Yeah, I don’t buy that for a second. No telecom offers that.
You said every iPhone user would switch to Apple if they were a carrier. I have an iPhone and wouldn't switch unless they offered something better than I have.
The only term you could argue about in that line you quoted in the part about competitive pricing. Sprint offers unlimited, unthrottled, and no cap data which you can see for yourself. What do you consider to be a competitive price for unlimited data? $80? $50? $30 Free? What is competitive to me might seem expensive to you so that is very subjective but you cannot dispute the unlimited data terms since these are verifiable.
I also asked what carrier you use and how much you pay. Perhaps you overlooked that in your reply. Are you using an iPhone 5s, 5c, 5? Just curious to know if you have an LTE iPhone model and use LTE.
I'd hope that we'd get back to having four sustainable national companies. Industrialized economies with just three mobile operators almost invariably have huge rates and horrible service. You need the competition.
T-Mobile/Sprint is slightly less offensive than T-Mobile/AT&T, which, combined with the market and regulatory situation at the time would have likely left us with just TWO national networks. Still, it locks us into three if we're lucky, and what's more involves the worse run company taking over the better run one, an unfortunate outcome indeed when T-Mobile really seems to be turning itself around and even Sprint has the licenses and the capital to turn out a good network, if only it had the competence.
T-Mobile acquired MetroPCS, a CDMA carrier, for its subscribers and spectrum. Unlike Sprint with Nextel, it has been doing an incredible job at refarming spectrum and offering competitive GSM plans while supporting existing CDMA customers and encouraging them to move to GSM. So, a CDMA and a GSM carrier can merge, but if Sprint is involved I expect a disaster. They just can't execute anything correctly.
So let's see if I understand this... T-Mumble TURNED DOWN 39 BILLION and now Sprint wants to bid $20 billion..? I think not.... Unless MASS INSANITY has struck at Sprint....
T-Mobile didn't turn down AT&T, the deal fell apart due to regulatory hurdles. T-Mo is in an arguably better position than it was then so I can't see why 20 billion would be enough when there was a 40 billion offer not too long ago.
I'm a current Sprint customer and have begun watching the calendar for when my contract is up.
I can't speak to how well Sprint itself is run or the quality of it's network, but I can tell you that it should kick the local franchisee Swiftel to the curb ASAP. For whatever reason, Sprint never officially built a single company store in NW Iowa or the eastern part of South Dakota. Instead, it franchised it's name and business to a municipal utility owned by the city of Brookings, SD.
I wish I'd known all this before I committed to signing up with Sprint. At the time, I had terrible monthly bills with AT&T and before that with Verizon. Sprint offered an attractive deal with unlimited everything for a pittance compared to what I'd been paying the other two before (I'm a shameless data hog and the options for doing much of my surfing via WiFi are very limited here).
Verizon was always damn near perfect for service. AT&T, not so much. Swiftel/Sprint: UGH!
I have been with Swiftel/Sprint for over a year and right at the start of my contract I was being promised that while the service was a bit slow, it would improve dramatically with the impending rollout of LTE by last spring. Then it was pushed back to last summer.
When I spoke to Sprint on the customer service number, I was assured that by the end of this year LTE would finally be up and running. I then spoke with a Swiftel rep and his response was that there were no such plans at any point in the future. I asked how Swiftel could renege on a promise made by Sprint, a company that Swiftel had signed a contract with? After a forced and labored lengthy explanation, it boiled down to cash. Sprint had not offered to pay for the upgrades necessary for LTE and Swiftel wasn't the least bit interested in offering it. When I pressed the point, the rep added a snide swipe to Sprint by postulating that while Sprint was pissing away money, Swiftel was in business to make money and if that meant denying some parts of the Sprint promise to the customers, Swiftel lost no sleep over it. I commented that it was awfully brazen and felt it was time to file a complaint with the FCC and the State Utility Commission as well. He sneered (yes, he really did) that I could waste all the time I wanted complaining. As far as Swiftel was concerned, because it was a "municipal utility" instead of a full-fledged telecom, the laws that governed Sprint, AT&T or Verizon didn't apply in any way to it. The last thing he said before hanging up was if I was so unhappy with the (pitiful) levels of service, I could just pay the ETF, surrender my iPhone and be on my way back to paying higher monthly fees.
Of course, you realize, those were fighting words.
Shame on me for not researching everything before I signed the contract. If Aio had been around at that time, I would have happily went with them as I'd be paying exactly the same amount as I do now and my friends that have it can't quit raving about how great the service is -- with LTE to boot!
They wouldn’t NEED anyone else’s network if they had their own. Everyone with an iPhone would jump ship to Apple’s network.
My company provides iPhones to sales and IT personnel, but they wouldn't switch from Verizon to TMobile if Apple bought them. We would probably switch to Android phones or Nokia Windows phones. Plus what about the rest of the world. Carriers would want to dump iPhone just because they would see Apple as a potential competitor.
Because Apple wouldn't cap, throttle, overcharge, or otherwise treat their users like Schmidt.
One of the great things about the iPhone is how one model can handle Verizon, ATT, and Tmobile networks. This is the first step to providing a virtual SIM that would allow users to switch carriers whenever they want. I't might also allow them to tailor plans for different regions of the country, to automatically switch carriers if service is unavailable or poor.
One of the great things about the iPhone is how one model can handle Verizon, ATT, and Tmobile networks.
Problem is, one model can’t handle all the LTE. When that changes, I figure we’ll see Apple take a step away from the telecoms before they take a step away from Apple (their current war on subsidies comes to mind).
If you say so. I still find iCloud to be frustratingly slow. And Apple's not-long-past history hasn't exactly been littered with successful service offerings.
And even if my experience of iCloud is isolated, you didn't address the questioning of your cost and tiering claims. What makes you so sure that Apple would offer cost comparative services, or unlimited everything?
And what "better category" data and voice connection do you think Apple would be willing/able to offer, outside of their known competencies?
Nothing wrong with a bit of wishful thinking, but this is sounding excessively blue sky "Apple can do anything because they're Apple" to me.
Well that's not true. Other carriers do offer unlimited everything, and Apple have never reinvented an industry just by being price competitive.
That's not to say they couldn't, but it's definitely not their thing, and I can't see any particular value add they can offer, apart from a bit of simplicity in only dealing with one vendor.
Comments
When did I say anything about you?
Yeah, I don’t buy that for a second. No telecom offers that.
You said every iPhone user would switch to Apple if they were a carrier. I have an iPhone and wouldn't switch unless they offered something better than I have.
The only term you could argue about in that line you quoted in the part about competitive pricing. Sprint offers unlimited, unthrottled, and no cap data which you can see for yourself. What do you consider to be a competitive price for unlimited data? $80? $50? $30 Free? What is competitive to me might seem expensive to you so that is very subjective but you cannot dispute the unlimited data terms since these are verifiable.
I also asked what carrier you use and how much you pay. Perhaps you overlooked that in your reply. Are you using an iPhone 5s, 5c, 5? Just curious to know if you have an LTE iPhone model and use LTE.
T-Mobile/Sprint is slightly less offensive than T-Mobile/AT&T, which, combined with the market and regulatory situation at the time would have likely left us with just TWO national networks. Still, it locks us into three if we're lucky, and what's more involves the worse run company taking over the better run one, an unfortunate outcome indeed when T-Mobile really seems to be turning itself around and even Sprint has the licenses and the capital to turn out a good network, if only it had the competence.
T-Mobile didn't turn down AT&T, the deal fell apart due to regulatory hurdles. T-Mo is in an arguably better position than it was then so I can't see why 20 billion would be enough when there was a 40 billion offer not too long ago.
Do you buy a cow when all you want is milk?
You win the Non Sequitur of the Year Award.
I'm a current Sprint customer and have begun watching the calendar for when my contract is up.
I can't speak to how well Sprint itself is run or the quality of it's network, but I can tell you that it should kick the local franchisee Swiftel to the curb ASAP. For whatever reason, Sprint never officially built a single company store in NW Iowa or the eastern part of South Dakota. Instead, it franchised it's name and business to a municipal utility owned by the city of Brookings, SD.
I wish I'd known all this before I committed to signing up with Sprint. At the time, I had terrible monthly bills with AT&T and before that with Verizon. Sprint offered an attractive deal with unlimited everything for a pittance compared to what I'd been paying the other two before (I'm a shameless data hog and the options for doing much of my surfing via WiFi are very limited here).
Verizon was always damn near perfect for service. AT&T, not so much. Swiftel/Sprint: UGH!
I have been with Swiftel/Sprint for over a year and right at the start of my contract I was being promised that while the service was a bit slow, it would improve dramatically with the impending rollout of LTE by last spring. Then it was pushed back to last summer.
When I spoke to Sprint on the customer service number, I was assured that by the end of this year LTE would finally be up and running. I then spoke with a Swiftel rep and his response was that there were no such plans at any point in the future. I asked how Swiftel could renege on a promise made by Sprint, a company that Swiftel had signed a contract with? After a forced and labored lengthy explanation, it boiled down to cash. Sprint had not offered to pay for the upgrades necessary for LTE and Swiftel wasn't the least bit interested in offering it. When I pressed the point, the rep added a snide swipe to Sprint by postulating that while Sprint was pissing away money, Swiftel was in business to make money and if that meant denying some parts of the Sprint promise to the customers, Swiftel lost no sleep over it. I commented that it was awfully brazen and felt it was time to file a complaint with the FCC and the State Utility Commission as well. He sneered (yes, he really did) that I could waste all the time I wanted complaining. As far as Swiftel was concerned, because it was a "municipal utility" instead of a full-fledged telecom, the laws that governed Sprint, AT&T or Verizon didn't apply in any way to it. The last thing he said before hanging up was if I was so unhappy with the (pitiful) levels of service, I could just pay the ETF, surrender my iPhone and be on my way back to paying higher monthly fees.
Of course, you realize, those were fighting words.
Shame on me for not researching everything before I signed the contract. If Aio had been around at that time, I would have happily went with them as I'd be paying exactly the same amount as I do now and my friends that have it can't quit raving about how great the service is -- with LTE to boot!
They wouldn’t NEED anyone else’s network if they had their own. Everyone with an iPhone would jump ship to Apple’s network.
Because Apple wouldn't cap, throttle, overcharge, or otherwise treat their users like Schmidt.
Apple is never cheap. They would probably charge more than Verizon. But ultimately I doubt that they would get into the lower margin business of being a telco. Any way buying a telco isn't innovative. Something like deploying the Open Sim (software SIM) for their phones would be transforming. http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/11/21/carriers_threats_force_apple_to_abandon_embedded_iphone_sim_plans
One of the great things about the iPhone is how one model can handle Verizon, ATT, and Tmobile networks. This is the first step to providing a virtual SIM that would allow users to switch carriers whenever they want. I't might also allow them to tailor plans for different regions of the country, to automatically switch carriers if service is unavailable or poor.
Problem is, one model can’t handle all the LTE. When that changes, I figure we’ll see Apple take a step away from the telecoms before they take a step away from Apple (their current war on subsidies comes to mind).
Moreover, I'm sure they'd want to hold a bargain basement giveaway on an investment that would cost them tens of billions of dollars.
And then I woke up.
Fixed. Try again. You’ll get it eventually.
And even if my experience of iCloud is isolated, you didn't address the questioning of your cost and tiering claims. What makes you so sure that Apple would offer cost comparative services, or unlimited everything?
And what "better category" data and voice connection do you think Apple would be willing/able to offer, outside of their known competencies?
Nothing wrong with a bit of wishful thinking, but this is sounding excessively blue sky "Apple can do anything because they're Apple" to me.
Because absolutely no one else does. That’s sort of their thing: where they can’t create an industry, they reinvent one.
That's not to say they couldn't, but it's definitely not their thing, and I can't see any particular value add they can offer, apart from a bit of simplicity in only dealing with one vendor.
Sure thing¡
That’s right. It itself not being what you claim it is makes it less true.
[URL]http://www.sprint.com/landings/compare/index.html[/URL]
T-mobile unlimited, $70/month
[URL]http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/individual.html[/URL]
I don't for a second believe that you were unaware of these, so let's hear your excuse for why these don't count.