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The iPhone's Role In Crippling T-Mobile
GMGruman writes "The feds may be blocking AT&T's buyout of T-Mobile, but T-Mobile is in poor shape to continue as is. Parent company Deutsche Telekom's decision not to invest in U.S. spectrum a decade ago constrained T-Mobile's ability to grow, especially through 4G networks now finally emerging. But from a customer point of view, it was the iPhone that has threatened the company the most. Or, more precisely, its lack of the iPhone."
Are you kidding? Unless you are paid by Apple or a Zombie, can do you really believe and iPhone is any better and a T-Mobile G2 or any high end Android handset?
Really? Want some Apple flavored Kool Aid?
* Carthago Delenda Est *
The iPhone has 5% of the mobile market. T-Mobile is not failing because they don't have a slice of that 5%. That did not cripple them in any way. Lack of investment in coverage area hurt them, but not having the iPhone is insignificant next to that.
It sucks they're declining, because they were the only company that you could ever pay off a subsidized phone - at the end of your 2 year contract, your rate went down unless you got a new phone. It should be illegal to keep charging you for the phone once it's paid off, but that's what all the other companies do.
I don't see any data presented in the article. The claim is made that smartphone users are leaving in droves. So, where is the chart of smartphone market share per carrier?
I switched TO T-mobile to use a smartphone, since neither Verizon nor ATT had decent options (2.5 years ago). If you want an iPhone then you're going to ditch T-Mobile, but the last time I checked most smartphone users don't use iPhones.
And the last time I checked I had 4G service just about everywhere I actually go with T-Mobile, which includes a moderate amount of travel. If you like to go fishing in the mountains then you'll do better with a different carrier, but if you actually spend your time where the population density is greater than 3/km^2 you'll almost certainly have 2G with T-Mobile, and most likely you'll have 4G as well.
Who cares what the market needs? The market skews the value of individuals by personal wealth.
I care about what people need.
I left T-Mobile because their network didn't cover all the areas I needed cell reception in. That's it. T-Mobile's network in the Pacific Northwest is better than Sprint's, but when you get away from the interstates (especially east of the Cascades) there are huge gaps.
Now, when I originally left Verizon and switched to T-Mobile... that was because Verizon was evil. Verizon had coverage everywhere, but their fundamental evil-tude overrode that.
#DeleteChrome
Im sorry, but Apple fans were always like this. When I became aware of it they were talking about how superior the G3 processor was over anything offered by Intel or AMD. This is in spite of actual evidence showing that other processors were superior at many things. I remember an ad campaign when Apple talked about how "Your Macbook is a super-computer, doing XXX gigaflops". Funny thing about that is they were making up lies by using an older standard of what a super-computer is. Apple fan-bois have always been assholes. The only difference now is that since Apple became mainstream, they have more people making decent enough money to afford their products who are also fucking idiots. I own some Apple products in spite of the distasteful ways Apple fanboi's handle themselves. There are legitimate reasons for using Macbooks, or iPods, etc. One in particular is that you can use Unix based scientific software on Apple with slightly less of a headache over using Unix. However, Apple products are hardly more advanced, or more capable over other products. They just slap on some prettiness and ergonomics to existing technology.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
T-Mobile does not have terrible cellular. That is a myth that anyone on T-Mobile can verify.
I agree ... I've been on them for about three years now, and where I live I've had no problems whatsoever. I've had AT&T, U.S. Cellular and Sprint, and I've had the best coverage on T-Mobile. Period. And actually manage to pull in about 10 mbits/sec on my data channel, so I'm a happy camper. And the GP's talk of "incompetence"? Where did he get that from? I experienced an incredible degree of incompetence dealing with AT&T and Sprint: billing error after billing error to the point that I switched to T-Mobile. If nothing else, the Germans know how to run an accounting system.
On top of that, for the $25 I'm spending each month on 3G/4G, I get unlimited data and voice roaming. So I can go anywhere in the U.S. and not worry about coverage. Drove cross-country last year through a dozen states, and had data, voice, tethering and Google Nav all the way, and I lost track of how many different networks I went through.
AT&T and Verizon can take their pretty little floating colored maps and stick them where the Sun don't shine. This merger is certainly not in my best interests, I'll tell you that. All this talk about "savings" and "scaleability" and "service" is a smoke screen. AT&T doesn't do anything like this to benefit the consumer. They do it to benefit AT&T, and that letter that got accidentally posted to the FCC's Web site last month made that pretty damn clear. AT&T can go to hell in a handbasket so far as I'm concerned.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The protection of radio spectrum goes both ways, though. I'm a pretty fucking big fan of the idea that there's nobody else on the frequency my ambulance squad uses to communicate with our dispatcher and the police, or the paramedics, or other agencies. And that's only because the FCC has a very big stick to hit people with if they violate it. If people or businesses thought they could get away with co-opting public safety frequencies, you bet your ass they would.
And you don't have to think very hard to come up with countless other problems with an unregulated spectrum. Everything from cordless phones to RC cars to WiFi would become useless as people just shat all over the spectrum because it was easy and convenient to do so. Things like allocation and emissions regulations keep the spectrum useful in the same way that a drivers' license keeps the roads useful to everybody. Even the most anarchist person must recognize the tragedy of the commons, even if he doesn't like the solution - at least if he's intellectually honest.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
No, they've been like this for a long, long time. About 18 years ago I got into 3D animation with the Amiga/VideoToaster(because Lightwave was still tied into the VT hardware back then) and was interested in talking with others in the field. Lo and behold one of the first people I meet is some little twerp telling me how Apple was going to rule the 3D world like it did desktop publishing...Lightwave was lame and never going to go anywhere and Strata3D was the best software there was. Less than a year later Babylon 5 came out and about a year after that I never heard anything about Strata except as some form of lame utility or something...but Lightwave is still going strong AFAIK. That's not entirely directly related to Apple but he was an Apple user and had the same fucking nasty attitude that we see today...
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
But somehow Apple's move into the cellphone market turned Apple fans into foaming at the mouth batshit insane cultists.
Apple fans turn up, they babble a lot. Android fans turn up, they babble about how sheeple'ish Apple fans are. Apple fans fight back, pointing out strengths in their choices. Android fans fight back, pointing out the strengths in their choices. Apple gets bad news, Android fans laugh. Android gets bad news, Apple fans laugh louder. Then it escalates from there.
Let's just face facts, we like the side we're on and we like antagonizing the other side. There really is no real substance here outside of that.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
There's a mile of difference between regulating usage for the benefit of a particular service and selling to private bidders according to who pays the most.
In GSM-only markets, like Australia and parts of Europe, where all carriers had the iPhone at the same time, Android Phone market share is only marginally better than Android Tablet market share.
Speaking from a GSM-only market (Finland), I don't see this at all, and your rant looks like fiction. Android phones greatly outnumber Apple's iPhones in public places such as shopping malls and airports, and in corporate environments. Hint: most corporations here don't provide iPhone or Android phones, people must buy their own and stick the company SIM card in it unless they're happy with the corporate-issue Nokia crap; they seem to be choosing Android by a substantial margin.
The increases in Android sales coincided with supply issues of iPhones. People would only buy Android phones when they couldn't get and iPhone and *needed* a phone now.
Do you have any data to back up this fascinating conjecture, which looks like baseless wild speculation from here. I don't know anyone who has an iPhone. I know many people who have Android phones.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
You are a fanboi. He wasn't pushing anything: he was making a valid point that the market today is not like it was when the iPhone was first introduced.
Um...
"Are you kidding? Unless you are paid by Apple or a Zombie, can do you really believe and iPhone is any better and a T-Mobile G2 or any high end Android handset?"
Pretty much using a term like "fanboi" increases the odds dramatically that you, yourself, are being a "fanboi". It's a stupid term that simply means "you don't like what I like, therefore you're an idiot".
The iPhone had a significant impact on T-Mobile. It's difficult to see how it couldn't, and it still does. In spite of all the Apple hatred around here, Apple has sold over 100 million iPhones, and sells tens of millions every quarter. In other words, people want iPhones. Not having the iPhone has caused problems for T-Mobile. It's nice that they have Android phones, and that people want those, but T-Mobile is automatically locked out of a large portion of the consumer market.
Let's just face facts, we like the side we're on and we like antagonizing the other side. There really is no real substance here outside of that.
I have an Apple tablet and an Android phone.
And I have to warn you - all that antagonizing myself hurts. Stick to a single vendor for the sake of your mental health! ~