Analyst Estimates AT&T Needs To Spend $5B To Catch Up 187
itwbennett writes "The public's perception of AT&T's network is poor and declining, apparently because of real shortcomings when compared with Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel,' says Gerard Hallaren, director of research at TownHall Investment Research. 'AT&T's capital expenditures on its wireless network from 2006 through September 2009 totaled about $21.6 billion, compared with $25.4 billion for Verizon and $16 billion for Sprint (including Sprint's investments in WiMax operator Clearwire). Over that time, Verizon has spent far more per subscriber: $353, compared with $308 for AT&T,' Hallaren said. 'Even Sprint has outspent AT&T per subscriber, laying out $310 for network capital expenditure.' All this means AT&T has a choice, says Hallaren: 'spend or suffer.'"
I don't get it (Score:2)
Bell and Telus collectively spent about $1 billion rolling out 7.2 Mbps GSM across Canada, and did it in about one year. Canada is larger than the US, and has 1/10th the population. That means it costs a lot more to provide bandwidth on a per-person basis. Backhaul links are less available as well, further increasing difficulties.
So why is this going to cost AT&T 5 times as much, especially when they already have the towers and the problem is (apparently) backhaul - which is cheap.
What am I missing here
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
For certain patchy values of Canada.
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Bell and Telus collectively spent about $1 billion rolling out 7.2 Mbps GSM across Canada, and did it in about one year. Canada is larger than the US, and has 1/10th the population. That means it costs a lot more to provide bandwidth on a per-person basis. Backhaul links are less available as well, further increasing difficulties.
So why is this going to cost AT&T 5 times as much, especially when they already have the towers and the problem is (apparently) backhaul - which is cheap.
What am I missing here?
Maury
Canada's people tend to be compressed into a band hugging the U.S. -- so your "Canada is larger than the US" doesn't quite fit. I doubt Bell or Telus has service on Ellesmere Island
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They did a pretty good job of it. I have a friend back home (north of the 55th parallel) who wanted an iPhone but couldn't get one because Rogers didn't have service out where she lives (you drive an hour on the two lane primary highway from the nearest major city, population 30k, then turn onto the secondary highway and drive for fifteen minutes, then turn onto the gravel....). She's now got a Telus iPhone and has service, no problem.
If she's got Telus/Bell GSM then they've probably rolled it out pretty
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As their old transport contracts are expiring they are rolling those circuits onto their own network.
They are focusing on cost savings this way instead of spending their efforts on bringing new cell sites online.
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Executives like money?
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I would expect bilingual roads to be more expensive. At at 35% price differential, you're apparently getting a bargain....
Buh bye AT&T, enjoy history's dust bin (Score:2, Interesting)
AT&T's little game a while back where they decided that they were going to blame and overcharge iPhone users for their problems pretty much guaranteed I won't be looking into AT&T for service any time soon. I think the iPhone is a silly and largely pointless thing, like most Apple products, but that was just ridiculous.
"Oh gee, we sold a whole bunch of phones that are built to be and advertised as mobile media platforms, let's blame the users of those phones using them as mobile media platforms for
efficiency (Score:3, Funny)
These numbers are misleading. AT&T doesn't need to spend as much money to be as productive in infrastructure expansion as its CDMA competitors because their engineers can talk and surf at the same time.
Re:efficiency (Score:5, Funny)
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Talk and surf can be done on any GSM network, not just AT&T - lack of it on Verizon networks is a byproduct of CDMA technology. CDMA itself has bad spectral efficiency and is essentially being killed off in the 3GPP and 4G, so I expect Verizon and Sprint will need to extend or replace it. That said, AT&T's data rates are pretty shoddy according to my brother - he likes T-Mobile better (I don't have a data plan, so I have no idea).
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It's the other way around.
CDMA's air interface is quite efficient, actually.
So efficient, in fact, that the 3GPP's 4G standard (you know, LTE, Long-Term Evolution) is much, much more CDMA-like than TDMA-based GSM. (CDMA and LTE are both spread-spectrum technologies -- GSM/TDMA divide signals on a carrier frequency based on timing.)
Keep in mind that the cdmaOne product family is what's not being evolved any further --- the actual air interfaces developed under the CDMA banner are really the path forward. W
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And AT&T has been killing the TDMA part for a while now. In many areas they have more spectrum allocated to UMTS (WCDMA) than TDMA based GSM.
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One word - Qualcomm - they are really the reason there's such a divide in standards with 3G technology in the US (and elsewhere, but its more pronounced here).
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Can anyone with a droid confirm if the "can't surf and talk" is true? The droid features on Verizon specifically state that the multi-tasking OS "does" "Make a call, take a picture, answer a IM, and switch between up to 6 apps at once" [verizonwireless.com]. So I guess that AT&T really means is what a black-berry doesn't?
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But Verizon CDMA network won't let you send data and talk at the same time. Not that being able to talk and surf at impossibly slow ATT speeds at the same time is really worth anything.
$45 is "far more"?? (Score:2)
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That's almost 15% more, per subscriber
I know I'd consider a 15% raise a pretty big one.
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15% tip is FAR MORE if your service sucks and the tip is required. You know, like AT&T.
Wasted research... (Score:2)
Personally, I am with AT&T now because:
1 - I had to have a GSM phone (CDMA FTL!)
2 - T-Mobile's covereage sucks where I live in Atlanta (or at least it did 18 months ago)
I am pissed and dont have much of a choice - its MaBell of Tmob. Not much is out there that would drive me to the shackles of CDMA hell with BigRed.
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Most AT&T users could tell you that AT&T really needs to get their shit together. No need for expensive research.
Personally, I am with AT&T now because:
1 - I had to have a GSM phone (CDMA FTL!)
2 - T-Mobile's covereage sucks where I live in Atlanta (or at least it did 18 months ago)
I am pissed and dont have much of a choice - its MaBell of Tmob. Not much is out there that would drive me to the shackles of CDMA hell with BigRed.
If CDMA is faster than light, then why did you go with AT&T?
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That, and the fact that the FTL causes temporal distortion, meaning that the person you talk to via FTL hears you speak before you say anything. We've all regretted saying things a split second after saying them. FTL CDMA means you might end up saying something you shouldn't have even before you say it.
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If CDMA is faster than light, then why did you go with AT&T?
Because when you rearrange the letters, it spells Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
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I'm kinda interested in whats going to happen when both ATT and Verizon go to LTE.. That could get very, very interesting..
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I personally find this hilarious on two counts:
1.) GSM and EDGE are TDMA technologies that are inferior in every way to the CDMA waveform.
2.) Your 3G service through AT&T is based off of CDMA. (All GSM carriers use W-CDMA for 3G service. See also #1.)
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Except the whole international roaming thing. And that's a pretty significant "way".
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.. of course, a phone with dual radios such as the BlackBerry Storm, Samsung Saga, HTC Ozone, HTC Touch Pro2, etc. will work anywhere. My BB Storm works here in the US, in Europe, in the Caribbean, just about everywhere ...
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Too bad that on the "dual radio" phones, Verizon locks the GSM radio to only work with its own overpriced roaming SIM cards ... which aren't even included, you have to BUY one from Verizon and then pay Verizon through the nose for roaming. (the same way you pay for everything with Verizon, usually described as either "pay through the nose" or "pay out the ass").
Real GSM carriers will unlock your phone for you if you tell them you need it unlocked for travelling, and then you have the option of getting a che
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CDMA != WCDMA. You might as well be saying you can't connect to the internet unless you have RJ-45
They got lazy and slothful (Score:2)
They rested on their laurels with the iPhone along with retarding their capital expenditures to beef up their stock price when earnings season rolled around. They are paying for that dearly now with major issues with infrastructure and bandwidth issues.
Major mistake, playing to the stockholders instead of their customers.
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Re:They got lazy and slothful (Score:4, Insightful)
They have a fiscal responsibility to their long-term shareholders, too, not just those looking to cash out after a few quarters of artificial pumping.
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LOL. Your story is hella cute, at least up until the part where you compared Verizon Wireless to something besides a nasty, controlling, ass-rapist who would stab his own mother to make a buck.
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I figured it was more like AT&T & Verizon tries to pick up iPhone, iPhone says don't worry about speed, spend all your money on making you email pretty and search-able, marketing and give me lots of your money. Verizon says no, AT&T does it. iPhone says thank you and hooks up with AT&T, but immediately starts blaming AT&T for doing everything iPhone asks of it. Eventually iPhone wakes up and sees the mess she has made of AT&T, and sees how much nicer Verizon is for not listening.
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This meme of fiscal responsibility to the shareholders has to end. It's not true, never has been, never will be. Once a company IPOs, that money is effectively the companies. They are under no obligation to ever pay it back, except through bankruptcy litigation, and then actual creditors are given first whack at the money.
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I do wonder how much of this is Apples fault. Apple forced AT&T to spend on updating their voice-mail system so that it would be search-able, and other make it look cool features. Apple also siphons off a bunch of the per user revenue of customer they bring in, and bringing in a bandwidth hog onto the network. Had apple chosen to tell AT&T what bandwidth to have instead of what shiny features to have, then the customers would have been happier with AT&T, but the iPhone wouldn't have been the
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Major mistake, playing to the stockholders instead of their customers.
Major mistake, playing to the customers instead of their mobile subscribers.
FTFY
Obligatory car analogy:
3 lane highway with several hundred cars == mild congestion
same 3 lane highway with several thousand cars, buses, 18 wheelers == #!$^WTF@#$%
The analyst must not be an MBA (Score:2, Insightful)
I suspect AT&T feels that those numbers represent a cost per subscriber rather than an investment per subscriber.
Now how about a big round of executive bonus...
Stockholders will make it painful (Score:2)
Expect the majority of shareholders, who are ridiculously short sighted, to hate AT&T for it and decry it as a waste of money, just like how all the Verizon stockholders were whining about the investment per household for FiOS.
Goodbye AT$T (Score:2)
I would call to complain (Score:5, Funny)
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There are some niceties in the traditional telephone model. Running on the power of the telephone line itself meant it was more resilient to disasters than a VOIP phone. But I guess we have mobile phones for that. Err... providing the battery does not run out.
Follow the money (Score:2)
OK, who paid for this and what's in it for them? I've yet to see a piece of so-called "business research" of this nature which was produced with no ulterior motive.
The most obvious thoughts that spring to mind are:
Any others?
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What I found strange about the "story", which incidentally, I also thought read like a successfully placed bit of corporate propaganda, is that AT&T is currently running commercials that capitalize on their data network being faster than Verizon's, and IIRC there have recently (last 3-6 months) been multiple stories from multiple sources (Engadget/Gizmodo, some cellular research company) that have BOTH released the same results -- AT&T's data network is faster than Verizon's.
My own personal datapoin
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1x is a CDMA technology (1xRTT). I assume you are referring to EDGE which has comparable real world performance to 1x.
I believe 1x was upgradable to EVDO without replacing as much equipment, and certainly doesn't require splitting up the spectrum to run two networks. UMTS, AT&T's 3G network, has to be build out with additional equipment and requires dedicated spectrum. As a result, AT&T has to spend a lot more money for each cell, and will leave most rural coverage with the good enough EDGE.
Where
Axe grinding time (Score:2)
Ah, another satisfied iPhone user.
Between Verizon and AT&T (Score:2)
I chose Verizon. There is no point in having a fast network or browsing while calling if I can't freakin' connect to the network.
I'm quite happy with my HTC Ozone and having at least two bars reception no matter where I am, even in the elevators at work.
We have seen this game before. (Score:3, Insightful)
When this becomes a more serious problem they will beg/demand/get massive tax breaks and claim that it will go to infrastructure building. Then they will pass the majority to their stock holders. If anyone complains and suggests regulation concerning either the tax breaks (outside of suggesting more tax breaks) or how the additional revenue should be spent will be branded a socialist and an enemy of capitalism.
We saw this under both Clinton and Bush and we will see it again under Obama, because there is one simple fact that no one in government can understand. You cannot bribe businesses. You can sign contracts where they provide a service for a price, you can enforce current legislation and if you are willing to waste the time you can write new legislation, but you will never get anything done with bribery (ie. tax cuts).
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It's not that the government doesn't understand that, they certainly do. After all, many in government used to be in business. It's just that you can bribe elected officials very effectively (ie campaign contributions).
Re:We have seen this game before. (Score:4, Interesting)
Then I guess the real question is why do voters fall for it? If we swapped out tax cuts with welfare benefits and large corporate entity with welfare recipient, voters would howl. We place restrictions on what someone can or cannot buy with their food stamps, why not do the same for tax cuts that are specifically targeted for infrastructure building?
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Ah, well that's the $64 million question, isn't it ? Part of it could be voter apathy. Another part is certainly what you've mentioned in your fist post, namely that many think placing any kind of limit on business is anti free-market and socialist. As has been proven many times, there are situations in which regulation is the only way of ensuring effective competition.
Website needs clue injection to catch up (Score:4, Funny)
<title>Analyst: AT&amp;T needs to spend US$5B to catch up | ITworld</title>
That title is so &ed it goes to 11.
AT&T spend or suffer? (Score:2)
I think it's clearly spend or make your customers suffer and there's plenty of evidence which way they'll probably go.
considering the 3g maps (Score:2)
If you look at the differences in the US 3G coverage maps shown in the Verizon commercials, I think $5B is freaking cheap!
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You sir, are just plain wrong.
Wikipedia: Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia: Evolution-Data_Optimized [wikipedia.org]
Re:considering the 3g maps (Score:5, Informative)
VZW is on EV-DO Rev. A which supports 3.1Mb transfer speeds NOT 2-300kbps and is MUCH faster than EDGE. HSDPA actually supports up to 18Mb not the 20 you claim. However as seen below you will never see anything close tot hat in the real world.
Also PC World did a piece in June comparing REAL world transfer speeds (http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=167391&page=1&zoomIdx=1)
AT&T averaged: 717 Kb/sec
Sprint averaged: 745 Kb/sec
VZW averaged: 890 Kb/sec
For reliability...
AT&T: 66%
Sprint: 84%
VZW: 83%
Please get out of here with your misinformation.
Re:considering the 3g maps (Score:4, Informative)
My 2 cents...
I'm a software consultant, averaging about 80% travel with a typical meantime of about 2 weeks before changing locations. I've been doing this for about 6 years. For the first two years I was desperate for a mobile data solution because (most of the time) hotel internet connections are absolutely horrendous.
For the last 4 years I've tried both AT&T and Verizon for mobile data, and I've got to say Verizon has beat AT&T into the ground in every respect. When I was on AT&T, I achieved an honest-to-god HSDPA connection for a grand total of three wonderful weeks. But three weeks out of a 2 year span do not make for a happy consultant.
With Verizon, I've consistently received a 3G connection time and again. The only time I didn't receive a 3G connection was when I was stuck for two weeks in the middle of northern Wisconsin.
Verizon's 3G IS slower than AT&T's 3G, that much is true. But unless you live in one of the very few areas that AT&T chooses to bless with its almost mythical HSDPA, its not worth it. Verizon's 3G has a vastly superior coverage and maintains about 800Kb/sec. AT&T's EDGE (2G) will get you about 100Kb/sec if you're lucky.
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Source? I benchmarked Verizon's network tethered to a laptop and get constantly around 1.5 megabits per second - which is way waster than 300K.
if wishes were horses (Score:2)
As it is, verizon is no longer the absolute leader. Sprint, ATT, even some of the small guys like boost and cricket have competitive products. All verizon can say is they have the premium product, and use the higher fees to maintain the premium product.
I suspect the issue is not spending, but the free spa
700 Mhz anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
So whatever happened to the much-ballyhooed 700 Mhz spectrum? Didn't AT&T & verizon both invest in that bit? So far I haven't seen hide nor hair of any 700mhz devices nor any announcements about wireless service using this spectrum.
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Oddly, there was a webcast on this topic from Verizon *an hour ago*. I missed it too, but no, they're starting their Block C rollout this year; my city's pretty high up the list.
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i can has competition? (Score:2)
Can we get some real competition between cellphone providers. AFAICT they are all the same company, offering the same shoddy service for the same insane price. The cheapest plan you can get is $40/mo and 450 minutes. Can we have a plan that doesn't assume i'm a twelve year old girl who must constantly yammer? Most of my calls are less than 5 minutes and i make a call about every two or three days. The pay as you go plans (inaccurately called "pre-paid") are often monthly plans in disguise because you c
Verizon has... (Score:2)
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'Even Sprint has outspent AT&T per subscriber, laying out $310 for network capital expenditure.' All this means AT&T has a choice, says Hallaren: 'spend or suffer.'
Or maybe it means that Sprint-Nextel's network was such a steaming pile of crap that they had to outlay an irresponsible amount of capital to bring it up to snuff. Last time I checked, Sprint is losing thousands of customers a week.
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> I've figured out what's wrong with life--other people.
Sartre fanboi.
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I do my best. And yes, I've been doing it for a while...
Re:Sprint? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sprint? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sprint? (Score:4, Informative)
I was with sprint for 2 years. Half my calls dropped, My phone wouldnt even ring some of the time. the customer service was horrid, they tried to charge for over $250 in download services i never used (The said i used it when i was in denver when i have never been west of the mississippi, not to mention how i got from denver to making a call in new york in about 1 hour, I must have a concord availible to me!), it took over 8 hours on the phone to get the charge canceled even though it was obviously bogus. In my opinion sprint deserves every piece of its crappy reputation and more. I am with verizon now.
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Sprint purchased/"merged" with Nextel. Nextel has always been the bottom-feeder network when it came to infrastructure. Sure, they are in more places, but that's because they snatched up all the "going under" real estate from failing telco's before they went away. It's a cheap way to build (or have others build) your network, but the quality was inconsistent, in disrepair and only really looked good on paper. The only real reason why Nextel did as well as they did is because they had that all-important "Pus
Re:Sprint? (Score:4, Informative)
No, let me clarify here.
Nextel's network was *necessarily* built from the ground up, because *it is not Cellular*. It's not licensed as cellular by the FCC. It's on frequencies completely disparate from cellular.
Nextel was created and expanded by buying out Specialized Mobile Radio licensees in the mid 80s, and using their freqs to build what is, effectively, a digital trunking radio system (iDen) with autopatch capabilities.
> Sure, they are in more places, but that's because they snatched up all the "going under" real estate from failing telco's before they went away.
That? Just didn't happen. Nor anything that remotely resembles it.
> Both companies ultimately benefited from the merger, but it was and is a long and expensive road for them both.
And they're not done walking it. While I disagree with you on the technical points of how they came to be, it is in fact the case that they out-expanded themselves, growing their footprint without expanding their backbone to match.
At least, that's my diagnosis, and until someone with facts steps up to contradict me, I'll continue to tell people that.
On reflection, I guess I'm saying they have to take *even more* of the blame for their current state -- and it's not just me; I have 8 customers who've ditched Nextel in the last 10 years; big ones; some 25 radios -- than your "cobbled together from people's leavings" assertion would justify.
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What makes you think that Sprint didn't expand their backbone? They are one of the largest Tier 1 bandwidth providers in the U.S. and own the majority of long haul fiber.
Most people that bash Sprint and Nextel had it in rural areas or in areas that were fairly new. Sprint's biggest problem has always been that they move slowly so you get new phones only periodically and only periodically they expand coverage. When they do expand coverage they provide proper coverage. Also, if you move to an area that doesn
Hear hear! (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, I bit the bullet and bought an iPhone. In the Financial District in downtown SF I couldn't make a call consistently much less anything else! I was livid.
To make matters worse,
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I, on the other hand, live in the DC area and had nothing but crap coverage where I need it most. The best coverage I had with Sprint was when I was traveling, which wasn't that often back then. I'm sure it's improved significantly since then, though.
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I was a sprint customer for over 10 years, I live in Amarillo TX. I switched to ATT for 2 reasons. 1 I wanted an iPhone, 2 Sprint didn't drop calls, they didn't get them to me. I have a small business and they would send people calling me right to voicemail. At first I thought maybe it was my treo or something, but then I noticed I would go to my friend on sprints voicemail without it ringing. I would call back sometimes 3 or 4 times before it rang him. It wasn't that he was out of coverage, they were
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Re:Sprint? (Score:5, Informative)
Have you used the Sprint network lately?
My guess is that you have not.
Sprint used to be bashed because of customer support and rightly so but they have made a lot of effort to improve in that area.
Sprint used to have a not great selection of phones. Right now they have a few really good phones like the Blackberry Tour, the Samsung Moment, the HTC Hero, the Palm Pre, and Palm Pixie.
Their prices are cheaper than Verizon and AT&T and the didn't cripple their phones like Verizon did as far as Bluetooth, WiFI, and even loading software.
They are CDMA which is a downer if you are going to travel outside the US but so is Verizon.
Oh and you get to roam on the Verizon network. I have never been without service on my phone for more than five minutes anywhere in the US.
I would say that unless you MUST have an iPhone or you really want a Droid that Sprint is a really good choice.
The crappy old Sprint has been gone for a while but then you will find people that hate every carrier.
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You will also find people who will defend any carrier.
I saved so much money by switching to AT&T that it was actually cost-effective to pay Sprint's early termination fees. Plus, I no longer have to deal with them screwing up my bill every other month.
You say Sprint's customer service has changed, and that's great. But you couldn't pay me to ever use them again. Plus, the iPhone, IMO, is a much better phone than all of the Sprint phones you listed.
What??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? How in the world did you find a Sprint plan costing more that AT&T using the iPhone? Especially when the Sprint "everything" plan is $99/month? That's quite a feat...
You can say Sprint's customer service sucks, and yes, lots of folks had issues there. But as far as cost of plans go, I'm by NO means on the high end AT&T plan, and I'm nowhere near my Sprint bills...
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I would love to see what plane you got. Not one for the iPhone for sure.
The iPhone is a very good phone with lots of very good apps. I have an iPod touch and a Samsung Moment. My wife has a Palm Pre so I have access to an Apple device, Palm Pre, and Android.
Apple has a better app store than any of them.
The Pre I feel actually has a better UI than the iPhone and the cards are really nice. The new SDK really seems to have opened up the possibilities on the Pre so I expect to see it doing really well. The Pre
Re:Sprint? (Score:4, Interesting)
My big complaint with Sprint is cross carrier SMS and MMS. Everyone I know finds Sprint extremely unreliable about sending or receiving anything which comes from or goes to Sprint's network. I've literally waited an hour for text message to appear on the phone next to me. They also seem to drop a huge number of messages; again, cross carrier. At one point, I'd guess perhaps as high as 80% drop rate - though that high is not what I'd call typical.
I don't know if other carriers are purposely causing problems for Sprint or if Sprint is purposely causing problems for other carriers, or they are just well beyond their capacity. But, unless things improve and you SMS or MMS heavily with people on other carriers, I could never recommend Sprint.
Also, one last note, Verizon has not crippled any Android phone features. While Verizon has a terrible history here, thus far they've been true to their word on Android. Now hopefully Verizon's upcoming Android 2.1 update will fix various bugs and incompatibilities vs every other Android phone available. If not, then I'd recommend people staying away from Android+Verizon.
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I had the same problems when I was on Sprint, though it's bee
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The worst I've seen is seven days. Happened only once.
More recently (within the last 45-days) I received a SMS from a Sprint user at 4-something am in the morning. I wasn't happy about that. I asked the sender why they sent it at such a time. Turns out they had sent it at ~6:00pm the previous day. They were actually annoyed I hadn't responded sooner.
I don't know what the deal is with Sprint and SMS/MMS, but something needs to be done.
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Well I text my brother all the time. He is on tMobile and I am on Sprint. I never have had an issue with delay of texts.
I had a friend on Virgin that would text me often and no real problem.
Where I have seen delays is from non phone texts like from Yahoo and Twitter but that has been much better of late.
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My Verizon plan has unlimited text.
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Yes, and you pay how much for it?
I pay $69.99 for my Palm Pre's plan with unlimited data/texting and unlimited mobile-mobile(Carrier agnostic) and 450 minutes for landlines.
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I pay $99 a month for my Nextel Blackberry, and everything is included except *international* LD.
MMS, DC, airtime, CONUS LD. You name it.
But when LTE700 shows up, it will probably be $60 or 70 a month flat.
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I know my company offers a corporate discount on Verizon which frequently makes them more competitive. We're also on an older plan that is cheaper than anything they currently offer. If we ever need a data plan we'll probably go somewhere else though.
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Wait; what? You mean all that "Those people in Operation Chokehold are just blowing blue smoke out their ass; we're just as good as the other guys" press releasing was just *posturing*?
Say it ain't *so*, Joe!
In fact, while Nextel's *coverage* sucks in the Tampa market, their customer service has come *way* up, and I say that having been a customer 10 years now.
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And I find I want to clarify, in case there are any Nextel engineers reading this (and understand, I'm diagnosing as someone whose done it for TCP networks for 15 years)..
The problem isn't *RF Coverage*; I have good signal almost everywhere.
But that doesn't keep me from dropping calls to "Service Conflict" or "Out of Dispatch Coverage", or just plain not being able to hold a conversation because the backbone gets confused; I can talk to my partner, but he can't talk to me because I'm "busy in DC".
Yup. Talk
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Re:They're spending all right... (Score:5, Insightful)
I strongly believe that beyond an initial marketing push, if a product is truly good, it can sell itself.
Well, we do have the computer field as a major counterexample. The best-selling computer system for a long time has been MS Windows, which has always been the crappiest product available. They're a prime example of an old business guideline: The best way to be a major vendor is to have the biggest advertising budget. If you have that, there's no point on paying extra money to have a good product, because it won't get you a significant increase in sales. Only a tiny part of the market understands how to judge quality, and you can safely leave those sales to the small companies that will never be large.
Of course, the telephone business has long worked on a different basis. Their business plan has always been to make deals with governmental authorities to get a local monopoly wherever possible. Then quality doesn't matter because the regulators will guarantee that you always have a profit and no competitors.
At present, there is a small amount of competition allowed in the recently-developed wireless phone market. But this is only a temporary situation. The phone companies are hard at work on mergers and acquisitions, plus "campaign contributions" to reestablish regulated local monopolies. So we can expect that fairly soon they'll be back to their normal non-competitive situation. AT&T's only real problem is management that hasn't heard about the competitive market. But this is only a temporary situation.
"We're the Phone Company. We don't care. We don't have to."