
Wireless is broken. And we're fixing it - JoshTriplett
http://how-to.t-mobile.com/newbenefits/
======
friendly_chap
I am glad they are such a cool company today, yesterday (yes, I worked my ass
off on Sunday) I had to work with one of their products - a company I do
freelance work for bought a domain and some hosting from them.

Instead of cPanel or Plesk they had some home made solution, basically 80% of
the links were dead, and the whole application only consisted of approx. 10
pages. Bravo!

I called the tech support, I've talked with 10-12 people, 9-10 of them were
supposed experts at the technical department. Only one of them said he knew
what an A record is, but he had to redirect me to yet another "expert", but he
informed me it will take a "lot of time to access this man". A lot of compared
to what? I was on the phone for like 1.5 hours already! I suspect this guy was
eating his lunch at home but he was a resrouceful chap so they had to phone
him with "tough" questions. I feel sorry for that guy working with idiots! And
if he is unlucky enough he doesn't even get paid more.

The tech support story is not necessarily related to this article but I had to
shout it out. I will probably write a blog post too. On the other hand, the
fact they undertook developing a software which has perfect open source
alternatives, and they let the end product become an epic fail, seeing these
"we are so cool and competent" ads makes me puke.

Please, PAY YOUR TECHNICAL EMPLOYEES TOO, not just the marketing guys and
DON'T BE DUMB, if you want to develop software give me a call because I can
cut your costs by 90%, your managers are dumb.

Ohh, thank God I feel so much better now.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
The page was about T-Mobile USA, formerly known as VoiceStream. Nowadays, it
is owned by Deutsche Telekom, but it has little to do with the T-Mobile brand
in other countries. T-Mobile USA doesn't offer domain or web hosting services.
T-Mobile USA mostly just sells budget cellphone plans. They're a small player
trying to gain more marketshare.

I suspect you're talking about T-Mobile Hungary which, like T-Mobile in other
European countries, is the largest carrier in the country and really couldn't
care less about its customers. (I'm a subscriber with T-Mobile in The
Netherlands, where the company isn't dominant. The situation is better here.)

~~~
yareally
All of what you said is 100% true about T-Mobile USA. Just to amend, their
tech support and customer service is similar. From friends I know that deal
with them, they outsource all their tech support to firms with employees that
can barely speak English and are inadequately trained. I don't like dealing
with Verizon (Vodaphone for those outside the US) customer service either, but
their service is still leap years ahead.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_“Verizon (Vodaphone for those outside the US)”_

Verizon and Vodafone are separate publicly traded companies. Verizon Wireless
is a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone. Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon
Wireless. However, Verizon has a 23% stake in Vodafone Italy.

Complicated, but not the same company.

------
fab13n
BS: wireless will be fixed when operators will accept to be dumb pipes, with
flat prices, and without almost mandatory bandwidth+device bundles. That's
exactly what they don't want, and doesn't seem to be what T-Mobile offers.

In France, free.fr wreaked the whole market by offering illimited phone calls
+ SMS + data (bandwidth capped beyond 3GB/month) for €16 to €20, depending on
whether you already get ADSL from them. No device (rather, unlocked devices
can be bought with a 12 or 24 months credit, in a contract independent from
the network subscription), network subscriptions can be cancelled in 1 month.
Simple, cheap, readable. All other operators had to follow suit.

~~~
gergles
That is exactly what T-Mobile offers; all of these prices do not include a
device (you can purchase one on installments.)

The pricing is higher, but other than that, it's basically the same shebang
and T-Mobile doesn't have a profit-margin wetdream of a landline network to
subsidize their pricing.

------
dangrossman
Conspicuously missing is the $30/mo plan with unlimited data (first 5GB at 4G
speed) and 100 minutes of talk. Now I wonder what will happen to my service
next month. [Edit: 5GB, not 2GB]

~~~
cheald
It's still there on their prepaid plans list. See the bottom left of the page
here (or just click "Which plan is right for you?")

<http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans>

~~~
hkmurakami
I'm going through the transaction right now, and interestingly this plan is
only available for "new activations"

~~~
gergles
It's always only been available for new activations; they didn't want to
cannibalize existing lines.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Interesting viewpoint; I ordered a new sim card so I could get the cheaper
rates. The goal to not cannibalize existing lines doesn't seem to have worked
out (and the sim card was all of $1); further, given the immense pricing
discrepancy, it's hard for me to see this deterring many people at all (the
new-activations-only plan costs 60% of the price of the next cheapest plan
with unlimited data, $30 / mo instead of $50).

------
gergles
I'm a little annoyed they won't offer official tethering on the 4.5 GB plan,
even for an extra charge. This is especially annoying because T-Mobile is
historically one of the most aggressive anti-tethering carriers (through use
of packet inspection and other techniques to try to guess if the use is
'genuine' or not) if you are not paying for the "service" of using your bytes
as you see fit.

~~~
saool
I tether every now and then with the 2GB plan and it works fine. Sometimes
they will "catch" me and tell me to pay up. When that happens I just use an
agent switcher and spoof as Opera 12, works every time...

~~~
lucb1e
How can they know if you do tethering without deep packet inspection? I think
that's actually illegal by law in the Netherlands (net neutrality law), but
not sure about that. It's very much frowned upon though.

------
anigbrowl
I'm glad to see T-Mobile grasping this nettle, but they're buing a bit
disingenuous. Look at the plans here: <http://how-to.t-mobile.com/newplans/>
The $50/mo plan had unlimited everything plus no hotpsot restrictions until a
few months ago, when they took that away. Now they're giving it back after
consumer backlash. not advertised is a $30/mo plan with limited talk and text
but only 100mb/mo of data (which will be eaten by T-mobile status updates and
app checkins even if you have sync turned off). Don't want text because you
never use it? Too bad, you have to pay for unlimited text anyway. They don't
even mention this alternative here because they want to position $50 as the
mobile price floor going forward.

They're going in the right direction, but kicking and screaming a bit.

~~~
fein
> Too bad, you have to pay for unlimited text anyway.

Which is a massive lie right there (from t-mobile). SMS is effectively
piggybacking on the signals your phone sends out to find which towers are
available, so were t-mobile being totally honest, they'd just cut out the SMS
charge period. It's such a low cost (borderline free) to process and send
SMS's that there is really no honest way to charge for it.

But we live in America, where tech literacy is abysmal for 75% of the
inhabitants, and Telco's capitalize on this. Either that or we don't have a
single honest Telco CEO.

~~~
mcpherrinm
> SMS is effectively piggybacking on the signals your phone sends out to find
> which towers are available

This argument bugs me. The phone-to-tower is only a portion of the
infrastructure: You have to get those messages somewhere after that. But the
rest of that infrastructure isn't any more interesting than email.

So I'm not disagreeing with the point that SMS is overpriced (especially
without a plan). I doubt you could convince anybody to spend $10/month on
"unlimited email".

~~~
kyrias
And then you also have to pay other carriers to deliver SMS to their
custemers.

------
bdcravens
Is wireless broken, or is there competitive position? It's great that they're
doing something totally different, but pretty sure they wouldn't be were they
#1 or #2.

Also, that's a horrible address, with the combo of dashes and dot.

------
ars
Family plan prices are available here:
<http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/family-plans.aspx>

------
rurounijones
Despite how good this _may_ be as soon as I see massive amounts of small grey
text at the bottom of the page I immediately dismiss any of the main points on
the page and lose interest in the product since I cannot be bothered to
unscramble the important stuff they are trying to hide.

(seriously, on my computer it is a 600px by 250px wall of small grey legalese)

------
oakesm9
GiffGaff in the UK is a bit more radical with "fixing wireless". £12 for
unlimited texts and data and 250 minutes. But any calls to other GiffGaff
customers don't count towards your limit. There's other plans as well,
including data only ones <http://giffgaff.com/index/offer>

~~~
robin_reala
Three do a similar plan too: £12.90 for unlimited data, 200 minutes and 5000
texts <http://store.three.co.uk/view/searchSimOnly?tariff=2915>

------
nraynaud
One rule they are not breaking is the mandatory huge stack of legaleese at the
bottom of the document...

------
laurencerowe
I don't get it. They want me to pay $70/month for what I currently get on
their $30/month PAYG plan.

------
greghinch
"iPhones in most markets operate at 2G (EDGE) speeds on the T-Mobile network
because of issues with the device design."

Is that _all_ iPhones? Bummer if so

~~~
msh
except for the new t-mobile model (same modelnumber as at&t but a different
radio)

------
skrebbel
Entirely off topic, but I can't grasp the guy's accent. New Jersey guy trying
to sound more like he's from NC but not entirely managing?

~~~
Samuel_Michon
He went to MIT, but he doesn't have a New England accent. However, the
'Legere' family name is most common in Maine and Massachusetts. I can't find
any mention of his birthplace but he likes to curse[1], so he could be from
anywhere in the Northeast ;)

[1]
[http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2013/03/t-...](http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2013/03/t-mobile-
announces-contract-free-plans.html?page=all)

------
jamespo
It seems like every second article is "X is broken and we're fixing it" on
here.

------
alexconrad
He looks like Steve Buscemi.

