Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

T-Mobile Talks Up Apple

mkrishnan said:
But, so this business of using a new frequency is interesting. It seems quite a gamble, especially since it's just T-Mobile and apparently even just T-Mo North America. One replier above stated that these new phones will be based on WiMax. This seems suspect, because WiMax, as far as I know, only goes down to 2 GHz, and one of the frequencies T-Mo is spending so much money on is 1.7.... I wonder what the deep meaning of leaving the GSM frequency is going to be.....
Click to expand...


There is no such thing as a "GSM frequency." GSM is a technology, how that technology is implemented is a different story. You can currently find GSm on four bands; 850, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz. Adding it to the a fifth is not hard. The hard part will be finding a coompany to make a chipset and a phone manufacturer to use it. What T-Mo bought was for use for 3G/4G data plans. They still run into the issue of phone manufacturers and implementing a chipset just for them.
 
AvSRoCkCO1067 said:
This is interesting - can anyone confirm that the website didn't do this before?
Click to expand...

You really think that they would use a .org domain for a phone? If Apple follows through with a phone, I would be extremely surprised to see any domains used besides Apple.com or iTunes.com
 
AvSRoCkCO1067 said:
This is interesting - can anyone confirm that the website didn't do this before?
Click to expand...

i can confirm that...i'm 100% positive that iphone.org got re-routed to apple.com before now
 
mkrishnan said:
Similar for me... I spent about four years with Sprint and now about three with T-Mo. I've been happier with the latter, although I was close to switching to Verizon or Cingular. And we've done that thread a thousand times...
Click to expand...

Ditto here. I was a longtime Verizon Wireless customer (3 or 4 years), was with AT&T Wireless briefly, and now I've been going on 5 years with T-Mobile. Of those, I've been most satisfied with T-Mobile. In NYC, Verizon does have better coverage, but their customer service is atrocious, and the phone selection will always be worse since they're CDMA.

...but I would be happy with either T-Mobile or Cingular for the iPhone. I'm happy to stay with T-Mobile, but wouldn't mind switching to Cingular's rollover minutes. Plus it sounds like Cingular is well ahead of T-Mobile in terms of rolling out 3G/4G level broadband.
 
iphone.org may never be used but the word Iphone and apple will be near the top of googles list. just like when apple used mammals.org to launch X/Darwin... they know what they are doing, well for the most part at least.
 
Cooknn said:
I'm a new T-Mobile customer - over from Nextel/Sprint. I find the coverage is very good. I'm not waiting for an iPhone though. Loving my new Blackberry Pearl :p You know how with Apple products you marvel at the thought that went into every little detail? That's how it is with this device.
Click to expand...

That's cause you're coming from nextel, which truly is worse that T-Mobile.
 
That awful N. American phone system

No matter what message board about mobile phones that you might stumble across, it's always the same story: Europe has a better system. I'm *still* waiting for someone to elaborate on what the N. American providers aren't providing.

I have 3G service for my laptop. I'm sorry I signed up even though I'm not the one paying for it. Wi-fi service has become so ubiquitous that 3G is hardly needed if all you're using it for is web browsing and e-mail. Is there anything else it's useful for that people actually want?

By the way, it's Deutche Telekom that's last to the 3G party in N. America.
 
Why European mobile service is better.

Almost everyone gets free incoming minutes.
Almost everywhere you go you get a signal
Usually get latest greatest phones(though not from MOT)
Text messaging is way cheaper
Alrady have HSDPA in many capital cities
Less expensive services and taxes
Pre-paid service is the way to go

I get my cable, DSL, mobile and landline on one bill from T-MOBILE
 
OdduWon said:
zunaphone vs the TelePod soon, oh yes very soon. muhahaha muhahahahaha!
Click to expand...

Oh gawd. Apple: make cool _computer_ stuff.

Integrated Electronic Manufactures: Make cool phones / DVD players / etc.

Can we stop with the cross pollination? Its polluting the pool. :mad:
 
color guy said:
Hi,
Ok, i know this site is by it's nature about gadgets, but for me it's all about the carrier.
I've had 8 different carriers in the last 10 years. Many of them have merged/
changed names/gone out of business.
When i see people complaining about their carrier, it's always about coverage
dropouts. Folks, ALL carriers will have SOME dropouts, especially if you live
in a challenging physical terrain.
What i found more aggravating is how obtuse and unresponsive these companies are. This is an area of modern commerce that is barely regulated.
Politicians have been lobbied to allow a wild west mentality for an industry
that has insinuated itself into most of our lives in just a short time.
I've had carriers routinely sneak in extra charges. Representatives have no
compunction about lying. I don't know about you, but i don't have time to
audit my bill every month with a magnifying glass.
Each carrier was worse than the last. The most annoying thing? Being
put on hold for 40 minutes, than disconnected. This is intentional. They don't want to be accessible.
Finally the last time i switched i did a search to see which companies had the least complaints. Although the billing practices overall in the industry
are atrocious, i've had the best experience overall with my current carrier.
This trumps any pleasure i would get from having a phone that integrates
well with my macs.
Click to expand...

The only thing worse than crappy cell phone companies would be someone that thinks the government could make it better. What motivation does the govt have to make cell phone compainies better? Votes. That's it. Votes. The only motivation that government has. So they'll promise you that they'll make it better. You'll vote for them. They'll spend money regulating whatever you think needs regulating. They'll create a branch that costs some upzillion dollars. Cell phone companies will be forced to comply with some ridiculous something or other. They'll up your bill by placing a charge on it called the "rsoo tax" to pay for it. The cell phone companies will all still treat you badly. Vote with your feet. Keep switching carriers. Don't blow your cash on idiotic features for idiotic prices. The companies will comply and compete for your business.
 
zap2 said:
for me it still loads Apple front web page, but it does stay iphone.org
Click to expand...

Not sure if it did it before, but that is a fairly normal thing. There would be no reason to change it before hand if something was in the near future. These things can be changed on the fly. Probably meaningless.
 
Not surprising...

Macrumors said:


ABC News reportsFor some reason, T-Mobile's Chief Executive Robert Dotson reportedly discussed "at some length about how Apple's and T-Mobile's visions seem to be aligned."
Click to expand...

This is a total no-brainer. T-Mobile doesn't have it's own network, it rents its airtime from Cingular... Apple and Cingular are already in bed. It's a trickle-down effect... T-Mobile wants their own iPhone. Not surprising, really. (and yeah, release the Cracken! (err.. iPhone!)...
 
Xapplimatic said:
This is a total no-brainer. T-Mobile doesn't have it's own network, it rents its airtime from Cingular... Apple and Cingular are already in bed. It's a trickle-down effect... T-Mobile wants their own iPhone. Not surprising, really. (and yeah, release the Cracken! (err.. iPhone!)...
Click to expand...

T-Mobile is an independent network. It and Cingular have rented infrastructure to one another at various times in the past to mutually help with each other's coverage, but T-Mobile is a real mobile phone operator. (It's what used to be Voicestream.)

I'm not entirely sure why people keep propogating this myth. It makes no sense on the face of it.
 
peharri said:
T-Mobile is an independent network. It and Cingular have rented infrastructure to one another at various times in the past to mutually help with each other's coverage, but T-Mobile is a real mobile phone operator. (It's what used to be Voicestream.)

I'm not entirely sure why people keep propogating this myth. It makes no sense on the face of it.
Click to expand...

T-Mobile in my area rents its airtime on Cingular's network. This is coming from 2 friends, one who works for T-Mobile and one works Cingular
 
Wimax

First of All, I really doubt Tmobile is heading with MAC on the Iphone thing with these bands. The frequencies they are buying have to do with WIMAX. Wimax uses the frequencies 1.5/2.3 and 2.5/5ghz. The say it also has speeds up to 75mbps, range of 30 miles one radio. the purpose of these bands isnt for a phone no way in hell, WiMAX allows you to have VOIP and IPTV, Unless you want to watch tv out of your cellphone. Whats the point in that.
 
lmalave said:
Plus it sounds like Cingular is well ahead of T-Mobile in terms of rolling out 3G/4G level broadband.
Click to expand...

But Cingular is in the dark ages when it comes to everything else. Signal is horrible, customer service is horrible, everything about them is horrible. They are the worst company we've ever had to deal with. The "fewest dropped calls" is a crock of sh*t and frankly, I'd rather have 2 tin cans and a string than have the Cingular service (if you can call it that) that I have right now. The call quality with the cans may not be as good as landline, but at least I could make a call.

I sure do hope Apple goes with TMo, because we're going with them once our Suckgular contract is up in December, and I'd love to eventually get an iPhone.



And the TMo and Cingular networks are not one in the same. Cingular attempts to operate on 800MHz (and fails miserably at it) and TMo is 1900MHz (or maybe its the other way around). And again, if they were the same network, then why would my sister's TMo phone get full signal strength in spots where mine and my parents Cingular phones get nothing? The only thing the 2 share in common, is that being the 2 main GSM providers in the US, they have roaming agreements with each other. Now if I could only force my phone to roam onto TMo's network, then it might actually work.
 
I've had T-Mob for three years now, and several benefits are: 1 year contracts, free phone upgrades after a year, GSM technology, unlocked phones on request after a year, overseas roaming, very competitive plans, including family plans, good major market coverage, all-local-all-the-time calls (no roaming, no long distance,) $.05/minute calls to Mexico and Canada - that's cheap, folks! And, voice transmission quality with my Moto V190/V360 series phones has been crystal clear with 1 bar or more signal strength. On the customer service side... other than the stupid initial computer generated person you have to get past, once you're dealing with a real person I find the service to be 1st class, and I've had a few discussions at length with extremely knowledgeable and informally pleasant cust. serv. agents.

Of course, in rural areas, the service is definately more spotty, and at times non-available... but I just wait a few minutes and I'm usually back in range. Somebody said the voice mail at T-Mob wasn't customizable, whatever that means..?? but certainly you can change and record your own message just like with any other service, and I see no difference there.

On the towers, well, T-Mob builds their own towers, and has some kind of mutual agreement with Cingular (formerly AT&T GSM) to use their towers for roaming, and vice versa. Fairly invisible to end users. In fact, I submitted our property on the Oregon coast to t-mobilelandlords.com for consideration as a new tower location. Bottom line: other than the lesser coverage areas compared to Verizon, there's not a thing wrong with my servicel, or the phones they provide. And with my two older phones, when I'm going out to do something physically risky, I just slip my SIM card out of my new phone, and put it in my older Nokia in case it falls in the river. All my phone numbers are duplicated on my new phone's internal memory as well as the SIM, so it's nice having a spare/backup couple of phones in the drawer. Try that with CDMA.

By the way, if you see more 11 yr olds w/ T-Mob phones, it's probably because their parents saw it as a cheaper family plan alternative to the competition. I doubt the kids made the decisions. Can you hear me now?

Now, come on Apple. I'm waiting!
 
Every iPhone thread leaves me amazed at how complacent Americans are in accepting terrible mobile telephony. When's the last time (in Europe) that you had a "dropped call"? I had to look up the term because it meant nothing to me. If the iPhone is going to work properly, then someone needs to give assurances that your calls will actually go through. Forget about downloading songs on the go for a moment, and consider the intended purpose of a phone. If I want to make a call, it means that I need to get through and actually end up talking to someone; not that I want to try to call someone. Don't get me wrong, I'd love an iPhone. I'm just glad I live in a country where your calls go through, and stay going until you terminate it. And what's with this paying for incoming minutes thing? The payment should be the responsibility of the person doing the calling. At least, that's how it seems to work over here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back