[quote=patientlywaiting][quote=sdduuuude] Seriously, I was gonna post the same comment – that investing in 3G actually costs less and T-Mobile’s lack of it isn’t necessarily a good thing. T-Mobile knew when they built GSM they’d have to convert it eventually. It served them well initially, but now it’s running thin.
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Sure t-mobile needs to convert. But they can afford to do so slowly at much less cost.
You have to look at the youth market to see where the trend is — texting which requires much less capacity. Young people love to text to each other.
T-Mob does an excellent job at attracting young subscriber and new immigrants (where the growth is) by selling through independent dealers who provide unlocked phones (people from overseas are used to SIM cards and the convenience of changing handsets).
Those same dealers encourage people to sign new contracts every year to get free phones (only 1 year contract with independent dealers). And those dealers will also give cash rebates if customers bring their own phones.
So subscribers will use a spouse or relative’s name to sign up again. The churn at T-Mob is really the same as other carriers.
Talk to the foreign students and new immigrants and will you all see that they use T-Mobile with the GSM phones they brought with them.
I never believed in building the superhighway. I think it’s better to conserve cash and build it only when you need it at a low price. Remember, it’s also possible to lease/rent.
Look at the fiber networks of the 1990s built at top prices. There’s still plenty of capacity there.
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Well I am forced to chimed in based on the fact that this is the only subject on the whole blog where I actually know something! :P…
TMob and a lot of the other carriers DO need to go to 3G. In high capacity areas it is easier for the carriers to off load their networks by upgrading to 3G. They way they are operating now requires them to build new site due to operating frequency (channel planning) restraints. New sites are far more expensive to build than just swapping out a base station. A new BTS cost about 150K. To build a new cell site for capacity reason e.g. a “cell split” not only requires capital (usually a min of around 100k but budgeted up to 500K) for that site but a new lease (500 to 5000 a month) new T1s (200 per month and usually at least 2) and a whole of OPex that goes wtih it.
Plus you make the comment that these forgein students love thier SIM cards. Well guess what… Most of those students are already on the 3G network in Europe and thier handsets not only handle GSM but UMTS (3G).
In the end it is costing them millions of dollars to delay putting the system in place because they will have to purse policies that are the exact reason for upgrading to 3G.
I have been building, designing, and monitoring GSM and CDMA networks for 10 years. I think about what is happening to a cell phone call all day. The RF enviroment, call procesing, and how it is making it to the switch. Sounds boring but I have had fun with it.
Part of the problem iscell phone carrier didnt always purchase the amount of bandwidth they needed hence the new auctions. The carriers never invisioned competing directly against thier own landline divisions and capacity has been a huge concern for any carrier that purchased Cellular A&B and operates a TDMA format or purchased spectrum in the DEF Blocks of PCS.
Trust me. Anyone in these spectrums have thier work cut out for them especailly when in comes to intergating two discontinuous carriers or even getting a handset manufactor to produce such a handset for a low volume carrier. And yes you are a low volume carrier if you are not ATT or Verizon.
Lastly you made the point about texting. Texting has NOT relieved traffic from the voice side. Infact it has created the need for more channel elememnts and not less in CDMA base stations.
Hope this is informative.
Oink Oink my piggies,
CE
P.S. SDDuuuude use to be a phone god too. But he has turned to the dark side and know only writes tools for pinheads like me!
