4 ms·

"This cannot end well." The death of Verizon would be a good thing though, no?

roymurdock 10y ago
Depends. On the one hand we would have even less competition in an already-oligopolistic market. On the other, it would possibly give a new entrant a shot to rebuild a company with better culture, more innovation, focus on product rather than profit (at least in the short run).
- digi_owl 10y ago
  I dunno. Seems to me that USA has a problem of too many technologies. Best i can tell, one reason Verizon has the position it has, is that its main network is CMDA2k based, smack dab in the butter zone of mobile frequencies. This means that they have massive coverage, and customers can't easily up and switch carriers like they can with GSM lineage tech. One reason the iPhone "exploded" was that it was a GSM phone, thus all you needed was a firmware hack (jailbreak) to operate it outside of USA. Had it initially been a CDMA2k phone, it would have not gotten the gray market attention as it would have been completely inoperable in Europe etc.
  - tshtf 10y ago
    Verizon's main network _was_ CDMA2000 based. Now over 90% of traffic is over LTE and CMDA2000 will be sunset in a couple of years: https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2016/07/15/verizon-to-shut-down-2g-cdma2000-1x-network-by-end-2019/ https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/...
taylorwc 10y ago
This is actually a tough question to answer. In the long run, the death of carriers/MSO's in their current structure would likely be a good thing to the end consumer. In the near-term, it would be a very bad thing. Verizon has the best geographic coverage in the US and a more performant network infrastructure (on the whole) than its competitors. The thing that's easy to forget about carriers is how amazingly capital-intense it is to build a new one.
- johansch 10y ago
  It's not like the infrastructure would physically cease to exist if they went bankrupt.
  - taylorwc 10y ago
    No, but it would likely be purchased by a competing carrier or MSO that functions in an identical fashion.
    - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
      More likely a private equity firm.

Depends. On the one hand we would have even less competition in an already-oligopolistic market. On the other, it would possibly give a new entrant a shot to rebuild a company with better culture, more innovation, focus on product rather than profit (at least in the short run).

digi_owl 10y ago
I dunno. Seems to me that USA has a problem of too many technologies. Best i can tell, one reason Verizon has the position it has, is that its main network is CMDA2k based, smack dab in the butter zone of mobile frequencies. This means that they have massive coverage, and customers can't easily up and switch carriers like they can with GSM lineage tech. One reason the iPhone "exploded" was that it was a GSM phone, thus all you needed was a firmware hack (jailbreak) to operate it outside of USA. Had it initially been a CDMA2k phone, it would have not gotten the gray market attention as it would have been completely inoperable in Europe etc.
- tshtf 10y ago
  Verizon's main network _was_ CDMA2000 based. Now over 90% of traffic is over LTE and CMDA2000 will be sunset in a couple of years: https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2016/07/15/verizon-to-shut-down-2g-cdma2000-1x-network-by-end-2019/ https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/...

taylorwc 10y ago

This is actually a tough question to answer. In the long run, the death of carriers/MSO's in their current structure would likely be a good thing to the end consumer. In the near-term, it would be a very bad thing. Verizon has the best geographic coverage in the US and a more performant network infrastructure (on the whole) than its competitors. The thing that's easy to forget about carriers is how amazingly capital-intense it is to build a new one.

johansch 10y ago
It's not like the infrastructure would physically cease to exist if they went bankrupt.
- taylorwc 10y ago
  No, but it would likely be purchased by a competing carrier or MSO that functions in an identical fashion.
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    More likely a private equity firm.