
The FCC has voted to approve the T-Mobile-Sprint merger - goohex
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/16/20917162/fcc-tmobile-sprint-merger-justice-department-ajit-pai-geoffrey-starks-jessica-rosenworel
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undersuit
I'm interested in how this plays out. I just ventured back onto AT&Ts pay as
you go plans as my former provider, Ting, doesn't cooperate with the
frequencies my Moto G xt1032 can access in Montana. Ting doesn't have the
frequencies/permissions for my Moto G to operate on 3G in this state.

Before Ting I was on StraightTalk, before StraightTalk I was on AT&T, before
AT&T I was on Alltel, specifically because less than two month's later the
contract was dissolved when AT&T purchased them and I sold the phone to a
NewEgg partner so that I could buy a Noctua NH-D14 for "free".

Everyone go buy a contract phone?

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muzika
This article makes it sounds like the merger approval was a republicans vs
democrats issue. Why?

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DiabloD3
In short, it basically was. ATT and Vz are in bed with the Republicans,
historically; and, also historically, ATT and Vz do not fund Democrat
elections except in strongly blue states where they need to get the usual
bullshit going.

ATT and Vz in the cell phone arena _need_ only two major names, and basically
set Sprint up to fail in a way that it exists as a zombie company and allows
them to pass regulatory requirements by claiming they're a viable alternative
(Sprint has not been one for like, oh, 5+ years).

So, T-Mobile being an actual contender for the #1 network spot in the country
fucks up their shareholders and most of the Republican party: ATT and Vz need
a party in their pocket to make sure companies cannot fairly compete.

As much as I hate the Democrats, they aren't as corrupt as the
telecom/Republican relationship is.

~~~
to11mtm
> and basically set Sprint up to fail.

Disagree.Who bought Sprint around 2013? Oh, that's right, the company everyone
is screaming about whenever WeWork comes up.

Even while the merger was still going on, Sprint was letting their networks
degrade (by that, I mean we were told to not replace certain equipment when it
broke).

That was only one component however. Other big mistakes included:

\- WiMax

\- Partnership with HTC. While this ties in to WiMax (because they were the
main maker of WiMax handsets) The Evo series was full of problems unacceptable
for a flagship product.

\- I'm not sure how much of it was regulatory/ROI or whatever, but the amount
of time it took to actually sunset the iDEN network (Boost/Nextel) and replace
it with a better long-term tech seems like a missed opportunity. How much is
up for debate, since it's not like WiMax was ever going to operate in that
spectrum range.

However, Agree that the major telcos (and cable providers) are absolute
corrupt garbage.

~~~
DiabloD3
I think WiMax was what killed Sprint altogether, but I don't think Sprint was
the sole entity in control of Sprint adopting it.

ATT and Vz had unexplained shady dealings to make sure Sprint was unable to
buy LTE gear at an acceptable volume and/or price to adopt LTE; in addition,
they were unable to acquire conventional 4G-friendly frequencies from the
Bush-era FCC auction (the same auction that locked T-Mobile out of a growth
path until the Obama-era Digital Dividend auction).

Sprint was then forced to adopt WiMax, which at the time, didn't look so bad,
as it looked like Asia was mass adopting WiMax, and thus, LTE would be the one
of two major worldwide standards, not the sole survivor. WiMax opened up the
CBRS band, something LTE did not yet have access to, giving Sprint cheap
usable frequency space nationwide (useful, since they could not transition to
4G without it after being cockblocked by ATT, Vz, and the FCC).

However, that ended up not being _that_ useful, Huawei and several other
companies had promised handsets and backend equipment for WiMax, but decided
to pull back from the US market instead and _also_ pull out of WiMax entirely
and back the Chinese-lead LTE-TDD adoption instead (which is also the part of
the LTE spec that adopted the CBRS band for fixed position LTE usage, which
also happens to be where WiMax excelled); the parts of Asia that still use
WiMax are switching (or have already switched) to combined WiMax 2+ + LTE-TDD
equipment to eventually transition to 5G LTE over the next decade.

I think Sprint played a bad hand badly that the house had conspired to give
them. I think they could have easily pushed their existing WiMax holdings into
a very powerful fixed Internet offering for home users, and went after the
ATT/Vz cartel in other ways. T-Mobile seems to be hot on acquiring that CRBS
band for that exact purpose, thus the Sprint merger.

I'm not arguing that Sprint's leadership wasn't staffed with complete morons,
that much is self-evident, but that they did not start out this journey with
the intention of destroying a company with bad decisions. They clearly had
help with that.

