5 ms·

In part: because the U.S. cell ecosystem has severe problems, and eliminating an independent competitor (particularly on GSM) sets us back rather than moving us

by elehack 15y ago

In part: because the U.S. cell ecosystem has severe problems, and eliminating an independent competitor (particularly on GSM) sets us back rather than moving us towards an affordable, sane wireless economy.

beefman 15y ago
I think you have it backwards. What would happen if car companies also owned the roads, and each brand of car could only be driven on the corresponding roads?
- wanorris 15y ago
  There are obvious disanalogies, but if the options are between several competing companies with their own roads and cars, and having only one or two companies that collectively control all the roads and all the cars, the former is still better. At the moment, those are the options on the table -- throwing our mobile infrtastructure out and starting over with a clean slate is not something practically achievable.
  - beefman 15y ago
    > if the options are between several competing companies with their own roads and cars, and having only one or two companies that collectively control all the roads and all the cars, the former is still better No, it isn't. It's why infrastructure is usually owned by government, or given protected monopoly status. Where infrastructure is defined as anything too expensive to build redundantly (starting with the military and its natural monopoly, which we call government). Your wireless coverage is not affordable because you are paying to build 75% of each of three redundant mobile phone networks. Independent networks would never exist in a free market - only the FCC licensing process brought them about. And despite that, the vacuum is so strong it produced several mergers so far (Cingular + ATT, Sprint + Nextel, and of course, the remerger of the bells into Verizon and SBC/ATT).
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      I'm not following your logic. I see your point that AT&T can absorb T-Mobile's existing infrastructure and thus provide wider coverage to their customers. What I don't follow is how a single provider will result in said provider putting more resources into infrastructure enhancement and lower prices. Please explain how.
      - beefman 15y ago
        The problem is, as an AT&T customer (a company I loathe BTW... in another tab I'm about to pay a $450 bill from them) I cannot use a Verizon tower. (There has been limited benefit to pursuing both the CDMA and GSM technology paths towards a wireless broadband network.) I assume I can't use a T-mobile tower either (there ought to be a Coase equilibrium between GSM carriers, but it would involve billing costs that a true merger could avoid). Thus, I have to pay AT&T, and you T-mobile, for coverage in the same area. Now, coverage in some highly-populated areas is bandwidth-limited. In other words, there are often enough customers of each carrier in a place to saturate the corresponding antennas. But any time the T-mobile antenna is not saturated and the AT&T antenna is over capacity, there is waste. This waste shows up on both our bills (forgive me for assuming you're a T-mobile customer for the sake of argument). Obviously, competition is a good thing, but its benefits are easily overwhelmed by infrastructure costs. Electric utilities generally operate very efficiently with government-sanctioned monopolies (and subsidies). The trading requirements enacted in the late '90s to promote "competition" on the grid are widely considered to have failed to improve utility service, and are implicated in things like the 2001 California energy crisis. Since colonial times, the Crown granted molopolies for expensive things like colonizing India...
        BrandonM 15y ago
        You're completely ignoring that in many rural areas, there are only one or two providers. When I visit my parents in rural northeast Ohio, there are only AT&T and Alltel (now Verizon) towers. My T-mobile phone roams (free to me) on the AT&T towers and works just fine. The companies can work out roam-exchange agreements among themselves that allow for sharing of infrastructure.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Are you arguing in favor of public ownership of cell towers or are you arguing for Toyota ownership of the roadway system? I can't tell which.

by elehack 15y ago

beefman 15y ago

I think you have it backwards. What would happen if car companies also owned the roads, and each brand of car could only be driven on the corresponding roads?

wanorris 15y ago
There are obvious disanalogies, but if the options are between several competing companies with their own roads and cars, and having only one or two companies that collectively control all the roads and all the cars, the former is still better. At the moment, those are the options on the table -- throwing our mobile infrtastructure out and starting over with a clean slate is not something practically achievable.
- beefman 15y ago
  > if the options are between several competing companies with their own roads and cars, and having only one or two companies that collectively control all the roads and all the cars, the former is still better No, it isn't. It's why infrastructure is usually owned by government, or given protected monopoly status. Where infrastructure is defined as anything too expensive to build redundantly (starting with the military and its natural monopoly, which we call government). Your wireless coverage is not affordable because you are paying to build 75% of each of three redundant mobile phone networks. Independent networks would never exist in a free market - only the FCC licensing process brought them about. And despite that, the vacuum is so strong it produced several mergers so far (Cingular + ATT, Sprint + Nextel, and of course, the remerger of the bells into Verizon and SBC/ATT).
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    I'm not following your logic. I see your point that AT&T can absorb T-Mobile's existing infrastructure and thus provide wider coverage to their customers. What I don't follow is how a single provider will result in said provider putting more resources into infrastructure enhancement and lower prices. Please explain how.
    - beefman 15y ago
      The problem is, as an AT&T customer (a company I loathe BTW... in another tab I'm about to pay a $450 bill from them) I cannot use a Verizon tower. (There has been limited benefit to pursuing both the CDMA and GSM technology paths towards a wireless broadband network.) I assume I can't use a T-mobile tower either (there ought to be a Coase equilibrium between GSM carriers, but it would involve billing costs that a true merger could avoid). Thus, I have to pay AT&T, and you T-mobile, for coverage in the same area. Now, coverage in some highly-populated areas is bandwidth-limited. In other words, there are often enough customers of each carrier in a place to saturate the corresponding antennas. But any time the T-mobile antenna is not saturated and the AT&T antenna is over capacity, there is waste. This waste shows up on both our bills (forgive me for assuming you're a T-mobile customer for the sake of argument). Obviously, competition is a good thing, but its benefits are easily overwhelmed by infrastructure costs. Electric utilities generally operate very efficiently with government-sanctioned monopolies (and subsidies). The trading requirements enacted in the late '90s to promote "competition" on the grid are widely considered to have failed to improve utility service, and are implicated in things like the 2001 California energy crisis. Since colonial times, the Crown granted molopolies for expensive things like colonizing India...
      - BrandonM 15y ago
        You're completely ignoring that in many rural areas, there are only one or two providers. When I visit my parents in rural northeast Ohio, there are only AT&T and Alltel (now Verizon) towers. My T-mobile phone roams (free to me) on the AT&T towers and works just fine. The companies can work out roam-exchange agreements among themselves that allow for sharing of infrastructure.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Are you arguing in favor of public ownership of cell towers or are you arguing for Toyota ownership of the roadway system? I can't tell which.