The Moth and the Candle and 5G
If I could describe the mindset of telephone companies it would be the story of the moth and the candle. In May, AT&T announced with great fanfare that it is back to being a telephone company again: AT&T to refocus…
Betting on Magenta
I’ve always thought T-Mobile’s Legere was super smart. I don’t necessarily mean in IQ, but he is street smart. If he is as smart as I think, he is going to gore Verizon and AT&T. Here’s how it will play…
Liar Liar Phones on Fire
Before AT&T acquired Time Warner it claimed that this is somehow good for consumers. I cannot possibly imagine how it is good for consumers. Almost immediately after completing the acquisition AT&T raised its prices. Not long ago AT&T acquired DirecTV…
A Tribute to AT&T’s Victims
AT&T has suffered several outages of their 911 System. The regulatory response was a slap on the hand with a $5.25 million fine. This fine is not enough to curb future misbehavior. An independent company should have been hired by…
T-Mobile Gets Tech
Verizon thinks 5G is going to allow people to connect their lightbulbs and toasters to the internet. They think this is possible and that people will pay $5 per month per device to do so. Never mind that 5G frequencies…
AT&T and Verizon’s Towers
Just a few years ago both AT&T and Verizon sold off most of their cellular towers. For that, they got about $5 Blllion in cash, each. Verizon used the money to purchase AOL, and as that was such a strategic…
Sad that Apple Intentionally Cripples its Products
There have been quite a few articles talking about how Apple has been crippling their Verizon/Sprint iPhone 7 phones to force them to go slower than the hardware allows. The story you will hear is a bit different from the…
AT&T Penalized for Cramming
AT&T to pay a $7.75 million fine for cramming (after it promised not to)… How often have you opened a closet looking for something (Item A), found something else (Item B) and spent more time than you’d imagined delving into something…
Comcast Vs. Cellular
I keep hearing about cord cutters who are using mobile internet in preference to broadband. And, I keep saying: really? I don’t like Comcast any more than most people, but they have genuinely increased internet speeds over the last few…
Cellular Merger Madness
I was genuinely surprised when AT&T saw the answer to its service problems being to spend $50 Billion acquiring Direct TV. $50 Billion is enough money to install ONE MILLION CELL TOWERS. Think about it. If AT&T had installed one million…
Bad for US: AT&T And Verizon
Colin here. I know I harp on this topic a lot, but I really believe that AT&T and Verizon are causing America great harm. They’re causing our country to be non-competitive, they’re dragging our industries and companies down like a…
AT&T First US Carrier in Hype
AT&T hosted its Developer Summit just before CES, so one might think that any news would get buried. No such luck – “AT&T First US Carrier to Support WebRTC” is everywhere. Impressive at least from a publicity point of view….
AT&T Passport Exploits Customers
Colin here. International roaming by AT&T and Verizon are unethical rip-offs. Both of them charge about $20,000 per gigabyte while roaming. Yes, you will pay more than a new car just for using one gigabyte of data while roaming internationally….
Cell Coverage: Perception and Maps
Colin here. Cell coverage is a subject of great office debate over who is best. Invariably a lot of anecdotal evidence will be given to support whatever view is offered. Rarely does this sort of discussion accomplish anything. One thing…
DirecTV for $50B?
AT&T is spending $50 Billion to purchase Direct TV so that they can re-enter the TV business. You may recall that in 1998 they also entered the TV business when they purchased were in the TV business when they purchased…
Cellular Maddness
For the past several years AT&T and Verizon have been like UPS and FedEx: copying each other’s pricing structures to the penny. (“Not oligopolistic says the US Supreme Court.”). But this year things are very different. The major carriers have broken…
Fraud and the Blue Box
Colin here. A recurring, popular news theme is about hackers and the billions of dollars in fraud that they inflict upon the public. It’s a feel good topic that gets people outraged. Bust most if the stories on fraud are…
Unlimited Data
Colin here, and I am seeing an increasing trend towards cellular data plans offering unlimited data. T-Mobile offers unlimited slow-speed data for free, and unlimited high-speed (4G) data for a flat $20 a month per phone. Sprint (and their Virgin…
Bell System Breakup Part 2
Part 1 Colin here. The Department of Justice (DOJ) anti-trust lawsuit had been running for a number of years, and by the early 1980s it was finally going to trial. Bell recognized two things: They could not win this lawsuit…
Cisco Figures-Out Consumer Sales
What’s all this talk about Cisco exiting consumer businesses? Just because Cisco killed Umi, Flip, and now sold off Linksys to Belkin, don’t come tthink that Cisco doesn’t like consumers. A consumer after all is someone that uses and/or eats…