I love this guy! Pretty well singlehandedly shaking up the carrier industry. Take note AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.
You gotta wonder, if and when the love-fest will end?
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T-Mobile Ending All Overage Charges, Challenging Rivals to Follow
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I love this guy! Pretty well singlehandedly shaking up the carrier industry. Take note AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.
You gotta wonder, if and when the love-fest will end?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Hopefully it's called Apple
Not while the broadband pipe is also owned by the cable industry.
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When one of the big boys decides to try (again) to buy out T-mobile. The sale already tried to go and somehow AT&T had to pay something like $4B for not being able to complete it. So now T-mobile appears to be rattling cages to see if either Verizon or Sprint might give it a go or maybe some kind of 2 or 3-way deal to get through regulation. Once acquired, all this gets killed and back to business as usual.
Remember when Alltel had an earlier version of this same kind of campaign in which they pitted themselves against the big 3 or 4 with the key punch being better pricing? Here's one of those commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlBxHG4vfKw Whatever happened to Alltel? Same fate ahead for T-mobile unless they are too big for the regulators to allow the buy.
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They throttle you down to edge speeds. If you look at their current plans, the amount of data you pay for is what you'll get at full speed. The reason it is still appealing is that you have a predictable bill. If you go over, service may suck. It just won't end with sticker shock. I don't think that's a bad system.
It was a rhetorical question, but hey, don't spoil the fun now!
In all seriousness, Deutsche Telekom has not given up trying to unload it's T-Mob US arm, and it would indeed be bad for consumers if AT&T or Verizon would be able to convince the FCC and DoJ to allow such a take-over after all.
A deal with Sprint would be the least odious from a consumer standpoint, but I'm not sure if Sprint has the means to at the very least purchase a controlling interest in T-Mob USA. And then there is the costly matter of network incompatibility with Sprint's CDMA and T-Mob's GSM.
A three-way deal with either one of the big guys, and your last point may sadly come true.
Not according to their own website they don't. They throttle to a max of 2G (EDGE).
Emphasis Added
Source:T-Mobile - Question on Plans?
If they throttled to the next lowest tier it would be fantastic as 3G is still fast enough to use the web and stream music while EDGE is pretty much only good for Mail and Messages.
I would much rather have it stop until I buy some more data rather than being throttled.
To be a little more fair, the deals are there to prevent cities from looking like this:
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I don't know about dish, but I had DirecTV for ten years, and I am way, way happier with Comcast since giving DirecTV the boot after being angered once too often by them.
That they were, but now they have seen the light. Can I get a hallelujah?
Cable companies need to come up with a better excuse than that. We have the technology to run underground cables. Or are we still stuck with 19th century technology?
Much of what you wrote here is nonsense. You are welcome to jump on the defeatism train. But you are the source of your own woes.
I had the opposite experience. I had comcast and always had issues. The cable would cut out constantly, at least twice a month. The tech would come and troubleshoot it but nothing ever changed. We switched to DirecTV, and had them for 6 years, and never had an issue with them (and the HD was a lot cleaner). I only dropped them because me and my family decided we weren't getting our monies worth. Man it feels great to save $90/month.
Don't be so naive. He's absolutely correct in that this is how public companies work (I realize he never stated "public companies" but that's basically what he's talking about). They're driven to make greater and greater profits by their shareholders. However, if anyone is to blame it isn't "capitalism" its the stock system.
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You could buy a higher plan. Look at the rates offered by AT&T on overage. If you're a heavy data user it adds up quite fast. In that case it would be cheaper just to opt for a plan with a higher soft cap if you intend to use T-Mobile.
It's worth remembering that this wouldn't have happened if T-Mobile and AT&T were allowed to merge. You might want to contract your federal government officials with this insight as they discuss whether Comcast and Time Warner should be allowed to merge...
Yes. And if a company is pilloried for the behavior they're discontinuing when they try to improve their customer relationships then they're being incentivized to not change. This isn't hypocrisy, it's self improvement.
No, they're pretty much to prevent competition.
There are no such deals for phone and cities don't look like that. Cities are welcome to ban above-ground wiring which would prevent cities from looking like that. Cities could establish a single infrastructure provider, perhaps the city itself, and lease that infrastructure to multiple content providers, which would prevent a city from looking like that.
The deals have nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with monopoly.
That they were, but now they have seen the light. Can I get a hallelujah?
YouTube: video
Cable companies need to come up with a better excuse than that. We have the technology to run underground cables. Or are we still stuck with 19th century technology?
I can't imagine moving into a new house that had one provider and I decide to switch to a different one. What a nightmare! It was bad enough when I moved into an apartment set up for the local cable provider and decided I wanted U-Verse instead. We have WOW here. They're irritating but not evil like Comcast.
I'd be curious in a more detailed response, @chinesedemo. Aside from wanting to add "unregulated" ahead of most of the posters use of "capitalism", or more likely to just replace "capitalism" with "oligopoly" (which I think is a result of under regulated capitalism), I agree with @dysamoria.
If people thought these were valuable services (overdraft protection, overage fees) then they'd be opt-in. Or more likely, companies would charge you a fee for the desired protection. Instead they're just hidden trip-wires.
Somehow I expect Comcast flacks to hold this up as proof that there is good choice and strong competition among the cable companies.
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Maybe John is trying to use the spectre of margin erosion at his competitors to goad one of them into buying T-Mobile. (Or joining in a consortium to tear it apart.)
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Maybe John is trying to use the spectre of margin erosion at his competitors to goad one of them into buying T-Mobile. (Or joining in a consortium to tear it apart.)
This makes no sense at all to me.
So you'd prefer when you hit your cap while out and about you can't do anything until you take the time to pay for an extra GB of data, instead of hitting the cap and having it get very slow so you can finish checking your email until you have a minute to sit down and decide if you want to add an extra GB of data?
What on earth is the advantage of having no service over slow service? You can buy another GB of fast data either way (at a relatively reasonable price by cell standards), it's just a question of what happens between when you hit the cap and when you take the time to do something about it.
And then there's those cheapskates among us who aren't going to pay for more data. In which case we get the choice between nothing at all if we hit the cap, or something slow.
Hmm... something or nothing for the same price.
What is the possible advantage of nothing, unless you're addicted to your phone and need it to force you to stop using it?
...or, you know because your connection gets really slow. And you can check the usage easily enough if you're not sure.
If I pay for 2 GB a month and go over my 2 GB limit, I should be notified and be able to stay at the full speed. F this throttling deal, hell AT&T and Verizon's networks are getting a beating. T-Mobile is in a bind because of the limitations of tower's in rural america , goto the city and there's no problem at all.
What ever happened to the down vote button for posts
What ever happened to the down vote button for posts
Do you think they'd really compete if Comcast weren't allowed to purchase them? I guess I could see that happening... if the market is saturated, then they don't have any other option but to vie for each other's customers. Or make illegal agreements that they'll each screw their customers in equal ways.
In fact, T-Mobile automatically notifies you when you exceed 80% of your high-speed monthly allocation. If you want, you can move up to the next high-speed tier for $10 or just wait until your monthly cycle resets. Further you can check it anytime via their app or by dialing #WEB#.
Why is all this so hard to understand for people on this thread? Basically voice and text are going unlimited for all plans. High-speed data is limited by the plan you choose but you will not have overages because you are throttled back to a lower speed once you exceed your high-speed allocation which is unlimited. It's pretty simple and if you want unlimited high-speed LTE data, they have a plan for that too. Plus there's no charge for international texting from the USA and text/data is included when you travel to most countries.
It works great for me. I have also blocked international calling so I don't get stuck with some crazy bill - although their int'l calling rates are not bad at all on the int'l calling plan for $10-$15 that includes unlimited calls to a lot of countries. I'm actually thinking of dropping my Vonage line that gives me unlimited int'l calling but costs me about $36 pm all told.
T-Mobile is awesome provided you are in an area that has good service. Their data service when you are on the road, in between major metros, can suck. So if you need it there, it is not for you.
How can T-Mobile do this? The bottom line is a very small part of their revenue comes from these overages so it's a minimal cost to them but puts pressure on the other carriers.
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