4 ms·

Wireless competition is only alive because the government blocked the merger of T-Mobile and AT&T and then of Spring and T-Mobile. This then forced T-Mobile (an

Wireless competition is only alive because the government blocked the merger of T-Mobile and AT&T and then of Spring and T-Mobile. This then forced T-Mobile (and now Sprint) to get creative in trying to compete with Verizon and AT&T. Also, wireless is not really competition for home internet. Try cancelling your home internet service and relying solely on one of the wireless carriers and see how far you'll get. The latency, bandwidth and reliability of wireless are much worse than wired networks. The wireless carriers simply don't have the spectrum to provision the same capacity that people routinely use on their home internet connections. With the move to unlimited data plans the only solution will have is severely throttling the traffic of people that actually try to use a substantial amount of data.

massysett 10y ago
Wireless is not for everyone--not yet. However, many people do not use a lot of bandwidth and they may find wireless to be quite adequate. As wireless bandwidth goes up in quality and down in price, people might truly start to "cut the cord". Twenty years ago you could substitute "cellular" for "wireless" and "landline" for "home internet" and make the same claims. No one dreamed people would eliminate land phones back when only a few had a "car phone".
- DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
  A strange thing I've noticed about telecoms in the US is that prices never fall - instead consumers just get more value and are constantly upsold higher-value offerings - this is not a bad thing in itself, but whereas in the UK and most of Europe I can get a a few gigs of 4G/LTE data for my phone for about €10 - something you'd have to pay $50+ for in the USA. The same goes for home internet - the cheapest non-promotional rate in my area is $45/mo for 10mbps, but pay $20/more and you get 100mbps. Why isn't there a sub-$30/mo offering? I believe these prices remain comparable to what they cost (sans-handset subsidy cost) over the past 20+ years.
  - cstejerean 10y ago
    Because the business model of the carriers is built on a fairly high ARPU of about $45-55. They need to protect that average revenue per user, so they don't really care what they sell you as long as they get the revenue. At first it was voice minutes. Then as those got cheaper more of the money was made on domestic roaming and long-distance charges. Then those went away and they replaced them with SMS charges. Then revenue shifted to data. At this point data makes up about 60% of the revenue, and I suspect this number will only continue to rise. The only way for that ARPU to drop considerably is if a new player enters the market that can significantly undercut the existing players, because none of the existing players are willing to see that number drop by half or more. I don't believe such a new entrant will materialize anytime soon due to the high barriers to entry. I suspect the cost of building and operating a wireless network in the US is too high to support a carrier operating on a fraction of the ARPU.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    > The same goes for home internet - the cheapest non-promotional rate in my area is $45/mo for 10mbps, but pay $20/more and you get 100mbps. Why isn't there a sub-$30/mo offering? I know that Cox has some kind of "low speed, low price" offering, that I believe is under $30/month - but they kinda hide it on their site; I think you have to explicitly call and ask for it. See here (scroll near the bottom): https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/speeds-and-data-plans.html https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/speeds-and-data-plans.h... Note the "Starter Package", then note the package one level up ("Essential"). If you click on the link next to the "Starter Package" for pricing, you will be taken to another page - where the lowest shown tier is for the "Essential Package". But I'm pretty sure you can get the "Starter Package" if you call first. There's also this for low-income families: http://connect2compete.org/cox/ http://connect2compete.org/cox/

massysett 10y ago

Wireless is not for everyone--not yet. However, many people do not use a lot of bandwidth and they may find wireless to be quite adequate. As wireless bandwidth goes up in quality and down in price, people might truly start to "cut the cord". Twenty years ago you could substitute "cellular" for "wireless" and "landline" for "home internet" and make the same claims. No one dreamed people would eliminate land phones back when only a few had a "car phone".

DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
A strange thing I've noticed about telecoms in the US is that prices never fall - instead consumers just get more value and are constantly upsold higher-value offerings - this is not a bad thing in itself, but whereas in the UK and most of Europe I can get a a few gigs of 4G/LTE data for my phone for about €10 - something you'd have to pay $50+ for in the USA. The same goes for home internet - the cheapest non-promotional rate in my area is $45/mo for 10mbps, but pay $20/more and you get 100mbps. Why isn't there a sub-$30/mo offering? I believe these prices remain comparable to what they cost (sans-handset subsidy cost) over the past 20+ years.
- cstejerean 10y ago
  Because the business model of the carriers is built on a fairly high ARPU of about $45-55. They need to protect that average revenue per user, so they don't really care what they sell you as long as they get the revenue. At first it was voice minutes. Then as those got cheaper more of the money was made on domestic roaming and long-distance charges. Then those went away and they replaced them with SMS charges. Then revenue shifted to data. At this point data makes up about 60% of the revenue, and I suspect this number will only continue to rise. The only way for that ARPU to drop considerably is if a new player enters the market that can significantly undercut the existing players, because none of the existing players are willing to see that number drop by half or more. I don't believe such a new entrant will materialize anytime soon due to the high barriers to entry. I suspect the cost of building and operating a wireless network in the US is too high to support a carrier operating on a fraction of the ARPU.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  > The same goes for home internet - the cheapest non-promotional rate in my area is $45/mo for 10mbps, but pay $20/more and you get 100mbps. Why isn't there a sub-$30/mo offering? I know that Cox has some kind of "low speed, low price" offering, that I believe is under $30/month - but they kinda hide it on their site; I think you have to explicitly call and ask for it. See here (scroll near the bottom): https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/speeds-and-data-plans.html https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/speeds-and-data-plans.h... Note the "Starter Package", then note the package one level up ("Essential"). If you click on the link next to the "Starter Package" for pricing, you will be taken to another page - where the lowest shown tier is for the "Essential Package". But I'm pretty sure you can get the "Starter Package" if you call first. There's also this for low-income families: http://connect2compete.org/cox/ http://connect2compete.org/cox/