
In surprise FCC filing, Sprint endorses net neutrality - larubbio
https://gigaom.com/2015/01/16/in-surprise-shift-sprint-endorses-net-neutrality/
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drawkbox
Best marketing Sprint has ever done.

Granted this position probably helps them against the bigger competitors, that
is why competition is good.

Already we are seeing network providers start to jockey for competitive
positions just at the hint of change. Imagine the competition when this
actually happens.

 _This position stands in stark contrast to what other carriers, including
Verizon and AT &T, have espoused. In particular, the carriers have warned that
Title II would provide a major disincentive to invest in upgrades to their
internet offerings._

They are arguing that our current market setup is encouraging investment in
upgrades? Where are they? The current system hasn't spawned investment and new
upgrades, but competition will surely do this. Here in Phoenix
(Tempe/Scottsdale), the moment Google announced Phoenix would be a possible
Fiber market, Cox Gigablast initiative was launched, before that _crickets_.

~~~
Afforess
I dunno, the fact that Sprint still offers (real) Unlimited data plans in the
US is the best marketing they have ever done in my book.

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JoshGlazebrook
That is true, but that doesn't make up for the sheer glacial speed that Sprint
is moving at to improve their network. They have the most spectrum of all of
the carriers but do not use it properly. Quarterly announcements of the Spark
network upgrades not meeting their own expectations seems to have become
common. You may have LTE but it's not very useful if you can barely get 1Mb/s.

T-Mobile on the other hand is having greater success with their CEO and all of
the "uncarrier" tactics they are implementing. T-Mobile is now focusing on
upgrading the last of their own cell sites to LTE to expand footprint in the
rural parts of the country but they still have a ways to go. And that's not to
say T-Mobile's existing LTE network isn't great, it's fantastic (if you can
actually get it).

AT&T is out of new deployable spectrum so their LTE network is slowing down in
congested areas. They are deploying tens of thousands of small cell sites to
make their network more dense to help with this problem. So say a tower has
100 people sharing 20mhz (10x10) of LTE bandwidth at the same time. If there
are now three small cell sites placed away from that tower, each additional
site has 20mhz of spectrum to use. So there would then be ~25 on that main
tower, and ~25 on each additional small cell site.

Verizon's original 700mhz LTE network is very congested in a lot of areas, but
instead of deploying as many small sites as AT&T, they instead bought that
very large chunk of AWS spectrum from cable companies and have it deployed to
the majority of their cell sites. In major cities this is a full 40mhz chunk
of spectrum (20x20) which theoretically can net you up to 150Mb/s if you have
the right device that can use band 4. They also have started re-farming a
small portion of their PCS spectrum (10mhz total) in some testing areas (san
francisco especially). They will need to densify their network eventually but
they sure have done a great job at buying an ample amount of time.

I personally feel Sprint's current slump all comes down to the Clearwire/WiMax
decision. Both Sprint and Verizon were in the same situation when it came to
deploy their choices of 4G technologies. They both operated CDMA/EVDO 3G
networks which with the revision they were using maxed out around 3.1Mb/s.
AT&T was in the middle of deploying their HSPA/HSPA+, what they now call "4G"
(not to be confused with LTE). Verizon and Sprint did not have the option of
this transition period of significantly higher speeds that was not LTE or
WiMax. Surprisingly Verizon got this right. They obtained a nationwide chunk
of 700mhz block c (band 13) spectrum for their initial LTE network they
started deploying in early 2011. This is the same spectrum that has the open
access rules attached to it that made them back down on throttling on their
LTE network. The sheer speed at which they deployed this LTE spectrum was just
ridiculously fast. Right now they have 99% of their entire 3G footprint
covered with that layer of LTE while AT&T's national map is still nowhere
close to Verizon in terms of overall LTE deployment covering their entire
legacy networks.

Meanwhile Sprint went ahead with WiMax and we all know how that unfolded. I
hope they can recover as 4 national carriers is always going to be better than
3 competition wise, but I just don't see it happening for potentially years
from now.

In terms of network, Verizon got it 100% right the entire time. AT&T struggled
in ~2009 with the iPhone and recovered but is feeling the effects of
congestion but they are countering with tons of small cell sites. Verizon has
congestion on the band 13 LTE deployment, but band 4 is helping with that.
T-Mobile's LTE deployments are great, but they are still focusing on expanding
into more rural areas. Sprint is working on their Spark network, and where you
can get it, it's good, but they just are moving so damn slow I don't know if
it will be fast enough in the long run.

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lsaferite
Maybe you guys can answer this. With mainland Europe using GSM across the
board, do they have these frequency allocation problems across providers? It
seems to me like it would be in everyone's interest to have a large shared
pool of frequency allocations and share the burden of maintaining a network
using them. Then you significantly more bandwidth capability per tower.

~~~
tracker1
Yes, but won't someone please think of the poor industry executives?

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xnull1guest
It's a sort of an accepted insanity that the positions which these large
businesses take are considered important.

Certainly information from these businesses on how they believe different
legislation will effect them is useful to voters, their representatives and
their appointees in performing a legislative calculus.

But what certain companies 'advocate' for? This is hardly useful information
for the design of legislation (it's a single bit, and a complicated one). As
these large businesses should have no direct say in how they are regulated, I
don't see why we the people should care what companies 'endorse'. They don't
get a vote.

Whether Google or Sprint or AT&T or Comcast sanctions or opposes net
neutrality should mean nothing and should not be worthy of news. The companies
that happen agree with the general public do not do so on the ground of ideals
or liberty or heroism but on the ground of profit. They are not the stewards
of public interest or champions of the public - only the public can do and be
this. We can't count on Sprint or Google or any other company to get the
legislation we want passed - because if we condone that we also condone their
passing of legislation we don't.

~~~
Guvante
Why is it insanity? You are implying that the companies are adding no value to
the discussion by chiming on the topic. Shouldn't the entities most impacted
by the change be listened to when it comes to decide on policy?

You can certainly make a case that you need to adjust for their self-interest,
but ignoring them completely is even more questionable than taking their
statements at face value.

~~~
xnull1guest
> Certainly information from these businesses on how they believe different
> legislation will effect them is useful to voters, their representatives and
> their appointees in performing a legislative calculus.

> But what certain companies 'advocate' for? This is hardly useful information
> for the design of legislation...

We agree. I'm not saying ignore everything they possibly say. What I am saying
is ignore what they merely advocate for and pay attention to why they advocate
for it and what information they can give relevant to the design of a healthy
and flourishing industry.

When political discussion devolves into a series of corporate for-against it
looks more like a sport and cheerleaders than a democracy. Legislation can not
be about deciding who wins in the market but about designing markets that
eliminate rent seeking, moral hazard, and externalization of costs while
promoting fair competition between businesses of all sizes. You can't know how
to design such legislature without understanding the conditions of an industry
and how changes will effect current players. But you also can not design
markets within the confines of regulatory capture or by merely noting which
current players will stand to benefit or lose from a given legislative delta.

The word insanity here is meant to convey a lack of grounding in the reality
of the situation: advocation doesn't signal whether legislation will make a
market healthier or serve customers/citizens/nations. We know what Sprint
wants - more money. What we need to know from Sprint is not whether given
legislation will or will not lead to their getting more or less money but
details that clarify how proposed legislation will or will not "eliminate rent
seeking, moral hazard, and externalization of costs while promoting fair
competition between businesses of all sizes."

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mwsherman
Sprint understands that it hurts their competitors more than themselves. NN is
unlikely to be strong on the mobile side, and Sprint has little in the way of
consumer wireline business. Verizon and AT&T have more substantial wireline
businesses.

Similar to Walmart supporting a higher minimum wage. Hurts the other guys
more. And a nice bit of PR.

~~~
dippyskoodlez
Little consumer wireline but substantial wireline overall. NN is an extremely
positive thing for Sprints network planning/design, as they are building
capacity over intelligence. Source: I stare at Sprints network maps every day.

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HCIdivision17
Note the repitition in the letter: 'light touch' and 'allow differentiation'.
I think this is likely reasonable, but it certainly gives the carriers enough
wiggle room to still play shenanigans. Which is likely fine; Sprint's right
that there needs to be room for having differing services. But the good news
is they clearly signaled that if they have to, they'll differentiate at the
network layer instead of giving up at the services layer. (That's what I read
into it - time will tell if it's merely a political gambit :)

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r00fus
Not mentioned in the article (and perhaps Legere will change his mind) but
TMobile is aligned with AT&T and Verizon in opposing Title II
reclassification.

Disappointed with that stance, since otherwise, I'm thrilled with TMobile from
a customer standpoint.

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chimeracoder
> So long as the FCC continues to allow wireless carriers to manage our
> networks and differentiate our products, Sprint will continue to invest in
> data networks regardless of whether they are regulated by Title II, Section
> 706, or some other light touch regulatory regime.

This is really huge, because it endorses applying Title II to _wireless_
networks, not just wired broadband.

Much of the discourse so far has been around wired broadband, and many of the
proposals so far (including the FCC regulations that were shot down last year
in court) carved out special exemptions for wireless networks.

~~~
dragonwriter
The FCC regulations that were shot down in court, and the proposed follow up,
did _not_ differentiate wireline from wireless, they differentiated fixed from
mobile. Those are approximately the same, but the definitions and explanations
made clear that broadband delivered wirelessly could be "fixed" (e.g., via
microwave transmitter to a fixed location.)

Its important to note, because in addition to opposing net neutrality overall,
ISPs have pitched that any regulation in that direction should use a
wireline/wireless distinction rather than fixed/mobile distinction.

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surge
Not that surprised, they own a minority share of the market and
infrastructure, in their case its too their advantage that they be able to use
other's networks uninhibited (roaming, long distance fiber, etc).

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grandalf
All this means is that Sprint thinks it is on the losing end of some deals
made by competitors.

~~~
adventured
Along with every US customer of 'broadband' paying $50-$75 per month for
5-15mbps fixed non-broadband.

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LargeCompanies
Was a Sprint customer for two years then last year I kept seeing all these
great deals pop up due to T-Mobile. I kept calling them asking if they had
anything competitive. The only thing they had was this terrible framily plan
where I had to work to find people/anyone to join this plan with. Even
deadbeats. Stupid & when I started to travel I noticed how bad their network
is!

I have since switched to an ATT family plan. 15 Gigs split between 4 users,
free WiFi hotspot (had to pay $15 additional a month to Sprint for that) and I
pay less then $50 a month. ATT coverage is solid everywhere in this state and
up and down the east coast.

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adventured
I second this. Switched from Verizon to AT&T. I can get good speeds on AT&T's
4G LTE network in some of the lowest population spots - in the middle of
nowhere - on the east coast. Their network has been impressive so far.

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forrestthewoods
Is this a case of wireless vs wired? Most Title II talks are with respect to
wired connections due to last mile issues. Wireless doesn't have that
particular issue. And right now wireless has plenty of roaring competition so
there's certainly less of a need for a regulatory hand.

~~~
drawkbox
Wireless is already under Title II (also Sprint probably wants in on wired so
they are for open competition there), that is why AT&T, Verizon, etc take
their winnings from the wired internet market and invest it into competing in
wireless because they have to compete as there is competition.

The monopolies on the ground were used as wireless investments/banks, nearly
all investment went into the wireless side, not fiber or residential internet.

We have seen 3G, 4G, LTE etc all rapidly rolled out by all wireless providers,
yet we are still running late 90's speeds on wired. The reason is the
competition. Title II is at least a start because it somewhat works in
wireless, better than wired anyways.

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rayiner
Wireless is only nominally under Title II. Section 332 of the statute
instructs the FCC to forbear on most of the parts of Title II when it comes to
wireless.

And Title II is one reason there is competition in wireless, but you've got
the effect backwards. Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon are not cable providers, so
their wired networks were heavily regulated by full-on Title II. They invested
money in wireless because it was much less regulated. But the big thing was
that bandwidth demand for mobile exploded, while growing much slower for
wired.

~~~
drawkbox
Agreed. Wireless was a blue ocean just like cable/broadband was in the late
90s/early 00s where mobile really hit in the last decade. So of course most of
the money and investment would go there, but being under Title II somewhat
helped rather than, like in wired, a full on monopoly over areas creating
stagnation and less demand. They are still competing it out for your business
over wired even though Google Fiber may be in even higher demand.

However, part of the promise of getting $200B in investment/breaks was to
finish building out the wired side, which really has not been done and is now
harming us competitively with the world. Part of their promise was to spend it
on the less demand areas of wired. Had they built out fiber and competed there
would be more demand for it. Google Fiber is in high demand and all Google is
doing is using broadband late 90s playbook, just give the people faster speeds
and whole unrealized economies emerge that our GDP has been missing for a
decade during wireless laser focus.

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derek00
I live in SF. Get fast LTE everywhere in the city. A bit slower elsewhere in
the Bay Area, but well worth it given the significantly cheaper prices.

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bwb
kick ass Sprint!

