Verizon, AT&T customers sue to undo T-Mobile merger
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In general, I'm skeptical that we should punish a company, especially one that isn't the largest player in the market, based on (pretextual IMO) actions taken (or not taken) by its competitors. I don't think the merger should have been approved, but once that bell is rung I think the standard for judicial intervention needs to be very high, and I don't think bare market forces apply.
Why? What particular harm are you worried about here? If there's harm to market participants then why should the players be immune? Why is a merger approval so inviolate?
> and I don't think bare market forces apply.
Why _wouldn't_ they? What forces _would_ you invoke to achieve justice? Or are you saying that because it's too inconvenient, we have to ignore the harms?
Market's don't exist for the benefit of companies. They exist for the benefit of citizens who both participate in them as consumers and as laborers. We wrote a lot of anti monopoly law for very good reasons, if shareholders are inconvenienced by having to unwind bad deals that shouldn't have been approved in the first place, I see no reason to afford them greater protection or deference than the fundamental participants of that market.
Because changing rulings is by itself a bad thing that harms economic predictability
If we want mergers to be undoable, that needs to be clear at the time of approval. We could probably fix this going forward to strike a better balance between predictability and other outcomes, but we have to make the contingencies known in advance, not pull rugs three years later.
What about the idea that unlawful things remain unlawful even if someone gets away with them for a little while.
That seems pretty logically consistent too.
It’s a lawsuit, litigated by lawyers, in a court of law. You may see a three letter word reappearing if you look closely.
Every court case starts with a document that lists the actions of the defendant while citing the specific laws (statute or tort) alleged to have been violated.
As a general rule laws are enforced after the fact by a harmed party asking courts to provide a remedy. In the case of criminal law the party is the people, represented by the state, in the case of civil law it’s often a private individual, group, or organization.
This is the normal way laws are applied. People break them and then someone takes them to court to unwind the damage and seek redress.
> But those consequences should be consistent for any company engaging in said behaviors, regardless of whether they were recently merged.
It's really not that complicated. That's how civil and business law is typically enforced.
Your premise is that when a business deal is "approved" it's all set. But that's not really how things generally work, your premise is dubious. The real way things work is people do things and then if they cause unlawful harm they end up getting sued, sometimes by the justice department sometimes by a class action sometimes by someone else.
This is so breathtakingly wrong, that 'Earth is flat' is more accurate.
Ten thousand years ago, before investors, central banks, before currency, before the concept of money, primitive people had Markets
Primordial market consists only of two peope - labourer and a customer. I trade my sheep for your fish.
Even in the modern day, many companies have no investors - for example limited partnerships.
The idea that markets would disappear without investment reads like an attempt by the pope to take credit for creating the world in 3 days.
So, sure, not literally every market would disappear without investors. But the overwhelming majority of current GPD would not exist without capital. It's quite hard to name a single current business that would exist without any investors in the world. Does your business require a computer? An office? A store front? A phone? Running water? Electricity? Investors, investors, investors, investors, investors. There are various stakeholders in any business - workers, customers, capital providers, suppliers, folks who feel externalities, and so on. The idea that companies are there just for the workers and the customers is misunderstanding the complexity of the modern world. It isn't the same place it was 10,000 years ago.
And... it appears there is confusion about what a limited partnership is... Many limited partnerships exist so they can raise money from investors who want nothing more than a return on their capital. Here is a decent intro on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_partnership .. An enormous amount of current law is written to make the aggregation of capital possible and an attractive proposition. Society generally understands how important it is to make investment attractive.
The very existence of these companies is a privilege, a state provided fiction. The people get to determine the scope of that privilege.
Corporations have no innate natural rights.
Or alternatively, Sprint's shareholders would have been wiped out, and its creditors could have continued operating it after taking a loss on their loans, preserving competition in the cellular service market.
My source is that they reported they were set to be cash flow positive (meaning profitable outside of servicing debt) in 2019:
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3413933-sprint-cfo-sees-t-mobi...
That still might have been untenable for their shareholders, but it is misleading to say the alternative was still three cellular service companies.
Despite a brutal earnings call yesterday, they are expanding network aggressively. They have the bankroll to ramp up, unlike Sprint who was circling the drain. I think ultimately there will be 4 healthy competitors, not 3.
Best of luck to them, some disruption would be nice. I would like at least one cell provider to not have dead zones in my area.
IIRC the deal is more about the fact that they share a common aircraft type, and Airbus’ order backlog is measured in years.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JBLU/jetblue-airwa...
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SAVE/spirit-airlin...
I am not an expert in airlines, and I am sure there are COVID effects, but it seems like the other domestic airlines have bounced back quicker since they are showing profits.
But more importantly, I remember Jetblue wanting to provide a better than average flying experience when the airline started, so I presume the only reason they would want to merge with Spirit, a company who does the exact opposite, is because they are facing financial headwinds.
Jetblue and Spirit both have a strategy of lowering costs by only running one aircraft type, the Airbus A320 family, which means that their pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, only need training on one type of aircraft and can be flexibly deployed, they only maintain one set of spare parts, etc.
The Airbus order backlog is several years long. If you need planes earlier than that, your only recourse is to buy someone else's planes.
---
FWIW, Q2 2023, JBLU reported highest quarterly net profit: https://simpleflying.com/jetblue-record-quarterly-revenues-q...
Still, the two aircraft fleet is a lot smaller than what you would see on a legacy carrier.
At this point it is the bread and butter of a low cost carrier. JBLU originally started as one. Legacy carriers are more likely to get different types of planes for different missions, and pit the duopolists against each other to secure better pricing.
Spirit isn't a perfect match (different market segments), but otherwise they use the same model of aircraft and have some operational efficiencies. I'd hazard a guess Spirit's branding and low cost model will be tossed out in favor of JetBlue's operating model, and that segment of the market will be left to Frontier.
Per my ten flights this year with them (out of BWI, Miami, Vegas & Reno) it's a Pay less and get out the airport quickest experience. Their planes i flown on are new planes with seats that are a bit less comfortable. Their refund policy is awful ..just don't cancel.
Theres tons of negative press about them and I bet a lot of it is stirred up by fake news marketing via their competitors. TikTok has lots of influencers / social media professionals trashing them with their fake news marketing videos (like a few such tikTok(ers) have millions of followers).
If JetBlue buys them no more cheap good flights and that cuts out a lot people who can afford to fly with them now and that's crap..flying/traveling should be affordable for many not just middle to upper class!
Otherwise, I've had okay experiences with Spirit prior to this year but I won't be flying with them again since it is shorter to drive than suffer their constant delays.
What are some examples of this "fake news marketing" that you're claiming?
But did it reduce competition compared to where we'd be if there had not been a merger?
Sprint was on the way out. They were likely to go bankrupt and have their assets sold off to AT&T or Verizon. The result would be 3 national carries (just like we got with the merger) but with T-Mobile a distant third.
With the merger, T-Mobile got Sprint's spectrum and became much more viable to many more people as an alternative to Verizon and AT&T. T-Mobile is now the #2 carrier, a little bit ahead of AT&T.
For example, Sprint's assets could have been sold to Google (which already operates an MVNO), or Comcast, Cisco, Amazon, Samsung, etc. These are all companies that could afford to buy it, and doing so would complement their existing business, but they don't already operate a major wireless carrier and so wouldn't reduce competition.
Getting a fourth carrier established from scratch would be a serious financial challenge even for companies like Google and Apple.
We've also got AT&T in our house, and it's far worse, even after the degradation of T-Mobile.
I think if the premise behind this lawsuit is that the consolidation did the damage, though, the plaintiffs have quite a row to hoe. Sprint was circling the drain prior to the merger. Can they argue that Sprint just going away and having their assets (like spectrum licenses) sold off to satisfy creditors after they went bankrupt was healthier for competition? That seems highly speculative.
I'm not sure what the solution is, and I don't think the merger was good, but I don't see that disallowing it would've improved this particular market.
I'm pretty sure that it has been the case in 99% of scenarios were consolidation always ended up in a shittier experience for the consumer and employees regardless of the promises the merging companies made.
But money talks at the end of the day.
Source: used to deal with permits for them in a metro area.
Ultimately they got some assets in the merger though
Right now I am in small town south GA and getting 120/40 on cellular.
The universe enforced me being unreachable outside of work hours and I didn't mind that at all.
But yes, the nextel merger and the bad gamble with wiMax definitely sunk them long term.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_T-Mobile...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merger_of_Sprint_Corporation...
>In December 2013, multiple reports indicated that Sprint Corporation and its parent company SoftBank were working towards a deal to acquire a majority stake in T-Mobile US for at least US$20 billion...On August 4, 2014, Bloomberg reported that Sprint had abandoned its bid to acquire T-Mobile, considering the unlikelihood that such a deal would be approved by the U.S. government and its regulators
I guess saying it got blocked is subtly inaccurate, though. They simply stopped because they weren't confident in getting through antitrust.
Why am I not surprised to see that name. Is there anything that SoftBank touched that's not a complete failure? What the fuck have they been doing besides burning Saudi oil sheik money?
The whole reason to form the monopoly is to extract that money from the citizens. They have the money, the players merely want it.
So, no.. apparently the money does not talk at the end of the day. Corruption clearly does.
But it's pretty difficult to prove any of this, because you don't know what would have happened if there wasn't a merger.
Yea.. but "not merging" isn't something that had to be approved by the DOJ. It's a false equivalence.
* Verizon Wireless: 143.3 million (Q2 2023)
* T-Mobile US: 116.7 million (Q2 2023)
* AT&T Mobility: 105.2M million (Q2 2023)
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operato...
By stock market cap:
* TMUS: $170.51B
* VZ: $150.84B
* T: $113.22B
(of course, VZ and T both have significant businesses outside of wireless so this isn't a super great comparison)
Hard to argue that you should break up either of Verizon or AT&T and not T-Mobile by literally any metric, unless you think wireless companies shouldn't also have terrestrial networks
That would be honest wins for the US telecom market, and drive lots of competition, while preserving some common sense / fair access to shared infrastructure for all.
I used the Apple Business Chat feature for support for a shipping issue I had recently with Everlane and it was actually amazing. It had its own verified icon, so I knew it wasn't a scam, I could answer when I was able, and they were able to respond as they were able (though, I did find it quite timely, even when I wasn't) and not at all did I have to call someone, or talk talk to a chatbot (as far as I could tell anyway). It was a seamless experience and it got my issue resolved.
I personally like this model of customer support. No reason this can't extend to SMS
I am personally tired of the oligopolies in US. Bring in some competition. I thought the free market was a thing here ( or is it just lip service ) .
The only way it makes sense is if the wireless companies have other customers that are served by having orders of magnitude additional antennas everywhere.
And regardless of the arguments against the above, the cellular carriers were given billions and billions of taxpayer money, and tax breaks, and all manner of kid-glove court and legislative decisions in the past 30 years. Consumers are getting screwed from every side possible, more taxes, more fees, and more monthly service charges.
but at least the ads load blazing fast while i'm on the train, i guess.
I mean, I want 5G when I go travel without needing to pay extra, and that happens right now. I don't want to pay roaming charges just because I fly to Detroit or a small town in Missouri.
And history has shown that smaller carriers aren't going to provide that kind of service.
If you've got a plan that specifically limits you to 5G if you want to avoid roaming charges, then that's between you and your (likely oligopolistic) carrier.
It's like the difference between 2.4Ghz wifi, and 5/6 Ghz wifi. The 6Ghz spectrum has less penetration than 5ghz which has less than 2.4ghz. But you're still going to be running Wifi 6 on 2.4ghz instead of Wifi 4 because it still has improvements at those frequencies. In that same way, new towers are going to be 5G. The only drawback of running 5G instead of 4G on the same frequency is device compatibility.
AT&T runs 4G and 5G on bands 2. And are shutting down 4G on band 5 to deploy 5G instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility#Radio_frequenc...
The big reason to push 5G is surveillance. You could always be tracked to within half a mile or so with cell phone towers, but with 5G the cell towers alone can track you within a specific building. mmWave 5G provides location information with sub-meter precision. Telecom companies sell our location data, and with 5G that location data becomes much much more valuable.
Moving to 5G with more antennas also allows for more efficient spectrum use in most cases. Spectrum is extremely expensive, and a limiting factor in some areas.
Free market has always been lip service in the US.
Sure. Why? But let's pause for a moment and make any other systemic changes necessary not to end up here again so quickly.
What really needs to be done is the monopolistic elements of cell phone service like spectrum, tower, and backhaul provided at cost by a neutral (state owned) entity and the retail services built on top of reselling that.
The barrier to entry on a ground up cell network is almost impossible to surmount without billions in capital but an MVNO that can work on the same cost basis and network as the national chains?
Edit to add: If your towers are as congested as they seem, the carriers should be aware, and the problem is likely a lack of available tower sites; either because of geographical considerations, site owners don't want towers, or local regulators don't want towers. Additional networks won't really help with that either.
TBH, this happens a lot in large stable industries.
The commercial mobile phone network was invented in the 80's. Comparing market behaviors during the industry's infancy to the behaviors of established industries is wrong. The market took some time to figure out best practices, for consumers and industry health.
20's years ago roaming fees and texting fees where expensive, but then corporations figured out unlimited packages were more profitable. We pay a set price now for texting for the month, but it still costs the carriers money for each text we send. The carriers just hope that the power texters balance with the infrequent texters allowing them to turn a profit. The same with calling.
I don't know if regional networks could compete with national networks. I just want to reinforce that market practices at the industry's infancy aren't the same as they are now.
Hey smb, we see you send notifications to your customers . It’s be a real shame if those messages stopped delivering to your customer . Good thing you can pay us a brand registration fee just $50 and oh for each type of message a recurring $10 fee.
It wasn’t a price hike to consumers directly but really was mob style shake down.
I am fully in favor of businesses incurring "massive fees and restrictions" for sending text messages.
The negligible cost of sending an email, resulting in the email SPAM problem, has indicated that doing otherwise will result in a massive flood of unwanted text messages for everyone.
Before you just pay $20 to Twilio and that's enough to send messages for years. Now you have to create a fake "business" entry with them, pay them monthly, etc... It's not a lot of money, but I just don't want to deal with yet another monthly bill.
I basically switched to using my employer's Twilio account for personal stuff. They don't mind with my volume.
It's an authentication problem not a cost problem.
[1]: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act...
They certainly haven’t gotten rid of spam messages, but they still block a lot of fully compliant text messages
Unfortunately, they could probably keep raising prices and companies would have no choice but to pay up
That’s because the wireless companies banded together and formed a cartel
So suppose Carol clicks "Contact Me Immediately Please" on a website and and enters her phone number... But--oops--there's a typo. Now Alice is going to get an "unsolicited" message even though literally everybody involved is operating in good faith.
Even if someone is maliciously pretending to be Alice, neither the website nor the phone-carrier has a better malice-detecting tool than simply sending it and seeing if the recipient replies "STOP".
I sometimes wonder how many people use the STOP function. I'm more inclined to ignore it (if it's a one-off) or use the spam reporting feature than I am to reply "STOP" if I don't recognize the sender/campaign because of how jaded I've gotten from email. If you hit the "unsubscribe" link on a spam email, you only get more spam because you just confirmed the inbox is a) active, b) monitored, and c) is checked by someone willing to open and interact with spam messages.
By the time SMS spam became common, I just assumed things would play out the same, and have probably reported plenty of legitimate mistypes to Verizon as spam. It just doesn't feel like it's worth the risk to directly respond.
2016 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/22/stagefrig...
2018 https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvakb3/inside-nso-group-spyw...
2019 https://www.wired.com/story/imessage-interactionless-hacks-g...
2020 https://macsecurity.net/view/458-imessage-zero-click-exploit...
2021 https://www.wired.com/story/apple-imessage-zero-click-hacks/
2023 https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2023/06/02/warning-...
IIRC, there was a ~recent (2023) iOS CVE that matched this description, and it got a TON of attention because it was such an anomaly. I'm not shilling for Apple, but want to understand your comment better.
2016 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/22/stagefrig...
2018 https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvakb3/inside-nso-group-spyw...
2019 https://www.wired.com/story/imessage-interactionless-hacks-g...
2020 https://macsecurity.net/view/458-imessage-zero-click-exploit...
2021 https://www.wired.com/story/apple-imessage-zero-click-hacks/
2023 https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2023/06/02/warning-...
Let's do that then. Seems like it would be the best of all worlds. Click on "Sign up for text alerts" go through the OAuth flow and the user grants you the ability to text them (and importantly revoke that privilege) they never learn your number and you can send messages directly via API and avoid the Twilio overhead. The carrier(s) set up strict rules for what kinds of messages you can send and how often and violating them means your app id getting pulled.
God I wish we would just do this for email as well. Spam would just stop being an issue for 99% of cases.
This is The Campaign Registry.
Every inch of it is a confusing mess. It mandates setup and subscription fees. Last I checked, registration usually took 4-10 days but can be much longer.
The way the regulation reads, every business that uses A2P 10DLC (software-sent text) needs to be registered and pay recurring fees.
The purported intent is to determine which mass mailed texts are allowed. In theory, all others would be flagged or blackholed.
The way the regulation is written however, it captures every software-sent text. This includes situations like a tech support session where a technician texts a diagram to a customer. The regs don't differentiate between this and actual mass mailing.
I understand that it's not Twilio's fault, but they desperately need to hire some developer evangelists to write some documentation.
> All Twilio messaging is considered A2P in the US and Canada.
1. Companies say they won't raise rates, or that rates will go down
2. People believe them
Prices for parts and labor for repairs and upgrades will increase, if only because these costs are additive -- things will break, new tech will need supporting, etc...
The real question, IMO, is at what frequency do costs rise and by how much? Sure, I'd like to limit the amount of big money transfers to execs, but that's not really possible.
No one believes them. The court just uncritically accepts cockamamie arguments from "expert economists" without any input from the public at all, typically.
They can wholesale out the infrastructure to service providers who then have a lower barrier to entry and increases competition.
T-Mobile already has many wholesale providers like Mint Mobile that offer much lower rates than Tmobile directly.
>Whoever owns the infrastructure shouldn’t also provide the service.
How does it benefit people to have another entity with all of its costs in the chain literally just collecting rent?
Tmobile/Verizon/ATT all use different brands like Mint for price segmentation, selling the spectrum at different prices to different populations. And they prioritize traffic based on how important the client is (typically related to how much they pay):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QoS_Class_Identifier
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/tn4733/qci_leve...
This doesn't make sense as a universal maxim. It does make sense in certain contexts such as government-funded monopolies (the former Bell System) or government-funded expansion efforts (RDOF and BEAD expansion being funded by the United States and separately by the several states)
And it also doesn't make sense at certain technological levels. Old telephone lines were a point-to-point set of wires from your house to some central point. Allowing competitors into that central point and using the single set of wires that were dedicated to you, the consumer was very clean and easy to do
Unbundling shared media like coaxial lines or radio networks where all of the traffic is intermingled--at what point do you differentiate between the different providers? What are the different providers actually....providing?
It's like the deregulated natural gas market in Georgia. The monopoly no longer serves customers directly, but they still own all the pipes in the ground. The 'marketers' buy gas and sell it to us, the consumers, but it's all put into the pipelines at the same place by the old monopoly. It's all just a financial shell game with provider A essentially redeeming so many cubic feet of gas into the system. It's fungible and there's effectively no differentiation between the providers, who all have exactly the same pricing, exactly the same contracts, exactly the same policies. Except now you have half a dozen CEOs, and HR departments, and IT departments, and billing systems all adding costs--costs that are now unregulated since it's "competitive"
What market forces would then incentivize infrastructure upgrades? To do this and still incentivize upgrades you'd need political mandates.
This is what was forced* on T-Mobile/Telekom back at home in Germany. They own a lot of basic infrastructure that is a natural monopoly and where having multiple companies built that out redundantly would be utter nonsense. The government makes Telekom rent it out at prices decided on by the Federal Network Agency.
They still get to be a normal service provider as well though.
* Technically it started out as a government company and is still owned to 32% by the country.
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/hospital-doctor-m...
Claude summary:
A U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of the FTC in an antitrust case, ordering St. Luke's to undo its acquisition of the Saltzer Medical Group. The FTC and others alleged the acquisition violated antitrust regulations by lessening competition and potentially increasing healthcare costs. St. Luke's argued the acquisition was vital to achieve healthcare reform goals and maintain business viability. The judge disagreed, saying there are other ways to improve care without violating antitrust laws and risking increased costs.
Here is an FTC press release detailing how the un-doing of the merger was carried out: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2017/05/...
That's pretty much what antitrust actions are. It's super rare and I can't imagine there's a case here against T-Mobile as both Verizon and AT&T are bigger.
> the district court granted Steves and Sons' request to unwind the merger and plans to hold an auction for the merged assets after this appeal.
Background of the case: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/fourth-circuit-affirms-...
Has there ever been a similar suit against a large merger like this in the past, successful or not? I'm really curious how the legal system views these "please undo the past" requests.
https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...
The original iPhone plan didn’t even have unlimited minutes (450 + 5000 night and weekend) and only came with 200 texts, for $60 in 2008 dollars ($90 today).
The current T-Mobile “essentials” plan is $60 with no taxes/fees besides sales tax, and it comes with unlimited voice/text with 50GB of data before throttling.
I don’t have a history of every single plan ever, but I don’t think T-Mobile ever offered an “unlimited everything” plan for less than $50 or so, pre or post-merger.
If you include T-Mobile subsidies like Mint Mobile, there’s an argument to be made that prices have dropped dramatically.
The other truth is that Sprint was always cheaper because it was by far the least reliable and desirable carrier. Sprint had the lowest prices and the lowest nationwide subscriber count because their product was inferior.
Instead of two great carriers (AT&T/Verizon), one okay carrier (T-Mobile), and one god-awful carrier (Sprint), now we have three great carriers where you are likely to be able to reliably choose any three regardless of where you live. That wasn’t really the case pre-merger.
And of course, there’s a great argument for the fact that Sprint would have probably gone bankrupt and been liquidated without its merger.
Under Sprint, I was paying ~$300 per month.
> The other truth is that Sprint was always cheaper because it was by far the least reliable and desirable carrier.
It depends on where in the country you were (or were traveling overseas). Google-fi was originally built on Sprint infrastructure and (IIRC) used the same overseas billing system.
Traveling overseas with them was fantastic and inexpensive.
> If you include T-Mobile subsidies like Mint Mobile, there’s an argument to be made that prices have dropped dramatically.
My costs per month (same plans, same everything), are now $485. The only thing that has changed is the "fees" I pay monthly. So yeah, costs have gone up to consumers, even for us who didn't change anything and were forced to switch to T-Mobile.
For 6 lines, I paid $276 back in 2017, and it is $310 now, so in ~6 years, the price went up 12%. And some of that was increased taxes.
Perhaps you’re on an old plan and need to change to a new one, or maybe you’re including device payments or insurance in your figure?
Magenta is $160/month with taxes and fees included for 4 lines. Make sure you enroll in AutoPay for the discount.
Essentials should be $105 but it doesn’t include taxes and fees, so it doesn’t actually save a ton over Magenta but it’s still less.
Like I said, you need to switch plans.
Sounds like AT&T and Verizon people should go to T-Mobile if their service is so expensive.
If T-Mobile works in their area (or for those with specialty phones, with their phone).
It's not as simple as "lets split them up and it will all get better".
5G densities are for factory automation, self-driving cars, drones, sensors, superdense urban centers etc.
And the 5G you are speaking of is mmwave. Mid-band 5G is perfectly useable and a significant improvement over LTE. Verizon and T-Mobile push over 1Gb/s over mid-band 5G at the same reach LTE provides and much less latency. mmwave you can get up to 4Gb/s (at short distances). Even more so when Verizon moves rolls out SA 5G in place of the current NSA 5G.
A family member of mine uses T-Mo's contract-free 5G home internet. Latency low enough for video calls enabling WFH and playing online games. Speeds in the hundreds of megabits even during peak hours. $50/mo no contract.
I can take my cheap laptop around, pair it to my phone, and get the same internet pretty much anywhere in town. I can do cloud gaming or work anywhere I get cell service. I pay $15/mo no contract. It's awesome.
When you say "the people", you really mean the government. Out of curiosity, how does your customer experience with your cell provider compare to that of the DMV, IRS or any other government agency you may have had the pleasure of interacting with?
The solution to insufficient competition should not be to remove all competition (which would be the case with government ownership).
There are mitigating factors such as T-mobile becoming a much more potent competitor with the mid-band spectrum they got from Spectrum.
The FCC hoped that Dish would step in to emerge as that 4th have not materialized. We need Dish or someone else to emerge as a major competitor.
That said, I don't think reversing the merger is a viable option at this point. We really need a 4th national competitor to merge. Dish has potential but so far it's not made a dent.
Attorneys for T-Mobile called the lawsuit “unprecedented,” and said the plaintiffs’ damages were “speculative.”
“If plaintiffs are unhappy with Verizon and AT&T, there is a remedy available in the highly competitive market that wireless consumers enjoy today — they should switch to T-Mobile, not sue it,” attorneys for T-Mobile told the court.
DISH is about 12-24 months from bankruptcy and is losing subscribers, and does not have a true national network
The cable companies are just MVNOs riding off Verizon, so that is kind of limited in how much actual competitive pressure they're applying to the market
“Comcast - bringing all of the customer service you relied on as your cable provider into your pocket”.
Besides, it would have been scientifically impossible for Comcast to be a real competitor with Sprints limited spectrum allocation.
But, they could've done what they're doing now: use a limited amount of spectrum in areas where their customers are concentrated and offload the rest to their MVNO partner (Verizon)
Comcast and Charter both are buying up CBRS licenses and putting up both CBRS radios and outdoor strand mounted wifi hotspots in their wireline service territory. Since that's where 100% of their customers live, that will work to offload the bulk of the traffic they pay Verizon for. For the people who travel outside the service area, they'll just roam onto Verizon
For sure it's not the same as VZ, T, and TMUS having a national network that competes for every single wireless customer period, but it would probably be more effective than the zombie DISH out there that supposedly has a network covering 70% of the US population, but a vast majority of their customers are on their MVNO partners in T-Mobile and AT&T.
Back in the day, T-Mobile’s access was poor in buildings because the only frequencies they had access to didn’t work well through walls.
https://forums.androidcentral.com/threads/how-well-does-tmob...
Why should I care about this merge, will it raise my price because of the merge? yes I'm a prepaid phone user.