4 ms·

How long until Amazon takes on the existing cell companies?

• toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Doesn't have the margins to make it attractive. An M2M/IoT MVNO though? That'd be cool to see, more competition in the space drives down prices.
  • vineyardmike 5y ago
    Yea because amazon isn't used to entering markets with small margins. /s
    • toomuchtodo 5y ago
      If mean, if AWS is dragging retail fulfillment around, do they need more anchors around their neck? Operating a nationwide cellular carrier is HARD, even when dumping the capex on tower management REITs and outsourcing all of your cellular infra to Ericsson. Seems easier to write a check and plug into someone else doing the schlep (ATT is best suited for this imho), maybe buy Twilio and have them do it.
      • vineyardmike 5y ago
        Retail is basically cost-neutral at this point. I have a theory that they operate at a loss just to avoid taxes (because that delta is basically free) and spend that to stay extra competitive. Amazon's whole MO is huge CapEx and selling it for cash flow. If they have the credit, why not finance it. They're already building satellite ground stations and a fleet to beam internet down to earth, this could easily supplement or build a market for that. They'd probably benefit from lots of cheap and available internet for their logistics network, but its probably not expensive enough to justify alone, but maybe by leveraging AWS sales they can prop up cash flow enough to cover costs. Not that they're doing this, of course, just that i don't think it should be ruled out.