Should Verizon's massive $3.5 billion co-marketing and spectrum deal with the cable industry go through, the company says they've struck a deal with T-Mobile that would give T-Mobile additional spectrum in 15 of the top 25 U.S. markets including Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Seattle and Detroit. The deal is a fairly obvious bit of regulatory bait aimed at easing government and consumer advocate concerns that Verizon's cable partership could have an anti-competitive impact on numerous wireless and wireline companies. Verizon had previously announced they'll hold a spectrum sale should the deal be approved, with most of that spectrum most likely falling into the hands of AT&T. T-Mobile had previously opposed Verizon's cable industry deal, but apparently the new spectrum has them singing a different tune.
They dangle a carrot from a stick in front of a rabbit and expect the rabbit not to chase it ? Really ?
Does no one in this government stand up for what is right for the people that "elect" them any more ? This should be go down faster then Al Roker eating sushi ! These back room deals between ceos with "publicly owned" items need to be stopped by some one who has the nerve to stand up to them.
They dangle a carrot from a stick in front of a rabbit and expect the rabbit not to chase it ? Really ?
Does no one in this government stand up for what is right for the people that "elect" them any more ? This should be go down faster then Al Roker eating sushi ! These back room deals between ceos with "publicly owned" items need to be stopped by some one who has the nerve to stand up to them.
What is your issue? So cable companies should just continue to squat on this spectrum. Who does that serve?
no ! they don't use it they lose it ! cycle it back in so others can get it. These are the peoples properties. Not the corporations, they seem to think it's ok for them to rape pillage and plunder the us tax payer at every turn.
Does more spectrum for T-Mobile mean they can upgrade from Edge and we might actually get 4G in the Phoenix area?
Phoenix proper already has '4G', and it has for awhile. You'll likely see 3G in 1900mhz in those edge only exurbs. Assuming you have a phone that can do 3g over 1900mhz.
whfsdude you are wrong and since you are in DC what do you know? Phoenix does not have "4G". In the downtown area there is a weak signal the phone says is 4G but it's only 3Mb so I don't know what that is. Even that is not available everywhere, there's no coverage in Scottsdale.
I've gotten 8 Meg download using T-mobile in the Pheonix area. 101 and 32 St. The question you need to ask around busy cell towers is how many people are downloading at the same time.
Apparently, contrary to TMO's advertising, they are either severely crippling prepaid 4G or not making it available on a prepaid basis. ArizonaSteve, according to his review, has been told by FIVE TMO stores he needs a contract service but he continues to make comments about their not having 4G yet he refuses to even try a 4G contract phone.
and T-mobile just shut down 7 call centers nationwide...
And I thought the tech industry was supposed to be booming. Isn't that why people are going to school for is either nursing or tech so they have a job when they get out?
O well, maybe I should reevaluate my college major, looks like whatever major that is going to be taken is still going to have you in the unemployment line.
Last I checked, you didn't need to go to college to be a call center worker, T-Mobile or anyone else. Calling those jobs tech jobs would be like calling the guy who stands around in a blue Best Buy shirt near the packaged software (what little of it that there is anymore) a programmer. Not the same thing at all.
Then again, I might be biased. You can't not call my job a tech job
Verizon and AT&T both squat on much more spectrum holdings than any cable company.. however, if equitable distribution was the important factor of being pro consumer.. why wouldn't t-mobile have bought the spectrum rather than 3-way swap with Verizon?
Verizon seems to have a better sense of which frequencies are valuable assets to have in each market. You'd probably never see them strike a deal like lightsquared got caught with (something paid millions for but can't use).
I'm FOR smaller companies BUILDING on their networks that already exist, but by very nature of size and capitalization can't or won't deploy a wider wireless footprint. Wireless (cellular)licenses aren't charged for by the square mile in the cellco wireless field, generally they encompass large state or multi-state wide geogrpahies.
I don't often agree with BF69, but in this case I've got to say that you aren't going to se a fifth national wireless carrier in the US. Leap/MetroPCS are regional, as are companies like C-Spire, US Cellular and the new Alltel (ATN-owned). Each of these companies have a fair amount of financial resources, but not enough to deploy a nationwide wireless network, even if they had the spectrum to do so.
T-Mobile, on the other hand, can do the whole nationwide wireless carrier thing, though in many cases they drop from 4G to 2G very quickly once you exit a large or medium-sized city. But where they have deployed HSPA+ or better, it works really well. Giving them more spectrum will allow them to deploy LTE in more places, which puts more competitive pressure on the remaining three nationwide providers to up coverage, lower prices or otherwise provide more value to the consumer.
From what I've seen, T-Mobile is more likely to offer a low-priced plan than anyone (including Sprint, though Sprint still has unlimited data, without throttling, on smartphones). This spectrum swap should allow them to continue in that vein, for those whom they cover.
Sure, it would be cool if Sprint got AWS spectrum, but in most areas they have a solid 54MHz of spectrum to work with once the decommission iDEN, something that T-Mobile doesn't have, depending on the area. Sprint also has all that Clearwire spectrum for when they need to augment capacity in a high-traffic area...T-Mobile has, uh, WiFi? Sprint also doesn't own any AWS spectrum at the moment, so it would be a stretch to think that they would just buy up SpectrumCo assets and start building out a network on that entirely new band at this point.
So yeah, let Verizon swap with T-Mobile, let T-Mobile swap with C-Spire, let Verizon buy SpectrumCo and Cox spectrum, let them spin off non-upper-C 700 licenses to AT&T, US Cellular and whoever else wants them, and throw in a clause that mandates LTE roaming on AWS (and eventually PCS) since it's technically trivial to make that happen. Don't hand-wring and keep the deal from going through just because it shuffles spectrum over to companies that will actually do something with it.
I don't care too much about T-Mo, but this whole deal will benefit the whole industry, as it will get T-Mo more spectrum to not build out on, it will solidify Verizon's spectrum position, allow it to dump it's useless spectrum that it can't use with the Upper C spectrum it already uses, and it will allow AT&T to gobble up most or all of that lower 700 spectrum that they badly need.