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Wireless Providers Competing More Than Ever

posted by mattie_p on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:36PM   Printer-friendly
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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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jim302 on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:18PM

    by jim302 (582) on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:18PM (#3994)

    T-Mobile has always been cheaper than Verizon and AT&T. All T-Mobile did with their latest moves was remove the service contract and the cost of the phone from their monthly service rates, so people who buy phones from third party sources (used or new) or people who hang on to their phones for longer than 2 years don't get screwed. Those who don't want to pay upfront for a high end smartphone can make monthly installment payments, and when they are done paying off the device, their bill goes down (unlike Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T on a 2 year contract). Unlimited data is nice too, but I don't think it is the biggest factor in T-Mobile's recent success.

    I'm glad to see AT&T react to this by finally giving customers who bring their own device a discount. They are still a lot more expensive than T-Mobile, but they do have a bigger network... especially with HSPA+ and LTE coverage. Hopefully Verizon and Sprint will follow, but they have to get rid VoLTE working and learn how to deal with open devices... and the the Nexus 7 certification BS with Verizon shows that they still have a lot to learn.

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  • (Score: 1) by SrLnclt on Friday February 21 2014, @11:08AM

    by SrLnclt (1473) on Friday February 21 2014, @11:08AM (#4348)
    This is exactly why I switched to T-Mobile a few months back. Between 2002 and 2012 I had a whopping 3 cell phones. This may have been my stupidity to not get a shinny new phone every 24 months, but for me the new contract wasn't worth throwing out a working phone.

    Not having to pay the subsidized rate forever is a good thing for people like me, especially with smartphones becoming a mature technology. How many must-have features will be in the next generation of phones that are part of the hardware (so you can't get them with the old version via an OS upgrade or by installing a new app)? I believe smartphone hardware is beginning to plateau similar to when people stopped replacing their PCs and laptops as frequently because the old ones still worked "good enough".