same corrupted data.

So the same average degradation with one major difference. You can have lte.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 08:49 PM   #28 (permalink)
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Default It may not go through

The Wall Street Journal has a pretty in-depth article on the chances of the AT&T - T-Mobile merger going through:

AT&T Digs In for a D.C. Fight - WSJ.com
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Old March 21st, 2011, 11:08 PM   #29 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheBrit View Post
For what it's worth, T-Mobile UK has merged with Orange UK in a venture called Everything Everywhere jointly owned by France Telecom (Orange owner) and Deutsche Telecom (T-Mobile owner)

All we have noticed so far is better coverage. In the first instance this has been provided by Orange and T-Mobile users being able to roam onto each other's networks. Further down the line will be full integration into a single, very comprehensive, network.

This could actually turn out to be a good thing for USA customers. Just sayin'.
At least for me, I know coverage will be better as long as At&t doesn't screw up the transition. But to me that's not the issue, the issue is pricing, plans, lower data caps, prepaid, and etc. I don't know all the details of the the UK merger, but was there a big difference in pricing and other things between the two? That's the major difference I see with At&t and T-Mobile, which is why I don't want to go to At&t if the merge happens. Yes, my plan can be grandfathered in, but if I get caught tethering, then they will most likely force me to change my plans or something.
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Old March 21st, 2011, 11:11 PM   #30 (permalink)
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It will happen..... they have enough money to buy T-Mo.. so they have enough money to buy a few regulators.
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Old March 22nd, 2011, 10:10 AM   #31 (permalink)
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It's a sad day. I've enjoyed using T-Mo for years. Even though its coverage is not ideal, it's been good enough, and the customer service is top notch.

AT&T is a ruthless corporate raider that renamed itself from SBC; its wireless division used to be Cingular. It has nothing to do with the old AT&T except in name.

AT&T could grow without wasting $40 billion. All they have to do is provide good customer service and relax some of their restrictive policies (tethering, data pricing) and they'd immediately jump to #1. The fact that they have to buy another company to keep up with Verizon even though they've had the iPhone monopoly for five years tells you something about their incompetence.

Business schools teach that the most successful mergers are the ones where the acquired company is preserved as a wholly owned subsidiary with its own management intact. The least successful mergers are the ones where they literally tear up the acquired company, fire thousands of employees, and absorb its assets into the mother company.

AT&T is planning to gut T-Mobile and lay off thousands. Thus, they are following the failure model. Looks like I'll be shopping around for a Sprint or Verizon phone in a year or two. Sad.
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Old March 22nd, 2011, 10:17 AM   #32 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RiverOfIce View Post
LTE has horrible interference with anything with power running through it about 3% degradation.
LTE sends the data and forgets it, so instead of making sure your download is 100% perfect, it just assumes it is. If you lose your signal or the data gets corrupted, lte does not even know. That song may have parts corrupted, but since you can not redown load it and you dont have a service that makes sure it was not corrupted, your lost.

The best part about this is, wimax only has about 3% average degradation with buildings, as low as 1% and as high as 18%. Which is the same degradation as lte and power lines or you tv, when it is turned on.

But wimax works at 2.5ghz spectrum which means that the data corruption is very little. For places with poor coverage you can stack as many repeaters as you want in almost any size foot print. LTE works at the 700mhz which means data corruption can get pretty bad. At 700mhz you can not stack any more towers in the same foot print. In fact you have to have about 1 tower per 3 miles. Which means that if you got horrible reception, it is not going to be easily fixable.

But only wimax as a system for making sure the data that is being transmitted is 100% uncorrupted. LTE just can't tell.

I have done this in a lab, if I give wimax a data song, and start to degrade the signal, wimax will stop, back up, find the uncorrupted part, start the down load, byte for byte. Sure it slows it down but will make sure the data is 100% uncorrupted. But lte will just ignore it. It will down load the same corrupted data.

So the same average degradation with one major difference. You can have lte.
If something follows the OSI model, the physical layer should just send the packet on, and not care if it was received.

Reception guarantee happens at the application layer, not the physical layer. It's up to the application layer to ask for a retry, not the layers under it.
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Old March 22nd, 2011, 01:14 PM   #33 (permalink)
 
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Quote:
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If something follows the OSI model, the physical layer should just send the packet on, and not care if it was received.

Reception guarantee happens at the application layer, not the physical layer. It's up to the application layer to ask for a retry, not the layers under it.
But if the application does not know or care if the signal is degraded, for example, hulu, youtube, or netflix, which can't real time data check, your movie/video turns to crap quickly. Since, there is no way to currently make sure, with lte, that quick stream or live stream video is not corrupt. Wimax can and will sense garbage data and for live stream or quick stream, slow down the data until the garabge is removed. Even though common apps like itunes checks for data, the network like lte will not adjust to fix the data corruption.

So if you are in your house and you try to download the movie from Amazon and the network corrupts the data and forces you to start over. Once you start over, the network will just corrupt the data again. And again. And again.

Wimax will not only ask for the garbage packets to be replaced, but it will adjust itself to makes sure that further packets are not corrupted.

Which is why I pointed this out. Even though apps should check if downloads are 100% uncorrupted. If the network just keeps sending corrupted files, it is pointless to have a program tell you that they are corrupted, because that does not fix the problem of HOW they are being corrupted in the first place.
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Old March 22nd, 2011, 03:43 PM   #34 (permalink)
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Fantastic!

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Old March 24th, 2011, 02:51 AM   #35 (permalink)
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I said it's great for AT&T and T-mobile customers. AT&T customers get more coverage, T-mobile customers don't get dumped because T-mobile went out of business. If it isn't approved, T-mobile will most like go out of business soon along with all of their employees being out of work.
The problem with that is, there won't be any T-Mobile customers. AT&T wants T-Mobile for their spectrum and nothing more. I doubt they even care much about the customers, especially since their offerings can't even remotely touch what T-Mobile has.

AT&T is going to force T-Mobile customers into their way of thinking. This is a really bad deal for TMo customers since they tend to be very loyal. We're talking customers that have been with the company for 10-12 years with the SAME plan. With the 1700 MHz band being dismantled for LTE, TMo customers are forced to either sign a new contract (something none of them would want to have anything to do with) or purchase unlocked phones (something that not everyone like me would be willing to do).

This also doesn't say anything on whether AT&T will even allow their new customers (or in this case "refugees") to keep their existing plans. They'd certainly lose money on customers with unlimited data or promo plans like the one that I have. More than likely, AT&T would be willing to take the loss just for the ability to build their LTE network, something that they are already behind on considering Verizon is already beat them to the punch.

What we have here is two ways of thinking, the American way and the European way. T-Mobile was based out of the European way of thinking offering low cost plans that none of the other competitors could touch while AT&T shows just how bad our system is here. T-Mobile could have tweaked their plans a bit, raising the cost just a little and became profitable without growing, but they stuck to their guns to the end. Unfortunately, with complete saturation in the USA, the only real way to gain a large amount of customers is to buy the competition.

If this acquisition does take place (which is still very speculative right now), the FCC and DoJ need to enforce very strict terms on it similar to the NBC/Comcast deal. Offering very good deals on new contract phones, no arbitrary cancelling of grandfathered plans, options to buy phones at full price or unlocked, etc. Otherwise this deal stinks like shit.

Even if it does get those terms, the playing field will never be the same. Chances are, if the big two grow too much, we're going to see a repeat of the break-up of Ma Bell. All this just so Deutsche Telekom could get out of debt (partially).
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Old March 24th, 2011, 08:01 AM   #36 (permalink)
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This deal is very bad for consumers. I hope the feds oppose it.
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Old March 24th, 2011, 09:22 AM   #37 (permalink)
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Nope, don't like shiny new things. New things are not always better. We have a 94 Infiniti that beats the new models in MPG and everything else. Even my Tacoma does better highway and it's a truck! Our daughter's older Tercel passed them. (They are 4 cyl, stick - we don't own automatics)
If I want a shiny new thing, I'll buy an unlocked European phone, and my choice, not the carrier's. I've got one user on my plan who is voice only. He's using an old Nokia 6086. He'll keep using it until it breaks. If voice signal doesn't change, he can have the old BB Pearl Flip. I'm assuming that only data will be going LTE, and they will have to accommodate voice only customers with some kind of plan.
I can turn on my Galaxy 3 in the house and use my own wifi for data with no SIM in it at all. I can make a Skype to Skype call.
Not everyone falls for marketing hype.
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Old March 24th, 2011, 10:22 AM   #38 (permalink)
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This deal is very bad for consumers. I hope the feds oppose it.
I'd like to not see this go through, but I'm betting it will. There will certainly be some restrictions that might help in the short run, but in the long run, this is very bad for the consumer.

It's only a matter of time before Verizon buys Sprint and if this goes through, no way they can block that merger and we'll be left with only 2 choices, and higher prices/fewer services/slower technology adoption.
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Old March 24th, 2011, 04:03 PM   #39 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DKYang View Post
At least for me, I know coverage will be better as long as At&t doesn't screw up the transition. But to me that's not the issue, the issue is pricing, plans, lower data caps, prepaid, and etc. I don't know all the details of the the UK merger, but was there a big difference in pricing and other things between the two? That's the major difference I see with At&t and T-Mobile, which is why I don't want to go to At&t if the merge happens. Yes, my plan can be grandfathered in, but if I get caught tethering, then they will most likely force me to change my plans or something.
The prices were and are broadly similar and nothing much has changed at the moment apart from being able to road to the other network.

Tethering...not a problem. I have it included in my plan on T-Mobile. Orange on the other hand not so but as far as I know they tend to look the other way as long as you are not doing it too much.

Quote:
Business schools teach that the most successful mergers are the ones where the acquired company is preserved as a wholly owned subsidiary with its own management intact. The least successful mergers are the ones where they literally tear up the acquired company, fire thousands of employees, and absorb its assets into the mother company.
This has not happened with Orange and T-Mobile in the UK yet but that's not to say it will not5 happen in the future.
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Old March 24th, 2011, 09:01 PM   #40 (permalink)
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The prices are not similar

Me on Tmo: Unlimited Everything $70

Me on ATT w/ Sort of Unlimited Everything: (2gig data) $122.97 ($53 dollars difference per month or $636 more per year...Why would I want to do that? WWWD??? (What would Warren Buffett Do?)

The above does not include an increased fee if you exceed their monthly limits on your data plan - $10 per gig over 2gigs
Their insurance has up to a $125 deductible before you are reimbursed. I have never paid a deductible on phone insurance before my claim could be serviced, in my life. So you pay $5 per month ad infinitum and then when you finally *need* the insurance, they charge you AN ADDITIONAL $125 dollars??? - Even if that fee goes to a third party, they could have chosen a better partner for the consumer.

Then there are the ever increasing and appearing "fees"...

IMHO, the *only* thing that ATT ever had going for it was a monopolistic hold on the iphone which it has recently lost. That explains their big influx of customers during that time period. It was the only way you could get an iphone. But the complaints were numerous and when Vzw got the iphone, ATT had to scramble because they were no longer the only pebble on Apple's beach. A simple search bears out the fact that their customers by and large were unhappy...but at that time, they had no choice. Things change. ATT methods remain the same.

And CHOICE is still the name of the game. Limited choice is a win for them and a "what else can I do" for the consumer. Not my idea of a fun time.
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Old March 25th, 2011, 06:38 PM   #41 (permalink)
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Default AT&T Annual Meeting April 29 in Little Rock, Arkansas

Ownership of one share of stock is sufficient to get you an admission ticket, provided you held it as of March 1. Proxy statement and annual report can be downloaded here:

Computershare Viewer

I don't know if it will be streamed, but if so it would be cool to see what happens. There is bound to be discussion of the proposed merger.
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Old March 27th, 2011, 12:37 AM   #42 (permalink)
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RiverofIce, I've been informed that LTE uses HARQ for error correction at another MB, Yahoo! Message Boards - Clearwire Corporation (CLWRD) - Verizon's 4G network leaves other carriers in the dust

Warning: Some members of this MB maybe offended by the derogatory language in the cited thread.
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Old March 30th, 2011, 12:04 AM   #43 (permalink)
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Default LTE/WiMax EC difference ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RiverOfIce View Post
LTE has horrible interference with anything with power running through it about 3% degradation.
LTE sends the data and forgets it, so instead of making sure your download is 100% perfect, it just assumes it is. If you lose your signal or the data gets corrupted, lte does not even know. That song may have parts corrupted, but since you can not redown load it and you dont have a service that makes sure it was not corrupted, your lost.

The best part about this is, wimax only has about 3% average degradation with buildings, as low as 1% and as high as 18%. Which is the same degradation as lte and power lines or you tv, when it is turned on.

But wimax works at 2.5ghz spectrum which means that the data corruption is very little. For places with poor coverage you can stack as many repeaters as you want in almost any size foot print. LTE works at the 700mhz which means data corruption can get pretty bad. At 700mhz you can not stack any more towers in the same foot print. In fact you have to have about 1 tower per 3 miles. Which means that if you got horrible reception, it is not going to be easily fixable.

But only wimax as a system for making sure the data that is being transmitted is 100% uncorrupted. LTE just can't tell.

I have done this in a lab, if I give wimax a data song, and start to degrade the signal, wimax will stop, back up, find the uncorrupted part, start the down load, byte for byte. Sure it slows it down but will make sure the data is 100% uncorrupted. But lte will just ignore it. It will down load the same corrupted data.

So the same average degradation with one major difference. You can have lte.
Would this explain the difference you found in your lab ? Note: this an article regarding LTE.
"This is a departure from the existing W-CDMA ARQ process, which does not use re-segmentation. When a block of data is packaged at the Radio Link Control (RLC) layer in W-CDMA, it is never re-segmented."

para 3, ln 1; LTE ARQ and Re-segmentation**|**August 18, 2008**|**Microwave Journal
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Old March 31st, 2011, 08:09 PM   #44 (permalink)
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I am curious if T-Mobile and/or AT&T corporate headquarters has pushed out new contracts since the proposed merger was announced. If so, reading the changes in the language would be interesting. Anyone here work for T-Mobile or AT&T?
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