Umm, what about the French carrier Free Mobile? The carrier has also recently proposed an offer to T-Mobile for acquisition.
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Sprint Abandons Plans to Purchase T-Mobile
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Apple a wireless carrier? Hmm...
Person: "Hey what service do you have?"
Person 2: "Apple."
Person: "Yeah I know that phone's from Apple, but I'm talking about your phone
carrier or service provider."
Person 2: "Apple."
Person: "Are you deaf?"
Person 2: "Apple."
Oh, I know. I don't think the most recent acquisitions should have been allowed either. I was just explaining why they keep trying it.
Regulating "big" companies actually hurts small companies. Big companies love regulation. They can afford to pay for compliance (or pay for lobbyists to exempt them from regulation altogether), while small companies cannot, thereby driving them out of business. That's why big companies often lobby for more regulation (while seeking exemption themselves from said regulation).
In the case here, government is supposedly going to enforce anti-trust laws to protect the consumer from the merging of two big companies. Antitrust laws, however, can be determental to the consumer, and I for one don't trust the government to protect me from such a "threat" as a large company.
More good info about antitrust here:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/case-against-antitrust
I read somewhere that with Sprint shrinking and T-Mo growing, that T-Mo is set surpass Spring in size, making the merger harder.
I'm glad it didn't go through but it looks like that failure (and probably the continued bleeding of customers) cost the CEO his job.
I'm glad it didn't go through but it looks like that failure (and probably the continued bleeding of customers) cost the CEO his job.
Oh ok thanks for that. I guess the solution to a problem caused by government regulation (regulations that support the existence of monopolies) is even more government regulation (antitrust laws that further support the existence of monopolies). As usual, government regulations have the opposite intended effect of consumer protection, and liberal big government lovers eat it up. O well.
Nice rant. It didn't even come close to making sense, but I'm sure lashing out felt great.
FWIW, the point was that you cannot represent the CI as an unbiased source of information about such things. They are a think tank with a very specific ideological point of view, which is that market forces are inherently good, and the regulation of them by government is inherently bad. All of their reports are designed to support that concept. But as I said earlier, it's at least 100 years too late to have that debate, and good luck finding any advanced economy that accepts the CI's views.
I understand there are some band differences, but what you posted proves my point. Sprint iPhone 5s phones have all the capable bands to switch carriers, either CDMA or GSM, at least technically. In fact, from what you posted, switching TO SPRINT could be more of a problem than the reverse.
But it's back to my original question... Will the law force SPRINT and Virgin Mobile USA (who I'm with) to unlock their phones. Right now their policy is strictly NO.
And back to my point. Clearly the iPhone 5s has all the technical capabilities as I'm sure the iPhone 6 will too. Sprint might be able to use loopholes and whatnot for earlier phones, but I can't see how they can legally refuse to unlocked iPhone 5s models, since if anything, they have more frequency bands than the VERIZON & ATT models.
Am I missing something here?
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Since it's no LEGAL, I assume there will immediately be a market for HACKERS!
WHERE ARE MY HACKERS???
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People forget all the TV licenses turned in during the DTV BIG SWITCH and various TV frequencies above channel 59 and below channel 7 in the US that are now available. The FCC is actively seeking TV owners to turn in their TV licenses for them to SELL for cellular use.
My point here being is that the FCC is siding with the cell companies over the TV companies and this will ultimately hurt local news and information in small town America.
Sure it made sense...not my fault you didn't understand it. How can one trust the government to prevent monopolies when the government themselves create monopolies? And what is wrong with citing a source that supports free markets, while arguing against regulation? CI might be biased towards free markets, but that doesn't invalidate the arguments. Everyone is biased towards certain policies (i.e., everyone favors one policy or another, and is hence, "biased").
You're right that this country and others do not follow the principles of free markets, rather, the principles of regulated markets. That's why our economy is in the fragile state it is in, while friends of the politicians prevail at the expense of those are not so fortunate to be as politically well-connected.
My original point is that regulators at the FTC and DoJ, etc., are a huge waste of space, particularly since antitrust policies and other regulations promote monopolies, vs. preventing them. If you really want to see fair competition, try reducing the number and impact of regulations, not increasing them. However, if you're so close-minded and hooked to what the TV tells you, you'll shun off any opposing view as "biased" and presumably invalid since it argues against what what the government-controlled media told you to think.
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Interesting point. And yes it's true, Jobs considered buying a carrier or starting one after being frustrated with negotiations with them.
But Jobs was the master player. I don't think he ever intended on doing that. But with his reputation for being an erratic dream machine with gobs of money, he definitely scared the carriers into thinking he was serious.
Jobs +1
Carriers -1
Yes, I see you are promoting the CI's ideological point of view right down the line. That does not mean that your argument makes any sense, either logically or historically. It is essentially a belief system.
But again, a nice rant. Your method of disagreeing certainly is consistent.
It's funny to dismiss the mechanics of how an economy works as a "belief system" as if it was some sort of fundamentally flawed religion that required a leap of faith. Basic economic laws, such as supply and demand and the notion that there is no free lunch (laws and principles that big government supports simply ignore), is not a "belief system" in as much as the principle of gravity and other laws of physics are not a "belief system." These are stone cold facts.
What really requires a leap of faith is faith in the government to regulate society to prosperity. Logically, and historically, that sort of faith has always, and I mean ALWAYS, ended badly for its citizens.
You want proof that free markets make sense, both logically and historically? Look at our very own country's history. America became the economic powerhouse as a result of a generally unregulated free market, and an unwavering will of its citizens to succeed through hard work, and minimal drag from government interference. Only relatively recently has America's economy gone into the toilet, thanks to regulations lobbied for by special interests and big corporations.
That is not what is being said, not even remotely. Most of economics is actually quite theoretical. As the old story goes, if you laid all the world's economists end-to-end, they would not reach a conclusion. Economics is not physics. Never has been, never will be. Speaking stone cold facts, those are them.
Only recently? That's a real knee-slapper. This year just happens to be the centennial of the passage of the Clayton Act. The Sherman Act is nearly 25 years older. So apparently the liberal-big-government-media-conspiracy goes back further than we knew. Even Benjamin Harrison was in on it apparently. My God, where will it end?
So are you doubting fundamental economic principles, such as supply and demand, and the no free lunch principle? Do you doubt that at least these basic ideas are facts? Liberals ignore these concepts all the time by fooling people in to thinking that there IS a free lunch. Hence, the rising costs of government to pay for that no-so-free lunch. Again, no theories or grey areas there. It's all mechanics.
Similarly, antitrust laws are also a matter of mechanics and not of abstract theory. Antitrust laws, as many market regulations, are lobbied for by big corporations. The mechanics are simple. Regulations hurt small timers, so the big guys can squeeze them out.
Those acts you speak of are just examples of regulation, but there have been countless regulations since the Sherman Act. As the quantity and impact of regulations on industry has increased, the strength of our country's economy and middle class has weakened. The answer, therefore, is not more regulation, since regulation is the culprit behind the decline in our economy and the decline of the middle class. Again, the proof is our own country's history. Less regulation = stronger economy.
As usual, ppl with your position just throw a temper tantrum and take their ball and run home.
As a 9 1/2 year employee of Sprint (left in the middle of June), I can say that they are in some definite trouble now. The company has no identity and no direction whatsoever. When Dan Hesse came on board it was obvious...fix customer service and get the Nextel merger integrated ASAP.
It took years to shut down Nextel's iDEN network, and he did a darn decent job of fixing their perception in the marketplace. However, he screwed up badly by going with WiMAX instead of LTE and then had to back-peddle that down and try to roll out LTE after the other carriers had already done so. Furthermore, he farmed out the network operations to Sanyo and Sony/Ericson, which was a disaster.
I was a DM of retail, before that ran retail stores and before that was a rep. I'd say a good solid 1/3 of all in-store interactions were based around the horrible service and horrendously slow data speeds. As the DM, the service at my home was so bad I had to go get an ATT phone just so I could work at my house.
As they optimize the network, it makes the experience bad, which is leading to customer's porting out in droves, which is leading to quarterly losses, etc, etc. It's a vicious cycle that I have no idea how they'll fix. In some ways I feel bad for them, there are a few good people there. in other ways, I feel like this is what they get for having such unclear vision. Remember the first financing program they rolled out last September and killed in January? Try explaining to your employees how that was the greatest thing ever to have it axed in 160 days. No one who works there takes anything they do seriously.
Their other big problem is credit standards. People would come in constantly from ATT and VZN saying they had a $500 deposit for 1 line and Sprint would give them 3 with no deposit. It led to the network being bogged down with sub-prime customers while ATT and VZN continued to hold onto the A credit class folks who actually pay their bills and allow those two carriers to work on their networks.
As far as customer service goes, I think ATT and VZN have both come a long, long way and have had nothing but great in-store experiences while mystery shopping both carriers over the last year. The price might be higher, but I can say it's worth it to be able to use it. There's nothing worse than loading maps and never getting past the grid screen. My ATT phone consistently runs 20-60 MPS down. My Sprint phone was lucky to ever get over 1.
Adios Sprint. Bankruptcy awaits you in a dark, dark room.
It took years to shut down Nextel's iDEN network, and he did a darn decent job of fixing their perception in the marketplace. However, he screwed up badly by going with WiMAX instead of LTE and then had to back-peddle that down and try to roll out LTE after the other carriers had already done so. Furthermore, he farmed out the network operations to Sanyo and Sony/Ericson, which was a disaster.
I was a DM of retail, before that ran retail stores and before that was a rep. I'd say a good solid 1/3 of all in-store interactions were based around the horrible service and horrendously slow data speeds. As the DM, the service at my home was so bad I had to go get an ATT phone just so I could work at my house.
As they optimize the network, it makes the experience bad, which is leading to customer's porting out in droves, which is leading to quarterly losses, etc, etc. It's a vicious cycle that I have no idea how they'll fix. In some ways I feel bad for them, there are a few good people there. in other ways, I feel like this is what they get for having such unclear vision. Remember the first financing program they rolled out last September and killed in January? Try explaining to your employees how that was the greatest thing ever to have it axed in 160 days. No one who works there takes anything they do seriously.
Their other big problem is credit standards. People would come in constantly from ATT and VZN saying they had a $500 deposit for 1 line and Sprint would give them 3 with no deposit. It led to the network being bogged down with sub-prime customers while ATT and VZN continued to hold onto the A credit class folks who actually pay their bills and allow those two carriers to work on their networks.
As far as customer service goes, I think ATT and VZN have both come a long, long way and have had nothing but great in-store experiences while mystery shopping both carriers over the last year. The price might be higher, but I can say it's worth it to be able to use it. There's nothing worse than loading maps and never getting past the grid screen. My ATT phone consistently runs 20-60 MPS down. My Sprint phone was lucky to ever get over 1.
Adios Sprint. Bankruptcy awaits you in a dark, dark room.
Nice post. I agree sprint has been all over the place. NV announced in 2010, still not done. Yet they wanna start spark. Draconian unlock policy too. SoftBank was supposed to infuse cash and help yet instead they wanted tmobile, another conflicting network. Customer service is consistently rated at or near the bottom every year.
After the SoftBank merger they were supposed to get just over 8b in cash. That money, we were told, was to go towards network upgrades. Which no one ever saw. We used to just joke that someone went to the casino with Masa's money.
Lol. 8 billion yet network upgrades still stalling. They're just disorganized so bad. I got banned from a sprint forum just cuz I didn't drink the sprint koolaid. They all look at tmobile like it's inferior like they didn't just try to buy them.
If u can jb just put a Verizon prl on there. Roam and stream internet like crazy. Sprint will send u a notice saying they're canceling your contract with no etf and u havev30 days to port to another service.
Or u could go to tmobile and they'll pay your etf when u switch
T-Mobile has been on fire lately. They now have 50 Million subscribers to Sprint's 54 Million. Looks like T-Mobile will be the number 3 carrier in 2015.