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Comment by indymike | Hacker News Reader

> So getting rid of 5,000 (out of 70,000) employees will help deliver on customer expectations?

I'm a T-Mobile customer via Sprint acquisition. My experience post merger is that they simple view customers as monthly payments that T-Mobile is entitled to, service delivered, or not. They do not back the equipment they sell, they make it nearly impossible to bring your own phone (if you are on a former Sprint contract), and their people have zero discretion to do the right thing. It's a dystopian hellscape.

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This sounds like AT&T and Verizon, too.

It's true for any big business. That's why real competition is necessary (greater than 6 participants, IMO, though there is probably some math formula to calculate ideal market participants).

I think this is true as a general principle only for corporations doing B2C.

I work for a mega corp and at least my business unit has some pretty good customer support. We work with business customers only. Maybe it helps when your client is purchasing equipment for millions of dollars and the relationships last decades.

Is it really that true for your power company?

I'm guessing you don't have more than 7 options.

Power companies are regulated as an alternative to competition.

Luckily everyone let the Tmo/Sprint merger go through.

True but T-Mobile's whole spiel is that they are the "uncarrier" completely different than those legacy carriers.

Turns out, that might not be true.

The uncarrier stopped being a thing as soon as the old CEO, John Legere, left. That was the only time it felt cool. Mike is ruining that legacy, and now has plans that are more expensive than AT&T or Verizon. Only good thing is that their prices are inclusive of taxes and fees.

The "Uncarrier" spiel died even before the shillmaster Legere left the company. Operationally they've always been a disaster, and then they acquired Sprint, whose super power was operational incompetence.

Apparently from other comments, they're the uncarrier because they "uncare" about customers, and they don't actually bother delivering service.

> make it nearly impossible to bring your own phone (if you are on a former Sprint contract)

I had no issues switching to a new, unlocked iPhone.

> I had no issues switching to a new, unlocked iPhone.

I had to buy an unlocked iPhone, and call in 7 times before I got a CSR who would allow me to move my number to it.

Did they allow you to keep your existing Sprint contract terms while doing so?

> Did they allow you to keep your existing Sprint contract terms while doing so?

Even worse: I cannot change to an equivalent T-Mobile plan.

Yes, but my old phone was also an unlocked iPhone, so it was harder to play games around usage or subsidies.

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