T-Mobile USA wants to be the outlier cellular operator -- the "uncarrier" -- that customers love. Though it is emphasizing consumer love, its strategy could benefit enterprises.
T-Mobile presented this new approach this week during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and CEO John Legere didn't pull any punches. During his presentation at the Venetian Hotel, Legere asked, "Anybody here from New York? Anybody here using AT&T? Anybody using it happy? Of course not, the network is crap!"
Legere is on a mission to prove that T-Mobile isn't like typical cellular operators. His company desperately needs a new strategy. It lost more than 1 million subscribers during the first three quarters of 2012. For Legere, who became CEO in September, it's a case of no more Mr. Nice Guy. (Ms. Nice Gal?)
T-Mobile is calling itself the uncarrier, and it is going after other cellular operators, particularly AT&T, which it considers the most vulnerable due to network capacity problems and data pricing. To compete against AT&T and others, T-Mobile needs lots of publicity. As Legere told the Seattle Times, "We're small, we need to get attention, we need to get the spotlight on us so that we can capture an undue amount of the attention of the industry so customers will choose us." That attention will revolve around new approaches.
One strategy, as I wrote on Tuesday, will be to eliminate cellular phone subsidies and charge the full retail price for prepaid and postpaid contracts. In exchange, users will get lower airtime rates. Another strategy will be offering truly unlimited plans for voice, SMS, and data without throttling (reducing the data rate after a certain number of gigabytes per month).
Both pricing options could be important for enterprises, which will need to compare them with their current corporate rates and perhaps use the new prices for leverage when negotiating contracts. Small businesses that don't receive especially favorable corporate rates might fare better with the flexibility of consumer rates.
Everyone -- consumers and businesses -- might benefit from another T-Mobile strategy: high-definition voice. I first wrote about this audio technology in April 2009. HD voice uses more bandwidth, but the audio quality is noticeably superior to standard cellular audio. With HD voice, conversations are much clearer (sometimes better than landline calls), and there's little or no background noise.
IT departments might be surprised by how much better HD voice is for distinguishing words. Think about the importance of clear conversations, especially for important business transactions involving numbers. Consider the value of clearer audio when speaking with overseas business associates, clients, and customers whose primary language isn't yours. HD voice also could be useful for picking up audio clues in conversational loudness and pitch.
I had hoped HD voice would become widespread in the United States beginning in 2010, especially after Google purchased the Internet audio and video platform provider Global IP Solutions. (See: GIPS Will Bolster Google Video, HD Voice Strategies.) But I was overly optimistic. Nevertheless, a handful of cellular operators, such as Orange, offer HD voice. (See: UK's Orange Launches HD Cellular Voice.) In 2011, Sprint announced HD voice with one handset, but it's available in only a single test market.
The technology requires that the cellular network be configured for HD voice and that all parties on the conversation use HD voice phones on the same network. T-Mobile will start with a few phones: the Samsung Galaxy S III, the HTC One S, and the Nokia Astound.
I hope that T-Mobile, unlike Sprint, helps jumpstart the market by advertising the advantages of HD voice. I also hope enterprises understand the value of HD voice and encourage handset vendors and cellular operators to offer it. PC Magazine says AT&T will offer HD voice this year. Verizon Wireless might offer it in 2014, according to CNET.
In addition to better pricing and HD voice, enterprises might appreciate T-Mobile's LTE launch. The first launch could be in Las Vegas in a few weeks, followed by coverage for 100 million people in the middle of the year and 200 million by year's end. T-Mobile is certainly late with LTE, but the company's uncarrier strategy with more customer-centric policies and new features could benefit all clients, not just consumers.
T-Mobile is right that they need a lot of publicity to get the work out, hoping consumers will switch to the "uncarrier."
But, underneath all is the need to have quality and unique products at prices consumer can afford and believe to be reasonable if not dirt cheap.
HD, unthrottling, and cheap rates are all nice to talk about, but can they in reality pull it off against competition that can alway match or outdo them?
I've been conjuring on how missing children awareness could be better distributed online, particularly the social. Almost every instance I see one on my newsfeed I feel obligated to share, and often looking at the original source evalutating whether it was shared with selfish thoughts of gaining social metrics is the deciding factor for me which again takes away from the need and help in locating the child.
That brought me to wonder if wireless carriers should be obligated to take initiative in distributing apps that are displayed intermittently with their advertisement models. so here I am asking you for your thoughts.
Cellular/WiFi is available here on the East Coast on Amtrak from Washington, D.C. to Boston -- the "northeast corridor" as they call it. Lots of drop-outs here, too, as the laptop's WiFi connects to the train's router which connects to cellular.
Amtrak is upping the the speed from 3G cellular to LTE. However, the problems include spotty cellsite availability over many sections of the route and many people trying to access WiFi at the same time.
60ms for a ping isn't too bad. LTE is designed to provide superior latency, but there are so many variables, of course.
I'm lucky to have Verizon's FiOS, which is good. Quite reliable. There's no need to take a bundled plan, although Verizon would prefer you take cable and phone, too.
The reason there won't be WiMAx 2 in the U.S. is simple -- the major players are standardizing on LTE, and that's not going to change. In the future, LTE will evolve to the faster LTE-Advanced. Also, most of the telecom companies are buying LTE, so the prices for infrastructure equipment are lower than WiMax.
The main disappointments I've had so far with my mobile Wimax was back when I was commuting from Kent to Seattle, about 20 miles, on a train. The service would work for only a part of the journey and then cut out...yet this was one of the places where I would really want it.
Another disappointment is ping. About 60ms. Not bad at all really, except for gaming. And wired broadband can give you pings in the 10ms or less.
I thought about going to optical fibers which is available, but everytime I read about these great deals, I find they are only available with bundling. So, CenturyLink will sell me fiber optic for a low cost...but I have to add a landline phone! That's like having to buy a record player to use iTunes!
That is one of the things I like about Clear -- they are a pure Internet Service Provider. They are not a cable company trying to milk me for channels. They are not a phone company trying to bundle other things I don't want or need. They sell wireless broadband, period!
What I really want is Wimax 2, with 100Mpbs throughput (or higher) and much lower ping times. They have these things already in places like South Korea. Why not here? The other thing I've wanted is a mobile phone that simply runs on Wimax...but now Virgin Mobile offers that, a 4G phone that uses the Clear Wimax network for broadband. I keep meaning to buy one, but I've been lazy.
Ha! You'll have a long time to wait. But if you compare areas with good signal strengh, WiMAX is the slowest by far compared to HSPA+ and LTE. HSPA+ can hold its own against LTE in many areas.
T-Mobile, since it's headquartered in your neck of the woods, should have good HSPA+ coverage, but, of course, coverage is quite variable.
If you're happy with the price and performance of WiMax, I'm happy!
I'll keep huddling in my living room, waiting for men in black suits to knock at my door and take away my Wimax modem for a brand new and shiny and much, much, MUCH better LTE modem then.
Yes, Clearwire will offer LTE in high density areas. It could wholesale the service to other operators/MVNOs in addition to Sprint, which is looking to buy it.
If you get good Clearwire coverage, which I guess you do, it's worth the cost. But it's slower than HSPA+ in many areas and LTE. The latency is worse and it and doesn't penetrate buildings as well.
The future of wireless in the U.S. (and most other countries) is LTE, not WiMax. Clearwire will keep WiMax running for years, but the emphasis will be on LTE. Sprint realizes this, too, and is promoting LTE phones, not WiMax.
Not so sure about that...from what I read Clear is adding an LTE network mainly in urban areas but to resell to other carriers (for example, Virgin Mobile runs its 4G service on Clears Wimax network as does Freedom Pop's limited free service).
I've been using Clear Wimax for more than 5 years now as my home broadband service and still think its the best bargain around.
T-Mobile is switching over 1900 MHz from EDGE to HSPA+. It's using 1700 MHz (the AWS band) for LTE. T-Mobile is also incorporating spectrum it received from AT&T because of the failed buyout and spectrum from MetroPCS, when that purchase is approved by the government.
T-Mobile's HSPA+ system is designed for 42Mbit/s (theoretically, of course), so it's rather fast in areas with good signal strength. LTE still is better, overall, and has lower latency than HSPA+, but as a telecom engineer you know all about this.
Sprint also are rejiggering its spectrum, including using Clearwire for WiMAX and, eventually, employing Clearwire's LTE-Advanced network in high density cities.
I suspect that the spectrum engineering will be easier for T-Mobile than Sprint, but T-Mobile will have a few years of engineering issues ahead of them.
Think about how many radios are embedded into cellular phones: cellular (with many frequencies), Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS. Then there's NFC. And then there are the various sensors, such as accelerometers, compasses, gyroscopes, proximity sensors and light sensors. There's a limit to how much "stuff" can be crammed into a phone -- such as the number of cellular frequencies from a cost, size and radio interference standpoint.
The same model of a phone can come in different versions to accommodate the different regional frequencies.
However, technology continues to evolve. After all, years ago how many people could even imagine integrating so many capabilities into a phone -- and there are so many more I haven't listed.
As we've discussed, T-Mobile is using a variety of frequencies and switching frequencies to accommodate the iPhone. But there's a limit to how many can be included to allow T-Mobile phones to roam in all the international networks.
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