4 ms·

I worked for TMo in the pre-Legere era. About 8 years ago. The climate was toxic. IT was just a cost center. We had multi year waterfall death march projects.

I worked for TMo in the pre-Legere era. About 8 years ago. The climate was toxic. IT was just a cost center. We had multi year waterfall death march projects. I eventually resigned after most of the work was pushed to offshore contractors, the onshore teams gutted, and those that remain responsible for rewriting the crap the offshore teams produced. I ran into a old friend who is still there recently, and I was surprised to find out that despite the huge public changes under Legere, IT was still a huge mess with the same leaders pushing most of the work offshore.

shortformblog 11y ago
I can definitely see some of that, admittedly. If there was a weak point in the T-Mobile offering from the perspective of the end user, it would be the various billing interfaces. They struggle to load sometimes and the company's app offerings (particularly on iOS) are surprisingly bad considering the fact that, y'know, T-Mobile is a company that specializes in mobile communications. I think that the company's comeback has largely been driven by innovative marketing and smart business offerings, rather than the technology itself.
- akgerber 11y ago
  I have repeatedly been unable to pay my T-Mobile prepaid bill in the past couple months after my CC number changed, because changes via the interface seem to have just failed to persist.
jessaustin 11y ago
You have my sympathies, but having worked at several, I'd be surprised to find an American phone company where IT didn't display those pathologies. The environment is so dominated by regulation and has been for so long that executives can't imagine IT being other than a cost center, and honestly I don't think they're wrong. Telecom profits are pursued through investment, marketing, and lobbying. Look at all the work Google has done to route around this industry -- if there were a functioning market in which numerous providers had to appeal to customers, little of that would have been necessary. There is good engineering in telecom, inside the switches, which are purchased from outside vendors.
- someguydave 11y ago
  All mobile phone providers in the us are more-or-less managed by the US government indirectly through FCC spectrum auction rules (and operating rules) and FTC/SEC monopoly regulation.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    You've identified one link in the chain. Why not consider the management of the FCC by the Daughters Bell via lobbyists and the revolving door? (The SEC and FTC are captured by different industries.) They all dearly love extant USA spectrum policy, because they know that without it they would cease to exist in a few short years. The way to thrive without pleasing customers, is to write the rules that keep real competition out.
    - someguydave 11y ago
      Indeed. There's a kind of 'iron polygon' that is composed of the FCC, media corps, content corps, telecom corps, cable corps, satellite corps, lobbyists, Congressional patronage, and federal and state civil servants with agendas. Each node wields power over and/or shares power with other nodes. Promotion is from within. The unifying principle of the polygon is to plan the telecommunications industry in such a fashion that the polygon remains on top. This 'organization' has no customer service line, and the existing cell-phone companies essentially work as oligopolistic - and profitable - vassals of the polygon.
yuhong 11y ago
Do you know why they didn't fix it?

shortformblog 11y ago

I can definitely see some of that, admittedly. If there was a weak point in the T-Mobile offering from the perspective of the end user, it would be the various billing interfaces. They struggle to load sometimes and the company's app offerings (particularly on iOS) are surprisingly bad considering the fact that, y'know, T-Mobile is a company that specializes in mobile communications. I think that the company's comeback has largely been driven by innovative marketing and smart business offerings, rather than the technology itself.

akgerber 11y ago
I have repeatedly been unable to pay my T-Mobile prepaid bill in the past couple months after my CC number changed, because changes via the interface seem to have just failed to persist.

jessaustin 11y ago

You have my sympathies, but having worked at several, I'd be surprised to find an American phone company where IT didn't display those pathologies. The environment is so dominated by regulation and has been for so long that executives can't imagine IT being other than a cost center, and honestly I don't think they're wrong. Telecom profits are pursued through investment, marketing, and lobbying. Look at all the work Google has done to route around this industry -- if there were a functioning market in which numerous providers had to appeal to customers, little of that would have been necessary. There is good engineering in telecom, inside the switches, which are purchased from outside vendors.

someguydave 11y ago
All mobile phone providers in the us are more-or-less managed by the US government indirectly through FCC spectrum auction rules (and operating rules) and FTC/SEC monopoly regulation.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  You've identified one link in the chain. Why not consider the management of the FCC by the Daughters Bell via lobbyists and the revolving door? (The SEC and FTC are captured by different industries.) They all dearly love extant USA spectrum policy, because they know that without it they would cease to exist in a few short years. The way to thrive without pleasing customers, is to write the rules that keep real competition out.
  - someguydave 11y ago
    Indeed. There's a kind of 'iron polygon' that is composed of the FCC, media corps, content corps, telecom corps, cable corps, satellite corps, lobbyists, Congressional patronage, and federal and state civil servants with agendas. Each node wields power over and/or shares power with other nodes. Promotion is from within. The unifying principle of the polygon is to plan the telecommunications industry in such a fashion that the polygon remains on top. This 'organization' has no customer service line, and the existing cell-phone companies essentially work as oligopolistic - and profitable - vassals of the polygon.

yuhong 11y ago

Do you know why they didn't fix it?