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How the iPhone Led To the Sale of T-Mobile
Hugh Pickens writes "Kevin O'Brien writes that Deutsche Telekom's announcement to sell its American wireless unit, T-Mobile USA, to AT&T for $39 billion ended a decade-long foray into the American market that was undermined, in part, by the advent of the iPhone (reg. may be required). Deutsche Telekom had been generating decent sales from its American operation, but after the iPhone went on sale, sold exclusively at first for AT&T in the United States, T-Mobile USA began to lose its most lucrative customers: those on fixed, monthly plans, who defected to its larger American rivals — AT&T and Verizon Wireless. 'The iPhone effect cannot be underestimated in this decision,' says analyst Theo Kitz. "Without being able to sell the iPhone, T-Mobile was in an unsustainable position and T-Mobile USA became a problem child." Ironically, AT&T's acquisition won't help T-Mobile customers get access to the iPhone anytime soon, as T-Mobile will remain independent, albeit under AT&T's stewardship, for around a year, and won't offer the iPhone to its customers during that period."
I really like Tmobile, been with them 8 years, but this is going to get me onto a prepaid phone for voice only and just use the phone over WiFi for data.
Interestingly, it's totally different in Germany: T-Mobile was the exclusive iPhone vendor here until the very end of 2010. Won them a lot of customers, I guess.
the iphone has zero to do with tmobile being sold, which, in case people haven't noticed, still has to be approved by the government. This deal actually might not be, in which case a lot of people will be happy.
What a joke of an article. It only looks at customers lost from the iphone, and not customers gained once tmobile picked up the G1, their first android phone. Talk about spin.
If this is really what led to the sale, and the T-Mobile franchise will really be run as a separate business unit, then watch as that continues to shrink into nothing.
I was getting close to jumping ship from T-Mobile anyway – not because of the iPhone (or lack of it), and not to AT&T or Verizon – they're all too expensive.
So why couldn't people buy the iPhone unlocked? As I understand it T-Mobile is the only network in the US that doesn't penalise you for using your own phone.
Wasn't T-Mobile in the news a while ago because although they don't sell it, they said they'd give tech support to their customers who managed to carrier-unlock an iPhone on their own?
You'd have to pay the unsubsidized price, but you can still be an iPhone user and a T-mobile customer.
You said no to the iPhone. You and all other US carriers
AT&T said yes
So cry me a river...
how long until
Look who's on AT&T's Board of Directors (http://www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=5629)
Why, it's good ol' Gil Amelio – former Apple CEO for those who don't remember their Apple history.
Now it's all clear why AT&T had its lock on the iPhone.
It would have taken longer for Palm users to switch to iPhones if T Mobile had continued to support them. A lot of Palm users still are on with the $10 data plan, but no help from customer service, you have to work it out yourself. I wonder if I can move my SIM to an iPhone? My Centro is dying.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
According to the business sites, AT&T is going after T-Mobile for their spectrum - AT&T is hoping that T-Mobile's spectrum will help them with the connection and quality issues.
It has nothing to do with the iPhone or the Android.
I switched to prepay about two years ago, having had my share of $50 plus per month cell contracts. Watching people pay $80 or more per month for their phones both amazes me and depresses me. They are still too much status symbol than need so the price doesn't have to be justified in the minds of many. Figure nearly a thousand a year just to have a 'smart' phone, for some its more.
Once you adapt to prepaid phones; this means adapting your friends to the fact you have one too; you rack up a lot of free time. By free I mean, not stuck on the phone or jumping at every e-mail/etc notification. Then to top it off with $50 or more in savings a month you start getting into the habit of looking at other expenses (monthlies) and realizing there is money to be saved everywhere, let alone time. Take that $1000 a year and put it into an IRA. You will get more from that than your cell phone could ever return.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The main reason of T-Mobile's problems is one product - Flexpay. They went after the "subprime" market, and then they found out later that (Surprise!) they don't pay their bills. And the horrifically buggy implementation of this product has done nothing but hurt T-Mobile. It greatly affects time-to-market for almost all projects, which really hurts the business and causes them to lose postpaid customers.
The question is who was responsible for the exclusivity. Remember all carriers before and after the iPhone had exclusive phones. Even phones like the the Motorola RAZR were not exactly cross carrier as the Verizon version was a different model than the AT&T version as they worked on different frequencies. When Apple first came onto the market, they were not a guaranteed success. AT&T had to change their network for visual voicemail and Apple was new. Exclusivity was a way to help mitigate some risk. AT&T may have pushed for it, not Apple. From what I remember, iPhone was exclusive to AT&T until 2012 unless Apple paid to end the contract. It appears Apple did so as Verizon now has it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
a clear example of limiting market competition via monopolistic means
and of course as there is no real competition among iPhone phone carriers, they have to pay a premium for the service...
plenty of reasons to hate if you have to. But the iphone doesn't "suck in general". It just doesn't. Get over it.
> But the iphone doesn't "suck in general".
Imagine you have been handed an iPhone with no instruction manual and no prior experience of it.
The UI is completely unintuitive and non-discoverable. That sucks.
But it wasn't the whole puzzle. Sure, T-Mobile lost some customers to the iPhone over the years, but so did Verizon. The problem is that they were impacted more because they had a smaller number of customers to begin with.
T-Mobile had a particular niche that they served better than anyone else - the deaf community. Rag on the Sidekick all you want, but not only did they work better for the deaf community through pervasive TTY services, they had a specific plan for it, too. They just killed that service, effectively making enemies of some of their most fiercely loyal customers. Similarly, T-Mobile was known for not putting pressure on the handset OEMs to provide Android updates; it's among the most common complaints of Samsung owners.
T-Mobile tried competing with AT&T on the same merits that AT&T used to compete with Verizon. This was foundationally problematic, because they didn't stick to their strengths. "No data overage fees, ever" - that's all they had to say, and they would have had PLENTY of people who have had the pleasure of disputing $300-$800 of data overages. They could have implemented a spending cap to prevent outrageous bills, better advertised their international wi-fi calling, better advertised their bring-your-own-phone programs, and done something like "If you don't love us in 60 days, we'll refund every dime and help you go back to your old service, no questions asked". While I've heard a bad customer service story here and there for T-Mobile, my eight years of being a customer there have been an absolute pleasure. If they advertised that aspect of it, they might have been able to change some minds instead of trying to say "we can do what the iPhone does too"
It probably wouldn't have hurt to make it known that all the handsets they featured in their commercials run Android, just like the Verizon handsets, because lots of people think Android==Droid==Verizon Exclusive.
The fine article is correct in saying that T-Mobile couldn't compete with the iPhone at the hip-handset level. It fails to mention that there were plenty of other places where T-Mobile could have competed against AT&T and Verizon and won out, but didn't.
Bollocks, My nieces and nephews all under 10 picked it up within minutes.
Usually my internet irony detector works pretty well, but you actually sound serious?
I need a GSM phone because of my international travels. I bought an AT&T prepaid SIM card back in 2007 but let it expire 6 months ago because of all the dropped calls and the overcharges I had in my last stay in the US. I was planning to buy a T-Mobile prepaid SIM card in my next trip, but now this news came out.
If this takeover gets approved, who else will compete against AT&T in the GSM space?
My wife and I payed good money to get out of an AT&T contract several years ago and went over to T-mobile. We can't seem to get away from that company.
Rate hikes for everyone in 3... 2... 1...
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
Yes, blame the "sucking" technology that put mobile internet in the hands of millions of Americans, but not the business that capitalized on the strategic use of said technology to create an oligopoly.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
Imagine you have been handed an iPhone with no instruction manual and no prior experience of it.
The UI is completely unintuitive and non-discoverable. That sucks.
I don't have to imagine. I got mine and started using it without reading any instructions. Oh, except my sister in law had to show me how to open the SIM tray, but that's tricky on just about all phones if you don't know how.
T-Mobile is cheaper than AT&T. If acquisition = cost performance, everyone will pay less than current T-Mobile rates. But we know that will never happen. Macro business is all about leverage. AT&T had enough of it to make the government cave. Next victim is the consumer who has none of it.
oh, you mean the day I got mine. I absolutely hate itunes, But the UI on the iphone is completely and totally intuitive. You are looking for reasons that you don't need to hate if you don't think so.
T-Mobile supports the iPhone... just no 3G service....
3G service in the US is still pretty close to nonexistent outside of a couple of major metropolitan areas, anyway. If the network isn't there, it doesn't really matter what your phone supports.
And one of the most disturbing prospects of a merger between the two GSM/UMTS network owners is that it's actually going to reduce the incentives for any provider improve that situation with new infrastructure buildout, which is pretty dangerous when the existing incentive is already zero .
And we're not just talking about reducing the competitive forces (which ESR cites as being the only thing motivating new buildout) by a mere ~25%, we're talking about reducing the competitive forces in the international standards-based market by 100%, moving us into a situation where moving to a different carrier guarantees the hardship of buying a whole new set of phones--and, if you're moving away from `the GSM company', the additional hardship of giving up international roaming.
We may well see network-growth stop, as a result of this--or at least slow down a whole lot.
-rozzin.
Virgin is just a way to rebrand Sprint's network.
Remain calm, I replied to the anonymous coward, not you.
Actually, I think the deal had to do with the iPhone, just not how the article presented it. When AT&T's infrastructure struggled with the high demand of usage for bandwidth since the release of the iPhone, AT&T had to scale up in a hurry. TMobile has a large 4G infrastructure rolled out already, AT&T is working on it. I think that was probably the most important factor in deciding to purchase them.
"But the iphone doesn't suck in general".
;)
I disagree! The IPhone does suck in general. Any phone that you have to get a case for, to "Jimmy Rig" a fix for the antenna, because the company doesn't want to lose millions fixing every phone they produced most definitely does "SUCK IN GENERAL"! Not to mention as stated below the unintuitive interface, total lack of consideration for users, proprietary OS that they brick if you jail break, and last but not least a market place that takes your arm if you want to develop applications for it and then limits the type of apps you can develop. APPLE CAN TAKE A FLYING LEAP OFF THE GRAND CANION WITHOUT A PARACHUTE! To me it sounds like you probably own an IPhone and were offended by the fact that you made a poor decision in your purchase of said device. Thanks for your opinion though.
Prepaid data plans are available, however most are not any cheaper than contract plans, so all you gain is not being locked-in for three years.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Yes, the story is hyperbole and conjecture, because most tech articles online are based on dramatic declarations rather than facts. However, your comment is also a bit hyperbolic.
Think about business here. The iPhone wasn't the sole reason but it helped a lot. In terms of subscribers and money, the carriers right now are 1) Verizon, 2) AT&T, 3) Sprint 4) T-Mobile. Verizon has differentiated itself by running on it's reputation of reliability. AT&T differentiated itself by getting the iPhone first. It remains to be seen if AT&T can remain #2 but it has done a good job of locking some people into their service by getting a boost from the iPhone. Sprint and T-Mobile are a distant 3 and 4, because they aren't differentiating themselves well, and because AT&T was stealing their high end subscribers while local smaller outfits like MetroPCS, Cricket, Boost, Amped and others were stealing their low end subscribers. So what you end up with is a smaller T-Mobile and a larger AT&T with lots of cash to start making business deals.
Now ultimately the reason why T-Mobile is being sold is because AT&T bought them. The article makes it seem like AT&T handed T-Mobile a crushing defeat and Deutch Telekom whimpered for mercey and sold their meager T-Mobile branch. Far from the truth. Deutch Telekom saw a money making opportunity, better than what they were making now. There are probably lots of business reasons surrounding it, and DT saw they were getting their asses kicked since 2007. They could continue to operate and try to come up with something new, but quite simply they cashed out when someone made them an attractive offer. DT saw they weren't as competitive as they wanted to be, so they took their money and went home. They might be able to make more money by investing that $39 in their European wireless market... or just invest it in oil futures or something.
As for the G1... seriously? Don't make me laugh. T-Mobiles subscriber base has shrunk since 2007. Period, regardless of what technology AT&T and T-Mobile are offering. You can hardly say T-Mobile gained as many customers from the G1 as AT&T did from the iPhone.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
"ironically, AT&T's acquisition won't help T-Mobile customers get access to the iPhone anytime soon"
Anyone who really cared about the IPhone, has long ago defected. Those smartphone users who stayed likely have other priorities (like having an antenna that works?).
oops. my bad. I shall calm down now :)
I think it's skynet trying to achieve sentiance, little bit to go yet thankfully.
You can hardly say T-Mobile gained as many customers from the G1 as AT&T did from the iPhone.
Well of course he can and he got modded insightful to boot! The Android faithful (I do own a Galaxy S myself but I'm not some Android/Google worshipper like many on Slashdot) eat up such unevidenced claims like it's candy when it bashes Apple and the iPhone.
I don't disagree with anything you say except the silly point about the case (everyone puts a case on their phone, and apple will give you one), and saying that it sucks in general. It doesn't have to be a statement about who you are....it's just a device.
It hardly is attributed to the iphone for that matter, either. What I was trying to point out was, if tmobile is shrinking, there is more to that picture than the iphone, especially considering that android has more marketshare than iphone now anyway.
Nobody can say whether Tmobile gained as many from android as it lost from iphone because nobody has any fucking clue. Only this moron who you replied to believes in the fud.
This article makes it seem as if T-Mobile needs to be bought out more than AT&T needs a 4G network. Sprint has had a 4G network for almost a year, Verizon is currently rolling out a great 4G network, and T-Mobile has deployed a great 4G network of their own. Meanwhile, AT&T is caught with their dicks in their hands. Not only have they not rolled out their own 4G network to compete with the current offerings, but they don't appear to have any plans of rolling one out anytime soon. It would probably take a year for them to evaluate the different technology available to them and then another year to roll out that technology.
How did it get this way? Well, with the success of the iPhone, AT&T didn't feel the need to worry about a 4G infrastructure. Hell, they just got their 3G network to work at acceptable levels for the increased demand placed on their network by smartphones. However, since the iPhone is no longer exclusively theirs and Android has been outpacing the iPhone anyway, they are in a pretty big bind. They need T-Mobile's 4G network a LOT more than T-Mobile needs to be bought out. As a matter of fact, T-Mobile was in a prime position to steal many of AT&T's customers since they have competitive prices, great customer service, and most importantly, a much faster network.
It would really be something if the Department of Justice blocked this sale. AT&T would gradually lose more and more customers as their network aged and they failed to roll out their own next-gen network. And I, for one, wouldn't feel the least bit of sympathy for AT&T - that's what they get for resting on their laurels. Of course, the DoJ won't block the acquisition, but one could hope.
I think AT&T was just tired of those commercials pointing out how bad AT&T is. Luke Wilson probably wasn't available to run counter ads, so it was just cheaper to buy them.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
My first mobile phone was an OKI bag phone ( I was the second most active user in Maine for a while, thanks to the guys at Maine Wireless for all the free minutes), but some time in the 90s I got my first paid-for phone from AT&T WS. I lived through the change to Cingular, then when they went back I bailed to T-Mobile in 2006.
So now I'm being driven back? Like I'm gonna hook up with VZW? And Sprint, the red-headed stepchild of the industry? No.
I got nowhere else to go. 2012 will mark my teturn to the evil empire. Gahhh!
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
If the article is true, then Sprint has no chance of surviving and it will be two cell providers. I don't really believe the article, but 80% of the market in two carriers pocket is not good.
Does anyone else think it funny/interesting/sad that Deutsche Telekom bought Tmobile USA for $50.7B in 2001, plus another for $2.4B in 2007 and is only getting $39B?
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Exclusive partnerships, by their very nature, lock out competition and as such are innately anti-competitive.
Rather than seeing AT&T buy up besieged T-Mo (I use a T-mo prepaid sim in my smart phone, btw. No data plan, I use wifi hotspots for data.) I would rather see handset makers barred from signing exclusive backroom deals-- the whole "Give us $$$, and we'll partner exclusively!" shit has to end.
If the iPhone had been readily available on multiple carriers from the go, then at least two things would have been avoided. Namely, AT&T's network wouldnt have crashed into the floor from data service use, Verizon would have picked up a fair chunk of the iPhone userbase (Even if CDMA is inferior to GSM in this regard, being unable to use data while talking-- end users would not know that, nor notice, most likely), and T-Mobile would have been directly competitive with AT&T's offerings.
Instead you had a very sweet price inflation due to regulated supply coupled with excessive demand, which worked VERY nicely for Apple and AT&T, at the expense of the rest of the already under-competitive cellular market. It practically stinks of racketeering. (Yes, I know this threat is passed now, with the new exception in the DMCA for it, yet in the historical period I am railing against Apple+ATT really did play the That's a nice iPhone you have there, shame if something were to happen to it. card to keep iphone users from letting the air out of their price inflation scheme.)
The REAL solution is to ban these kinds of backroom deals, and enforce against them. (Sadly, no money-minded politician will campaign for, or enact such a provision, because killing backroom deals would kill a good portion of their "Campaign Funding")
I fucking HATE apple right now.
Well I don't disagree with anything you said.....oh wait yes I do. Not everyone puts a case on their phone. I don't have a case on my phone and I am fine with the way my phone functions without one. Ofcourse I own an Android device that doesn't have to have a case to operate. I would agree that a lot of people have cases for their phones but they should have choice as to whether or not they want a case. One should not be required to have a case or hold their phone a certain way in order for it to function properly.
The handsets sold in the US that accept SIM cards (not all do, as CDMA technology (Verizon and pals) does not make use of them) typically are "Branded"-- EG, they have been sublicensed and resold under the carrier's name, and have advertisements branded on the phone itself. (EG, your apple Motorolla phone also has an ATT logo on it.) Part of that branding practice is to "Touch" the phone's firmware so that it will outright reject any SIM card not made by that carrier.
This is why there is a big underground movement for unlocking (Carriers call it "Hacking", but that's not quite right either. You DO typically have to hack smart phones to unlock them though...) handsets, so that they can be used with the carrier of the user's choice.
Most US consumers are blind, ignorant, and bleating masses who are only interested in eating at the shiniest, fullest trough though, and are perfectly happy to get sheared in return. Because of this, abusive practices like exclusivity deals, sim-locking, price fixing, and a whole host of other nasty bad things go totally unstopped, and unquestioned.
I REALLY envy you, if you can buy any random handset, and use it with any random GSM service in south africa.
Damn typos. That should have been "Apple or motorola", not "Apple motorola". Gah.
Carry on.
Is there no anti-trust regulation left remaining in the the U.S.? Did they throw 'em all out in the trash bin while no one was looking? I am genuinely puzzled.
Virgin is just a way to rebrand Sprint's network.
A fast Virgin is OK by me...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
T-Mobile customer who switched to AT&T when I got my iPhone 4 here...I used the original EDGE iPhone for three years on T-Mobile, never had a dropped call. T-Mobile had much, much better pricing and very good support. This makes me sad. :(
Where do you think the 39 billion came from? Trees? iPhone tree people then!
AT&T definitely wouldn't be so arrogantly entrenched and flushed with money unspent on coverage/towers without the iProducts sheeple/monkeys.
In most countries in the developed world, the cellular networks, the towers and backhauls, are built by the government or a quasi-government monopoly and access is leased to retailers who then sell the SIM cards. As a condition of the lease the retailers agree to a regulatory regime that's much more stringent than in the US-- they can't bundle services, they must provide open access to the network, their ability to set prices and services are sometimes subject to legal restrictions, etc., and the system is very retail consumer friendly. In exchange for the regulation, these resellers can be very agile and operate very cheaply, because they don't have to pay any of the downside for running the antennas, which is a large fixed cost that has to be paid wether people use their minutes or not, and the government has the money resources necessary to make the network reach all kinds of out-of-the-way places that for a private company would be unprofitable, and to run the network on a non-profit basis, or worse.
In the US the network was built by private companies, the large fixed costs of the infrastructure are borne by the providers, and the government gives the providers a much freer hand to extract the costs for running their network in whatever way they see fit.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I had considered going with T-Mobile. They had plans that I was interested in. But then I did a search using their site for retail locations and found they had no stores in my state, only payment drop boxes. Apparently they only wanted my business if I wasn't from here originally.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Maybe it was, specifically, the iPhone, but maybe not. As a long-time T-Mobile customer, my main complaint has always been Tmo's available selection of phones. If I wanted a good phone, I had to buy an unlocked GSM model from outside their usual offering. So, I'm sure the iPhone influenced the situation, but it may have been less the fact that the iPhone was only available on AT&T, and more the fact that it added more contrast between other carriers' good phones and Tmo's selection of crap.
The Nexus 1 could have been T-Mobile's iPhone counterpart, had it not been for Google's retarded marketing model.
sig: sauer
I am going on 9 years now as a T-Mobile customer. In the last 9 years, I've never had a call drop other than from my service being a little weak in my basement. My bill is about $60 ($39 was my original bill, plus$10 for phone and text add-on plan plus internet access and taxes, etc brings it to about $60) a month for unlimited calling and text plus (T-Mobile - T-Mobile) unlimited g2 internet access. I have not had a contract in years also and they never push for me to get one. Over the last 9years, I've only called customer service twice, once was because I wanted to add an international plan and another was to find out how to remove one of my phones from another plan and add 2 more new a new plan. Over the last 9 years I've never paid my bill on time and never seen a nasty email, letter or late fee, They actually added on 200mins to my plan for being a loyal customer. I only bought 2 cell phones from them over the years, One was the original Nokia they gave to me when I first got my phone and the other was a Samsung that I paid too much for, I still have both phones, but don't use them anymore. I bought 2 unlocked Palm 680's over the years (One I dropped in the pool and it still worked (still works now) and the other is used as my GPS unit now with a tomtom memory card) and used them on their network with no issues, data plan worked with them, was able to text, sms, IM and send pictures, there website always said I had an unsupported phone, but big deal. I then bought a palm Centro last year and didn't like it as much so bought a used unlocked G1 and give my girlfriend (a big mac fan) the Centro as she loved the phones more then the Iphone. A friend of mine bought a Iphone g3 and has been not happy with it at all. He told me after each software upgrade is has become less stable and slow. I hope the sale does not happy, Lots of my friends also have there fingers crossed that it does not.
Actually you can easily get a clue on this. Just Google it. You'll see that the 1.5 million figures first estimated were not corroborated and people think that's the FUD. Also, there are articles about how in 2008 the G1 was the 5th most popular phone, behind the iPhone 3G and 3 blackberry models.
And yet I'm not really trying to prove the iPhone outsold the G1. If you follow my statement, I said it was a fact that the T-mobile subscriber base has shrunk since 2007 overall. The original poster's position that the G1 increased T-Mobiles subscriber base, and I'm trying to say that's false from the other evidence provided. I'm not saying "iPhone ownz j00r f33bl3 G1". Not at all.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Actually you originally said: "the iphone has zero to do with tmobile being sold". Now you are saying: "there is more to that picture than the iPhone." which is it? In fact the latter is my point, not your point.
And to address your statement: "It hardly is attributed to the iphone for that matter". Actually as I stated it is a large point. The iPhone gave AT&T a large infusion of cash and took away subscribers from T-Mobile, helping to shrinking the T-Mobile user base. One company got bigger, another got smaller, and then that smaller company is getting eaten by the larger one. Typical American Capitalism (I make no judgement as to this being a good or bad thing).
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Canyon has a Y in it.
No one has to "Jimmy Rig" a fix for the antenna, a small percentage of iPhones 4 had problems, all cell phones can have reception problems if held wrong.
iPhone 1, 3, 3GS didn't have the issue iPhones 4 sometimes had.
Could anyone please remind me what benefits for the users are there in the merge/buyout, exactly?
I don't have a sig.
This deal is really simple. T-Mobile needed to spend a lot of money upgrading their network to stay in business. ATT needs new spectrum... their biggest problems are lack of spectrum and lack of backhaul in areas where they aren't an ILEC.
This deal gives DT a way to exit cleanly without having to "double-down" on T-Mobile and it gives ATT a big chunk of spectrum.
It really is that simple.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
hmm... well never really had dropped calls due to switch of towers on any model. But then I'm in europe.
Nobody can say whether Tmobile gained as many from android as it lost from iphone because nobody has any fucking clue.
Now you're trying to change your claim. Your claim was that the G1 was some great attractor of new customers, yet it's highly anemic sales would beg to differ. Now you're trying to expand it to Android in general. Make up your mind on what you are trying to argue.
Well i have a case on the iphone4 i have, but it's not due to antenna gate. It's because the design is way to sensitive, the prior versions of the iphone where way better from that perspective. But no I would not change my ip4 to any of those, nor any android phone.
I'm curious about WP7, though I generally are an Apple fanboy...
What really sank T-Mobile was the willingness of self-centered consumers to buy devices KNOWING that they were locked into a single subscriber service with it. Had consumers been more egalitarian and simply said "fuck that", Apple would have been effectively forced to abandon the lock-in and make it available for all services.
You might also say that Apple was ultimately to blame, since they manufactured the locked-in phones... and very eagerly did so.
That ain't a bad return for buying a technology company that didn't come in first in the competition. Its not uncommon to lose 98,99% when that happens.
"Take that $1000 a year and put it into an IRA. You will get more from that than your cell phone could ever return"
I trade stocks, options, ETFs. etc scores of times a year. Not exactly a day trader, but close. I bought my iPhone largely so I could do trades on the road and wouldn't be tethered to my computers at home during market hours. I've already done several trades on my iPhone, and a HELLUVA lot more money was involved than a measly $1K. The iPhone has been a godsend in terms of liberating me from home from 6:30AM-1:30PM PST.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
...that you had to lease a hand set from Ma Bell. No independent sets allowed. When that was outlawed, the handset market exploded with all kinds of options and features.
The FCC should prohibit phones from being tied to carriers. Pick your phone, pick your carrier. Keep your number if you switch. They also need to outlaw the requirement of data plans. No plan, no data...that simple. I can get by on wifi.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If the iPhone is the reason, it doesn't make any sense T-Mobile would want to merge with AT&T. Now that the AT&T exclusive to iPhone is over, now is when iPhone-iacs will be moving away from AT&T. Why would T-Mobile eliminate themselves as an option for the hordes looking to get away from AT&T?
that Apple fucked up a healthy company.
Privacy is terrorism.
They may have a guesstimate based on informal replies to questions in their customer retention department, but they can't know. No one can know because T-Mobile never got or never availed themselves the opportunity of carrying the iPhone. They may have only lost a few ten thousands of subscribers to AT&T due to the iPhone, and the rest left for other reasons such as the smaller network in some areas of the country or cheaper plans like Metro/Virgin/Boost.
Personally T-Mobile was my sweet spot of decent national coverage, great local coverage, good prices, and great customer service. They'll be sorely missed.
You are so right in how they could have competed better. I've suggested several of those items on their company forum. You had a few great ones that I hadn't thought of.
Another you didn't mention is their @Home service, which is basically a VoIP adapter for your standard home phone run on GSM over IP like WiFi calling. The public hardly heard about it, the ones that did got confused (along with their sales people) between it and WiFi calling, which was introduced with a small ad campaign, with a similar name, and same price, at about the same time. I think WiFi calling was originally called unlimited WiFi@Home. @Home suffered from technical problems due to buggy Linksys/Cisco firmware in their router/adapter, was offered only to postpaid cellular customers, but only if your family plan had 4 lines or less.
It was much less than other options like Vonage and Time Warner phone service. But they tried to make it a perk for a limited subset of their customers, rather than a way to capture and retain customers. And they never invested in upgrades to the service beyond voicemail like other VOiP options had, even if it would have required some modest price increases.
I think if they had introduced it at a different time and price than WiFi calling, with a very different name and substantial ad campaign, allowed affluent techno savvy customers that had 5 cell lines of service to add one or more @home lines to their plan, charged say $19 for non cellular and prepaid customers, $9 for postpaid customers, and added features over time or in partnership with Google Voice like internet voicemail with customizable forwarding, messaging, logging, and recording options from an easy to use website, that it would have been very successful and increased the stickiness of their customers.
By far the biggest reason I haven't switched from T-Mobile to Sprint after the AT&T sales announcement was that I have @Home and don't want to lose it.
Sorry, it wasn't WiFi@Home, it was Hotspot@Home. That's still not to be confused with plain old T-Mobile@Home home phone service.
I read that as Apple IIGSes and thought, what is he doing replacing a cellphone with a 25 year old computer.
I still haven't seen any evidence that Steve Jobs offered it to T-Mobile USA or anyone else besides AT&T and Verizon. I imagine if T-Mobile had a chance to secure it for both countries, they would have seriously pursued it and it would have been popular leaked knowledge.
In the USA, most companies have a $200 or $250 contract termination fee on subsidized smartphones purchased as part of a 24 month service contract, and the service might be around $80/month for up to 2 or 5 gigs of data, unlimited texts, and a lot or unlimited minutes. You probably also paid $150-200 as a "downpayment" on the phone. If you don't complete your contract, the full amount of the termination fee is due immediately. So buying a phone and breaking your contract right away costs $350 minimum, or generally about the same as that phone unlocked from an independent dealer. So there is really no advantage to buying a contract phone, breaking the contract, and getting another SIM card. In fact you could only switch between AT&T and T-Mobile. After this sale goes through, there'll be no other national cell company in the USA using SIM cards besides AT&T.
I would have modded you up but couldn't as i've replied here to other.
But actually it's not the business you should blame but the government of USA that is not doing what it should do Govern. And it should govern the market so that competition is free. But now what america has is a free market, but no competition.