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Verizon baffles me with purchases like this. They have bought a lot of random companies like this and Yahoo with no real purpose, while effectively letting T-M

Verizon baffles me with purchases like this. They have bought a lot of random companies like this and Yahoo with no real purpose, while effectively letting T-Mobile take the decisive lead on 5G. What were they thinking?

thumbsup-_- 3y ago
Seems like they operate like r/wallstreetbets which is if something is cheap, let's buy it as it can only go up, only to see later that it can go down further. A lot.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  It just seems like spending that cash on oh, I don’t know 5G cell phone coverage would’ve been a much smarter investment long term, but I’m not a C-suite executive, so what do I know.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
Verizon and ATT executives thought they could try and compete with Apple/Alphabet/Microsoft/Amazon/Meta. Being a dumb pipe has less profit potential than being a multimedia utility ad delivery platform business.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The dumb pipes are scared that they’ll be commoditized into irrelevance, and they’re right. So they randomly buy things they hope will keep them afloat.
JoshGlazebrook 3y ago
Verizon screwed themselves by not participating seriously in any of the spectrum auctions prior to the big chunk of C-Band they bought which they are in the process of rolling out. AT&T now covers more land area than any other carrier, and T-Mobile is way ahead of them in terms of mid-band 5G deployment. Verizon bet on mmWave 5G which is nice, but doesn't travel and is only really useful in big metros and stadiums. Their mid-band (C-Band) which they bought ~200mhz on average for most areas is in the process of being deployed, but it doesn't travel as far as they expected, so it's going to take quite a bit of time deploying more cell sites (whether towers or buildings) to densify their network. All of this is happening while they continue to hope their customers just put up with their congested wireless network by trying to ride of their old reputation of being the "best" while they jack up their plan prices for a network that is getting worse.
- nocoiner 3y ago
  Damn, their strategy of relying on the inertia of their reputation is working just fine, I just switched to them from fine-but-not-spectacular AT&T when I needed to add on a couple new phone lines. The price was about the same, and so far to me network performance seems better, but probably a lot of that is just placebo effect. Is t-mobile actually usable now? I’ve tried them 2-3 times over the last decade and urban performance was generally acceptable (though even then with weird dead zones that made it tough to use) but it would always quickly fall over any time I was beyond suburban areas.
  - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
    No switched to t mobile recently and it absolutely sucks. Miss calls constantly, drop calls, texts wont send etc
    - nerdchum 3y ago
      I had the worst customer service experience with T-Mobile than I've ever had with any company. There's literally nothing that could get me to go back to T-Mobile.
    - mint2 3y ago
      Plus t-mobile getting hacked is so common it would be more newsworthy if they managed to go a year without it happening.

thumbsup-_- 3y ago

Seems like they operate like r/wallstreetbets which is if something is cheap, let's buy it as it can only go up, only to see later that it can go down further. A lot.

lockhouse 3y ago
It just seems like spending that cash on oh, I don’t know 5G cell phone coverage would’ve been a much smarter investment long term, but I’m not a C-suite executive, so what do I know.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

Verizon and ATT executives thought they could try and compete with Apple/Alphabet/Microsoft/Amazon/Meta. Being a dumb pipe has less profit potential than being a multimedia utility ad delivery platform business.

bombcar 3y ago
The dumb pipes are scared that they’ll be commoditized into irrelevance, and they’re right. So they randomly buy things they hope will keep them afloat.

JoshGlazebrook 3y ago

Verizon screwed themselves by not participating seriously in any of the spectrum auctions prior to the big chunk of C-Band they bought which they are in the process of rolling out. AT&T now covers more land area than any other carrier, and T-Mobile is way ahead of them in terms of mid-band 5G deployment. Verizon bet on mmWave 5G which is nice, but doesn't travel and is only really useful in big metros and stadiums. Their mid-band (C-Band) which they bought ~200mhz on average for most areas is in the process of being deployed, but it doesn't travel as far as they expected, so it's going to take quite a bit of time deploying more cell sites (whether towers or buildings) to densify their network. All of this is happening while they continue to hope their customers just put up with their congested wireless network by trying to ride of their old reputation of being the "best" while they jack up their plan prices for a network that is getting worse.

nocoiner 3y ago
Damn, their strategy of relying on the inertia of their reputation is working just fine, I just switched to them from fine-but-not-spectacular AT&T when I needed to add on a couple new phone lines. The price was about the same, and so far to me network performance seems better, but probably a lot of that is just placebo effect. Is t-mobile actually usable now? I’ve tried them 2-3 times over the last decade and urban performance was generally acceptable (though even then with weird dead zones that made it tough to use) but it would always quickly fall over any time I was beyond suburban areas.
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  No switched to t mobile recently and it absolutely sucks. Miss calls constantly, drop calls, texts wont send etc
  - nerdchum 3y ago
    I had the worst customer service experience with T-Mobile than I've ever had with any company. There's literally nothing that could get me to go back to T-Mobile.
  - mint2 3y ago
    Plus t-mobile getting hacked is so common it would be more newsworthy if they managed to go a year without it happening.