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posted by
mattie_p
on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:36PM
from the but-think-of-the-stockholders dept.
from the but-think-of-the-stockholders dept.
siliconwafer writes:
"Competition among wireless providers could hurt profits in the wireless industry, according to a report by Reuters. T-Mobile's aggressive price structure, abandonment of contracts, and termination-fee payments have put downward pressure on mobile costs for consumers, and Wall Street analysts are forecasting a reduction in profits in the wireless sector as a result. AT&T in particular is showing signs of stress. While this may be bad news for the wireless industry, it's good news for consumers."
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Wireless Providers Competing More Than Ever
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:47PM
I always find it hilarious when I read things like this. T-Mobile goes in all guns blazing, makes great offers for customers (compared to the rest) and yet when it comes to a report outlining who will hurt the most, it is the old guard.
Could it be that AT&T simply isn't being run/managed as well? Surely given this they should be the ones reaping the highest profit margins? Perhaps it is high time that their shareholders demanded more accountability and required the company to perform better?
(Score: 4, Informative) by joekiser on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:12PM
The truth is, T-Mobile USA isn't doing as well as the other major carriers, so they *must* come out with all guns blazing. They have had acquisition offers twice in three years, and even with all of the "uncarrier" business that their CEO likes to speak, he has gone on the record as saying that a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile (which would reduce competition) is good for consumers. Their backs are against the wall. And I say this as a longtime T-Mobile customer, who has been retweeted and "favorited" by John Legere a few times on Twitter.
T-Mobile itself has seen its share of bad press the past few days as well. The BlackBerry "switch to iPhone" debacle on the surface seemed like an attempt to move customers from a dying brand, but on deeper inspection revealed that T-Mobile is having trouble moving iPhones. T-Mobile took a huge gamble by going all in on the iPhone, and now they are struggling to make the sales they predicted. If they do not meet the sales promised to Apple, they stand to pay a penalty of a few billion dollars. How coincidental that the only other company that went full derp mode on the iPhone, Sprint, is now the company that they may have to merge with.
But back to the main point, yeah, on the MVNO front, there is a lot of great competition out there.
The World is Yours.
Former
(Score: 1) by SMI on Saturday February 22 2014, @03:36AM
Glad to see someone bringing up MVNOs! I personally use PlatinumTel [ptel.com] which is an MVNO for T-Mobile, used to use PagePlus [pagepluscellular.com] (Verizon). Why anyone would pay more to get less and be tied to a contract is beyond me.
(Score: 1) by thoughtlover on Tuesday February 25 2014, @06:04PM
I agree that many of the carriers' woes are from leasing out their lines while the MVNOs make out like bandits --offering sub-par connectivity for one-half to one-third the price of the Big-3's options, and all without a contract --no, I don't consider Sprint a competitor in the market, anymore.
How many poor people can get a cellphone contract via AT&T/T-Mo/Verizon that have no or bad credit? None. But they can get one (with ridiculous reconnection fees for late payment) for next-to-nothing via Cricket or StraightTalk (which is Wal-mart, IIRC). You can even get a nicer, used smartphone on Craigslist and plug a StraighTalk SIM in it for less than $50/mo for 'unlimited' talk, SMS, and data --MMS requires a jailbreak to point to the proper proxy; yet another way they keep down their overall network usage.
It's the MVNOs aggressive pricing models, combined by taking the homeless masses that wanted a cellphone and internet connection (often the only way for poorer segments of the population to do so) that threatened to undermine the profitability of the Big-3.
New 'a la carte' models that are completely flexible, like Ting, can provide more angst for those old giants... giants, of whom, are destined to fall because of not adapting fast enough to changing tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hash14 on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:59PM
But the thing is, "performing better" to the stock owners means, "how much money am I going to get?" And not how much over the next 2 years, it means only within the next quarter, because they don't have the maturity to make a reasonable, long-term investment based on producing a legitimate product.
So instead of working on actual engineering improvements, they instead come up with these bullshit MBA schemes [arstechnica.com] like, "let's make content providers pay for data too! (because we should just be allowed to collect money for free without doing any real work)."