And the real problem there is the word ‘shortsighted’.
When an industry like telecom becomes infected with the need to post quarterly profit every quarter, BAD things happen.
Why?
Because telecom needs UPGRADES. EXPENSIVE upgrades.
I understand why the big telecoms don’t improve their outside lines. Landlines are dying, at 8% a year. They’re a losing proposition, long-run.
Wireless data, though, will soon be the new king.
Why?
Right now I pay about $37 a month for internet from Comcast. It’s good internet, fairly fast. However, when Sprint’s 4G data comes to my town, finally, I’ll be able to get similar data speeds for much less. Why? Because then I can just tether a 4G smartphone, and use that as my internet connection.
Sprint’s 4G is unlimited data for a flat fee, and that fact is going to force AT&T and Verizon to start offering the same thing, sooner or later.
I’ll admit Sprint and T-Mobile aren’t exactly making money hand-over-fist, unlike AT&T and Verizon. However, that doesn’t mean they’re going out of business anytime soon. Sprint got the iPhone last year, and their unlimited 4G network is growing. That’s going to be a game-changer.
You’re overlooking something fairly basic, al27052, in that the wireless spectrum does not have unlimited capacity. Unlike wired, where you can always (at expense and time, yes) add more cables to handle increased demand, the wireless spectrum has limits. That’s why the auction a couple of years back when some bandwidths were freed up was such a big deal. Technology improvements will probably alleviate that for a while, but sooner or later you’re going to run into a limit on the amount of data you can cram into one bandwidth. At that point, I’d expect prices to skyrocket.
I had a credit card with them for ten years. When they started charging an annual fee, I dropped them and went with a card with no fee. They’ve been trying to get me back for the last 18 years. Heck with them.
I pay off my balance every month which, according to the credit card companies, makes me a “deadbeat”. They get their percentage of each sale and should be happy with that.
Not only is Sprint “not… making money hand-over-fist”, the fact is that they’ve rarely been profitable to any sustainable degree for the past decade. The last profitable quarter they had was Q3, 2007 where they earned $133 million - since then, the company has racked up an impressive series of losses:
First, Dish Network is in negotations to use some of the wireless spectrum they purchased last year to make a wireless network. Dunno if it’ll get FCC approval, but at least it’s on the table, so to speak.
Second, the wireless spectrum that Lightsquared bought is still available to any buyer with the money. Perhaps even Lightsquared will acquire MORE spectrum and actually try again to get FCC approval.
Third, AT&T and Verizon are just sitting on the old analog TV spectrum they bought several years ago. It’s completely unused. At some point (probably 10 years or maybe more) they are going to be forced, one way or another, to actually DO something with it.
Finally, the military has way more spectrum than it actually needs. Sooner or later someone’s going to introduce a bill to carve off some choice bits of that spectrum as well.
Are you not familiar with Moore’s Law? You do know that the cost of data transmission, both wired and wireless, follow a similar trend as Moore’s Law does with processor size and cost-of-a-million-calculations, right?
And it isn’t about keeping Sprint customers, it’s about stealing Verizon’s and AT&T’s. I went to Sprint less than two months after they got the iPhone.
I actually had an AT&T iPhone and a Verizon family plan, because I needed the iPhone for work, and had to get one before Verizon got it.
I COULD have gotten a Verizon iPhone, but refused because their prices are so high.
So AT&T and Verizon BOTH lost me on the same day.
But the iPhone isn’t the game changer. Unlimited 4G is.
I used to work in the telco industry. Research it was what I did.
I did not say that there wasn’t unused spectrum out there. I said that the wireless spectrum did not have an unlimited capacity and that unlike wired cable, you can’t add to it. There will come a time when the entire spectrum is used, and at that point I’d expect prices to go up. I make no predictions of when; I’ve been out of the industry long enough that I no longer track things like data demand and advances in transmission systems. I’m just saying that, eventually, they will not be able to cram any more data into it.
It seems arguable that we’re no where near the point we run out of bandwidth, further it seems arguable that the unused spectrum ought to be used for the public interest before gauging customers.
They are using a public resource, intended for the public interest. Not the interest of keeping it away from competitors. If a company whines about bandwidth, setting on scads of unused spectrum, the spectrum ought to be taken away and given to someone who will use it for the public.
Actually you can add to wireless capacity sort of the same way you add to wired capacity. Make each cell smaller but add more cells and you have the ability to reuse that ‘limited spectrum’ in theory a unlimited number of times. So wireless capacity is really unlimited. Now we don’t want a cell transmitter every 50 feet, but we do have the ability to increase wireless capacity vastly without adding spectrum.
And just for fun, for old times’ sake, I did a bit of research. It seems that as recently as this February, CNN Money is reporting on the spectrum crunch, and predictions are that prices will go up, quality will go down, and there will be less competition, and its expected within the next few years.
It’s kind of odd really, but when I determine which “shenanigans” I will put up with, nowhere in that calculation do I reference whether the “bastards” are getting “richer”.
My calculations typically involve a comparison of the prices and attributes of the products/services offered by the different companies.
Then I choose the one that fits my needs the best.
Because people will start using Sprint’s 4G wireless as their primary home internet. At that point, Sprint will actually start to make money again. Beating the wireline boys is a sweet, sweet bit of revenge. AT&T and Verizon both have heavily invested in infrastructure for Uverse/DSL/FiOS. When Sprint starts taking their customer base away things going to get a lot better for customers, IMO.
And it’s coming. As soon as 4G is available in my town, and I can get an iPhone that compatible with Sprint’s 4G (hopefully the very next iPhone), I’m ending my Comcast internet service.
People have been predicting the end of Moore’s Law for the last 40+ years. It will probably keep going for at LEAST another 8-10 years, and quite probably longer than that.
The entire article misses the fact that AT&T and Verizon are just sitting on the old TV spectrum they own. Why? They don’t want any competition.
Guess what? Sooner or later, even though Senator OldAsHeck thinks the internet is going to steal his car and kidnap his dog, market pressures are going to force the issue.
They are a reseller of Verizon Wireless. So if you sign up with them, you will stay on the Verizon network. Actually, you’ll do a little better since Page Plus does allow roaming on other systems (for an additional charge) if you are out of range of Verizon. As long as your phone was not orginally a Verizon prepaid phone, you can switch any Verizon phone easily.
If all you want is talk and text, their standard plan is:
100 minutes for $10
416 minutes for $25
1,000 minutes for $50
2,000 minutes for $80
Texts are 5 cents. You have to recharge every 120 days (1 year for the $80 plans) and unused minutes roll over if you do. There is a 50 cent per month maintenance fee.
If you use a lot of minutes and texts they have various monthly plans for heavy users, too. And they also have data plans, but they aren’t great if you are a big time user of data.
