AT&T: Meet the New US GSM Monopoly 189
itwbennett writes "Why should consumers care about the AT&T/T-mobile merger? Already, Verizon has dropped unlimited data plans and the US trails Japan, South Korea, and others in variety and performance of mobiles. Don't think for a second that those aren't the direct result this new monopoly, says blogger Tom Henderson. '...Those pesky State agencies that used to have regulatory authority has been usurped by the US Federal Government,' writes Henderson. 'This wasn't an accident. Who would you rather deal with, 43 different state regulatory authorities, or those convenient people on Capitol Hill?'"
Where's the "corruption" tag? (Score:5, Insightful)
It certainly seems appropriate for this article.
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I haven't seen a nickname tossed around for this practice, where someone is paying off their congresscritters to pass laws. Isn't there a nice short little name for this practice, beyond the obvious ones like "bribery" or "purchased legislation" etc?
Re:Where's the "corruption" tag? (Score:4, Insightful)
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lobbying?
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762de5375ca1550f2c0cd61ee898260c81a342dd62071023af0a53c076f6e76d
free market (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure the free market will take care of this issue.
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Competition is the reason that other companies have better mobile infrastructure, not regulation.
Re:free market (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, no, it is the regulation of the single tech spectrum that is exactly why other countries have better mobile infrastructure, not stupidly creating more islands of spectrum.
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With the M&A activity in the wireless sector it increasingly like the wireline sector did decades ago.
When that monopoly was broken up and more carriers were allowed to set up shop long distance prices dropped from around
Wireless would be even easier
Re:free market (Score:5, Insightful)
AT&T is a bit like the liquid metal terminator from Terminator 2. You can break it into little pieces, but somehow, eventually, it'll find a way to reassemble itself and become a monopoly again.
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So AT&T needs to be thrown into hot lava to terminate like in the movie? ;)
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Hm, is there any country where public companies have a monopoly on cellphone networks? There are enough networks and they appeared late enough into the whole privatization craze that I doubt any country has a govt monopoly there outside of maybe a few fringe countries that are generally terrible compared to the western world.
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Wait. You're actually presuming that conservatives and libertarians actually read Adam Smith? From what I can tell most of them just read selected quotes of the parts they agree with and skipped the rest of the text which contained inconvenient parts.
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Contrary to what the GP implied, that quote is not from Adam Smith, it is one interpretation of his work. (I happen to think it's a good interpretation, but that's besides the point.)
incoming calls (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you, Americans are still paying for incoming calls and SMSes?
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Well, that's pre-paid and 20c/min is pretty bad as far as pricing goes (not for pre-paid but compared to contracts).
First company I could think of for a European example is Base [www.base.de], the options there are the various flatrate plans you can stick on your contract. The unlimited ones are:
- Calls and SMS to the E-net 10â
- Calls to the fixed line net 10â
- SMS to all networks 10â
- Calls to all networks 50â (several smaller plans with limited minutes are listed as well)
- Data, throttled after 5GB
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There are any number of discount carriers in the US. AT&T is not one of them. Generally the discount carriers will have restrictions you wouldn't see otherwise. For instance, Boost Mobile primarily uses Sprint's iDEN network (there goes your roaming ability). Virgin US uses Sprint's CDMA network with no roaming agreements in place. But $25 for a few minutes, unlimited EVDO Rev A, and unlimited SMS/MMS... who's complaining? MetroPCS has nationwide coverage... if you stick to the fifteen metropolita
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This is incorrect. I'm a T-Mobile customer. I have unlimited talk/text and supposedly unlimited data (which I believe becomes "slow" at around 5GB). My monthly bill is officially $79.99 (no contract). Additionally, I can use my Nexus S phone as a mobile wi-fi hotspot so I can connect to the interwebz using my netbook wherever I have phone signal. Granted, there are some taxes on top but it still comes in well under $100. For equivalent service on AT&T, I would in fact pay $150 a month -- roughly d
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Read the T-Mobile small print. The "unlimited" data is "unlimited" until 200MB (69.99 contract), 2GB (79.99 contract), 5GB (89.99 contract) or 10GB (119.99 contract) after which you'll be throttled to 50kbps speeds but they reserve the right to throttle or even block your data transfer whenever they feel necessary or use any data that is duplicated by their plans (such as VoIP, online messages etc.) or whenever you use a 'disproportionate' amount of data.
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If you don't actually roam off of Sprint, take a look at Boost or Virgin. Both use the Sprint CDMA network, but offer lower rates than Sprint. Virgin is $40/mo for 1200 anytime minutes, unlimited SMS/MMS, and unlimited data. Boost's unlimited plan is $50/mo, but the selection of phones isn't so hot. Will Sprint collapse? Maybe. I sure hope not. But, at least in metro areas, there are other options like Cricket, MetroPCS, and US Cellular.
Yes, thanks to the Magic of the Free Market! (Score:5, Insightful)
Having a market dominated by a smaller number of larger companies is the ideal capitalist system according to rightist ideology. This is why they like mergers and hate it when antitrust laws are enforced. In this way, the few remaining companies don't have to deal with as much of that pesky "competition" thing, and through economies of scale they can deliver better goods for less money. At least, that's the excuses libertarians and conservatives usually give me.
This is also part of the reason why I argue that they are not in fact capitalists, but rather neo-feudalists.
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Yes.
Are you still paying different rates, depending on which network you're calling to?
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If the situation was so dire why is it that the telecoms in most of the rest of the world seem perfectly able to survive such a burden and have cheaper prices to boot?
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If the situation was so dire why is it that the telecoms in most of the rest of the world seem perfectly able to survive such a burden and have cheaper prices to boot?
The US prices are artificially high because of the lack of competition. It is too difficult to switch provider in the US -- often you have to buy a new phone and locking customers with long contracts is allowed. There is no regulation forcing the large providers to offer access to their network to smaller providers, so there are no small providers in the US.
It is funny that everyone bashes the US cell phone market for the one thing they have done right when there are so many things they have done wrong.
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Great, so would you mind answering the question now? If it was such a burden on the telecoms, why do the ones outside of the US do just fine without being able to charge for incoming calls and charge less to boot?
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why do the ones outside of the US do just fine without being able to charge for incoming calls and charge less to boot?
They are able to charge less because they get a significant part of their income from incoming calls (i.e. fixed line users pay for cell phone users) and roaming charges.
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Or you can do what plenty of other countries do and charge separate rates for calls to landlines and wireless lines if there's such a disparity.
keep voting for them! (Score:2)
Re:keep voting for them! (Score:5, Insightful)
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But which is which? As far as I can tell they are both sold, just to different interests.
Capitol Hill (Score:5, Interesting)
For all your one-stop shopping needs.
Ever notice how few people are really paying attention? How along the campaign trail nobody ever asks an important question like, "Would you oppose an AT&T / T-Mobile merger which really harms competition in the US?"
They had an Ohio farmer on the news, back when W was running for re-election, when asked which was more important, Social Issues or Economic Issues, the farmer said, "As long has be works to block abortion, he doesn't mind if a few eggs get broken." Really. Wonder how he's doing on that farm after the Bank Collapse. When are people going to wake up and realize they have put far too much focus on a social agenda and too little on Business and Economic issues which affect them to more devastating effect?
I suppose someone, somewhere is fine with the merger, as long as their important Social Agenda gets lip service.
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Really. Wonder how he's doing on that farm after the Bank Collapse
Probably quite well, since food prices and futures have risen solidly (since he's in Ohio if he's farming wheat, corn, orsoy -- ZW, ZC, ZS -- he's probably pretty happy).
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Really. Wonder how he's doing on that farm after the Bank Collapse
Probably quite well, since food prices and futures have risen solidly (since he's in Ohio if he's farming wheat, corn, orsoy -- ZW, ZC, ZS -- he's probably pretty happy).
As long as he didn't have a mortgage on his property and his customers paid him for his harvest, that is entirely possible.
During the late 1970's a lot of farmers lost everything, thanks to economic issues in banking (skyrocketing interest rates, double digit inflation, revenues not keeping up with costs)
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As long as he didn't have a mortgage on his property and his customers paid him for his harvest, that is entirely possible.
How is he hurt if he has a mortgage? Banks having problems don't just automatically make people lose their properties. Now if people were foolish and had huge payments they couldn't afford (and never could have afforded) or no downpayment loans AND an ARM, yeah, they might be in trouble.
But no, if he -- like the majority of people -- had a standard fixed rate loan, he probably is just fine. Don't forget that inflation helps fixed debts (like a 30-year mortgage) become less important. I'm paying (eg) $1000/m
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Not really... Farmers have to compete with large agribusinesses that have access to patented crops that grow with fewer resources spent. Larger businesses have economies of scale on their side.
Trying the "organic" route might work, but there are only so many farmer's markets, so trying to compete against large businesses who can flood the market with dirt cheap crops is becoming more and more difficult.
Farmers are becoming an endangered species. Especially due to the fact that land is becoming more and mo
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Aww! Poor things! While we're bitching about shit the rest of us got over a long time ago, I think it's un*fair* how my one-man operation can't compete with the big, well-capitalized players in the field of semiconductor manufacture!
Businesses invest. In better tech. That makes it harder for you to compete using the tech of decades (or millenia) ago. Normal people adapt. Farmer bitch and moan, and then manage to get subsidies, even for not growing crops.
Fuck 'em.
Income versus inflation. (Score:2)
Don't forget that inflation helps fixed debts (like a 30-year mortgage) become less important.
Only if your income growth outpaces inflation. If inflation is 3% per year, your income has to grow by at least 3% per year or your buying power has actually declined. If your income remains constant for 30 years, it doesn't matter what inflation is with respect to your mortgage.
My parent's actually experienced what you are talking about. Their mortgage when they first took it out really stretched them. $350/month was a lot of money in those days. Fast forward 25 years and it wasn't much of a problem
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Both are the party of business. Democrats love the media industry (among others) Republicans love oil and other businesses. As long as we vote for one or the other, they have us by the balls.
Verizon's unlimted... (Score:3)
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Verizon is the top US provider, complete with the pay our prices or leave, and at one time the most stringent criteria for allow
US telecom trailing others isn't a fair assessment (Score:2)
I am not saying the US telecom industry has done a great job nor isn't greedy assholes. It is unfair to compare US telecom to any other region when almost all the countries are the size of a single state in the USA.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe European telecom plans are per country with significant roaming costs from country to country (or buy a SIM for each country). Whereas in the US all the wireless carriers allow at no "extra cost" use across the entire country -- and the US is approximately
Re:US telecom trailing others isn't a fair assessm (Score:4, Interesting)
Bullshit. I work for a telco in Finland, and covering a piece of land is as easy/hard in both as the average population density is in the same ballpark. I would even accept that covering rural America is harder, but by that logic most Americans in the cities should have the best broadband in the world. The real difference is that we have four national networks for a population of 5M and the competition is fierce. The regulator is here FOR the people.
Every nation gets the government it deserves.
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You missed the point of my write-up. When you go to Spain, how does your telecom provider work for you? Cost a lot extra to use in spain right? Or just buy a pay as you go sim, but your number is now different so not that useful while there...
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I'm not sure how much water you argument holds when the worst European country in terms of telecom price/quality is still better than the best states in the US. Finland has a lower population density than the United States, and simultaneously better telcom.
So while true that Europe is a patchwork of carriers across its different states, every state there is better than any state in the US.
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So while true that Europe is a patchwork of carriers across its different states, every state there is better than any state in the US.
But if you travel you get raped on roaming charges. Especially data roaming which is completely unaffordable.
Europe has somewhat-decent per-minute charges due to fixed line users paying way too much to call cell phones and because of roaming charges/charges for international calls. The US doesn't have that kind of make-money-fast schemes for cell phone providers but unfortunately the lack of regulation means that it is difficult to start another provider and for the users to change providers.
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Actually, you don't. Rates are high-ish, but capped by a EU directive...
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How often does your average American leave the state? I don't personally consider that to be a major concern when I leave the state so infrequently. The bigger issue is the shit service around town.
The fact that I can't get decent coverage in a major city is an absolute embarrassment. And As for ISPs, Qwest apparently has written off much of Seattle in terms of upgrades deeming 1.5mbps to be fast enough. Same basic problem, shit regulation and a company that's figured out that it's cheaper to not bother to
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I have several coworkers who live in other states and drive to work in my state every day. How would you work it if you lived in France and worked in Spain?
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Well for one thing, most people aren't required to have cell phones in order to have a job. And for another, cell coverage is hardly the only issue at play when living in France and working in SPain.
Re:US telecom trailing others isn't a fair assessm (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the biggest problems in the US is simply finding a spot to put a tower.
Can't put it anywhere within a city limits without permission from the city. Can't put it on any land the city owns, period. Can't put it on any private land without a permit from the city. Can't put it anywhere near people that complain about the radiation hazards, how the sight of the tower offends them or any other complaint unless you like spending millions in court.
This means in non-rural areas finding a spot for a tower is a huge challenge whereas I suspect most other countries the siting for a tower is easy - you get the government permission at a high level and nobody is allowed to argue with you. This is especially true when the telephone provider also happens to be state-owned.
Sure there are "regulators" involved but they aren't listening to the lunatic fringe. Here in the US between the environmentalists, the radical environmentalists (you know, all progress since 800 AD is cruel, inhumane and against nature) and the basic nutjobs (cell tower radiation hazards, power transmission line hazards, magnetic cure-all bracelets that are negatively affected by any other EMF fields in the area, etc.) have the ear of the government and the courts.
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Honestly the EU isn't perfect but at least competition is healthy. The US has become so bad, the only solution I see at this
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Compare US telecom to Indian telecom..
Indian telecom is WAY behind on Data, but calls and SMS are one of the lowest in the world.
( incoming SMS are actually free nationwide, and incoming calls statewide)
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You tell me how you think the roaming charges stack up.
T-Mobile UK roaming in Germany or Spain
Outgoing calls $0.62/min (38.8p)
Incoming calls $0.30/min (14.3p)
Outgoing SMS $0.16 (10.2p)
Outgoing MMS $0.33 (20.4p)
Incoming SMS free
Incoming MMS free
GPRS/3G $2.46/Mb (£1.532)
AT&T roaming in Germany or Spain
Incoming calls $1.39/min (86.5p)
Outgoing calls $1.39/min (86.5p)
Outgoing SMS $0.50 (31.1p)
Incoming SMS
Outgoing MMS $1.30 (80.9p)
Incoming MMS
GPRS (no mention of 3G roaming at all) $19.97/Mb (£1
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Ever heard of India? 1.1 Billion people. Land area is 40% of USA. 70% of the people live in remote rural areas with sporadic electricity, no roads etc. But, in remotest areas, I got full bar signal from multiple networks.
Did India ever have the heavily subsidized rural wireline telephone initiative that the US did? Long before cell was a glimmer in anyone's eye, the US took action to build the wired telecom system, to the point that there was a charge on everyone's phone bill to pay for it. If you lived "in remote rural areas" everyone else helped pay for that wire that ran from the nearest CO to you.
I don't think India ever had that.
Why is it important? Because when most of the people already have a telephone (wired) th
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Derp. In the 90s most carriers offered the first incoming minute free. IIRC, that started disappearing around the time Verizon was created.
Knee jerk, dr tfa (Score:2)
I'm not even interested in reading the blog post when I see a horrible conclusion that Verizon dropping its unlimited data plans are a result of the AT&T/TMO merger. It makes MUCH more sense that a response to the merger would be, "hey, everyone! We have unlimited data plans!!"
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Haven't you ever heard of price fixing? Same idea, but it's feature fixing. It's tacit collusion and highly profitable.
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But, this way verizon can spend less on infrastructure, and people dont really have another choice
No competition? (Score:3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless_communications_service_providers [wikipedia.org]
Just because they don't have stores on every street corner doesn't mean there aren't a hundred different wireless providers to choose from.
Re:No competition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but how many of those are just resellers? Essentially, they a virtual carriers with roaming agreements with the ones that you've heard of. Some may have a small area of real service, but I doubt that many do.
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List of actual carriers:
Unless I'm missing something, that's pretty much it. Everybody else is either a regional carrier that only provides service in a small area or is an MVNO that leases service from one of the services above. And frankly, even MetroPCS is basically a glorified regional carrier....
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Probably add US Cellular (they have a mix of their own towers + roaming agreements with Verizon).
Everybody else is either a regional carrier that only provides service in a small area or is an MVNO that leases service from one of the services above.
Sure, but even regional carriers like Cellular South still cover larger areas than many European carriers do ...
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Virgin Mobile
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The list above says whether or not the carrier is an MVNO or reseller. I'm guesstimating half are MVNO's. That's still a fair bit of competition.
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Mod parent up - this is the key.
MVNO means "mobile virtual network operator", which describes someone who buys bandwidth from AT&T, TMobile, Sprint, Verizon and uses it to run their own brand of phones. All those little companies you see are basically MVNOs.
Can't compare only cell phones (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anybody on Slashdot actually travel? Prices in general of most goods are _way_ cheaper in the US than in Europe or Japan (I haven't been to South Korea). US taxes are relatively low. Why do I care if a cell phone bill is a few hundred bucks a year more?
And then people miss the point that cell infrastructure scales both with population and with physical area. Someone has to pay for that.
Depends where you are. (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anybody on Slashdot actually travel? Prices in general of most goods are _way_ cheaper in the US than in Europe or Japan (I haven't been to South Korea). US taxes are relatively low. Why do I care if a cell phone bill is a few hundred bucks a year more? And then people miss the point that cell infrastructure scales both with population and with physical area. Someone has to pay for that.
I think it depends on where you go, and what goods you're looking at. I lived in Tokyo for three years. Moved back to the US, to California, and naively expected the cost of living to be lower.
It wasn't.
What was more galling, not only was I paying more living in CA, but the quality of the goods and services purchased was generally lower.
A random sample list:
And would people *please* give the population density argument a rest? It's a red herring. The San Francisco Bay Area is quite densely populated and is supposedly the center of the US high-tech industry - and yet cell coverage is kinda crappy, and internet service is much more expensive and much slower than anything you get in Japan (unless you're out in the boonies). It's not about population density, it's about profit margins, and what regulators and the competitive environment will allow.
Cheers,
Slashcode - Broken Again! Yay! (Score:2)
Gah, whatever happened to unordered lists in HTML? Sheesh...
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What was more galling, not only was I paying more living in CA
For piddly stuff (prepared food? really?), yeah, maybe. How much does a 1000 sq. ft. apartment go for in Tokyo, though?
Again, depends where you are. (Score:2)
The initial comment was about goods. I lumped in services for fun.
Rents? Sure, I had a ~800 sq ft place a short walking distance from Saginomiya Station (one of the express stops) on the Tôbu line for ~$1,500 / mo. ~1,000 sq ft in San Carlos right after that went for ~$1,800, but the rails were much more expensive, much less convenient, and traffic on 101 was so fun that 12 miles one way could take about an hour. Bicycling would often get your there faster, except drivers were not very kind to b
Population density and profits are related (Score:2)
I lived in Tokyo for three years. Moved back to the US, to California, and naively expected the cost of living to be lower.
California is the 3rd most expensive [msn.com] state in the US behind only Hawaii and Alaska. Try moving to somewhere that actually is inexpensive to live. I live in the midwest and it is FAR less expensive. My house would cost 4-5X as much anywhere remotely close to one of the bigger California cities. If you were looking for a place in the US to compare with Japan you could hardly have picked a worse example.
It's not about population density, it's about profit margins, and what regulators and the competitive environment will allow.
You say that as if you think profit margins and population density are somehow unrelated. While there a
Again, "Depends where you are." (Score:2)
California is the 3rd most expensive [msn.com] state in the US behind only Hawaii and Alaska. Try moving to somewhere that actually is inexpensive to live. I live in the midwest and it is FAR less expensive.
Sure, the Midwest is quite less expensive. That said, the OP was arguing about the US as an aggregate whole -- which I think is a mistake, as it depends where you are within the US as to how much things cost. Hence why I brought up prices in California.
It's not about population density, it's about profit margins, and what regulators and the competitive environment will allow.
You say that as if you think profit margins and population density are somehow unrelated. While there are highly dense areas, the phone companies have to expend capital to cover the not dense areas too. If you spend the money to improve connections in the high density areas you necessarily are taking it away from the less populated areas.
Except, as has been substantially covered here on Slashdot, the US telecom companies get sizable government subsidies and other public assistance to carry out such work. This muddies the waters and makes the zero-sum argument about high- vs. low-density ar
Profit is a function (Score:2)
Except, as has been substantially covered here on Slashdot, the US telecom companies get sizable government subsidies and other public assistance to carry out such work.
I presume you are talking about the Universal Service Fund. That fund is drawn directly from the revenues of telecom companies to build infrastructure where there would otherwise be none because there is NO economic case for it. It is impossible to justify the expense of serving many of the rural and even semi-rural areas of the US. That is not a government subsidy, that is regulated reapportionment of telecom revenues for specific purposes. True, it is not a black and white case for urban versus rural
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Coverage in the US cities is a function of being able to put up towers.
You can't put up a tower in a city without permission from the city. You can't put it on city land no matter what. To put a tower up on private land you have to not only negotiate with the landowner but the landowner's neighbors. When there is someone that believes cell phone radiation will cause cancer you aren't going to put a tower there no matter what. Ever, until that person moves. Trying to fight it out in court is a losing bat
Rural areas, sure, but what about the cities? (Score:2)
I also feel that the population density is a PERFECTLY valid argument when you compare why our rural areas do not have as fast of speeds as large cities. Someone has to invest in the infrastructure to reach these far out places...
I'm completely with you when it comes to the rural areas. The problem with the density argument is that it would follow that the main US urban corridors (most of the two coasts, and the area around Chicago) should have telecoms on par with the best in the world. Except we don't.
Which is why I said "it depends on where you go".
But I quite disagree with your next point:
...and it's nigh impossible for any company to create a super fast network over all our major cities when can be thousands of miles in between some of them. How far from Tokyo is Hokkaido? Maybe 750 mi? Think of how far LA is from New York. Just saying. rantOff()
I'm not talking about Hokkaido. (The distance is about 520 miles by road. Besides which, you're comparing a huge sparsely populated islan
2 year agreements almost up (Score:2)
In Russia.... (Score:2, Interesting)
In (Ex-Soviet) Russia, you can choose from MTS, MegaFon, Beeline, Tele2, or a few other GSM Providers.
In China, you can choose from China Mobile (Easyown, GoTone, M-zone, Peoples, ZoNG), ChinaUnicom. (Yes, the main ones are state-owned)
In the "Free" United states, you can choose any GSM provider you want, as long as you "want" to use the government-approved AT&T/T-mobile.
So you say: "If there's customer demand, Capitalism shows another company will be created so competition remains..." Yeah Right. The
I for one... (Score:2)
I swore I'd never do this but...
I, for one, welcome our new Call Dropping Overlords.
Blogger fail? (Score:2)
Oh for Pete's sake! (Score:4, Interesting)
Good for some people. (Score:2)
I still pay $50 a month total for my iPhone and still have unlimited 3G data being with ATT.
Now with the acquisition I have even more towers to cover me for the voice and 2G data end since T-mo towers are compatible with this.
FTFY (Score:2)
Who would you rather pay off, 43 different state regulatory authorities, or those convenient people on Capitol Hill?'"
FTFY
This whole article is astroturf (Score:2)
All of those countries mentioned have centralized federal authorities regulating their companies. Trying to for some reason argue AGAINST federal regulation, and instead of state-level regulation, while simultaneously pointing at all these other counties ahead of the US, is total nonsense.
Not everything should be state regulated. For a heck of a lot of things, it introduces huge levels of complexity and expense, and lots of opportunity for idiotic state legislators to pass nonsense laws to gain political po
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Re:Sprint (Score:4, Insightful)
Sprint will not survive this buyout... even Hesse admits this...
Either Sprint will be bought by Verizon, or Sprint will die a slow death, then be bought for pennies on the dollar.
Sprint will be strangled by 1) high roaming costs, or NO roaming, which means poor coverage for its customers, who will then leave,
2) handset freeze out, prime example being the iPhone which Sprint *still* cannot get,
3) price war: AT&T and Verizon can just decide to wage a price war for a couple of years and decimate Sprint,
4) landline/call termination obstruction and rate hikes, since between AT&T and Verizon, most of the landline are controlled by them, they can and will simply charge Sprint huge sums to allow Sprint consumers to call landlines. This is already a big cost for Sprint and it will get bigger.
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(Unless you're unfortunate enough to not live in an area where Sprint has good coverage, to which I must say, that sucks.)
Sprint actually has coverage? News to me ...
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I worked in a large, nationwide company, and was friends with the person that did cell plans for them. It was amazing how much of a variance different regions had.. they tried to consolidate to one carrier to save money, but people threw fits, because sprint was dirt cheap, but had crap service in large towns in the south. Out west, ATT has coverage for about 5 miles off the major interstates, and that is about it.. etc..
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they're arguing a duopoly. what's the combined market share if you add up Verizon + ATT/Tmobile?
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mod parent up.
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(What greedy company wouldn't want it be illegal to not have their services.)
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The reason why it's more likely is that they don't want to compete. When you've got an oligopoly, it's advantageous to compete as minimally as possible. With T-mobile out of the picture, there would be no reason to continue to provide an unlimited plan. Unlimited plans certainly aren't any more profitable than ones with limits. They could just set the included amount somewhat higher than AT&T and pocket the extra money that they aren't having to spend on bandwidth costs.
Sure, it's somewhat fallacious to
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When your largest competitor is charging for data, you have no incentive to give it away for free. In fact in this day and age, you might even open yourself up to share holder lawsuits for fiscal mismanagement (giving away for free what you could be generating revenue on). As a customer, your only recompense to being price gouged is to take your business elsewhere. When there is no where else to take your business, or everyone else who you would take your business to is also gouging you, you are stuck.
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If you think about it, this also means higher income for that one person, which should bump them up a few tax brackets.. hey, they are helping pay more taxes!