6 ms·

Iliad confirms its interest in T-Mobile US [pdf]

76 points by djug 12y ago

Zikes 12y ago
I'm on T-Mobile and have no idea who Iliad are. Should I be excited or scared?
- djug 12y ago
  "Iliad is a French provider of telecommunication services. It is based in Paris and its operations comprise fixed and mobile telephony services, prepaid phone cards and internet access providing and hosting services. The company was founded by Xavier Niel in 1999." -Wikipedia
  - Zikes 12y ago
    That's not exactly what I'm after. Being so far removed from the country they're based in, I have no idea what the general sentiment about the company is. How is their customer service? Are their product offerings priced competitively? Do they generally "go to bat" for their customers on issues like privacy and net neutrality? On a scale of Google Fiber to Comcast, how do they rate?
    - brohee 12y ago
      Extremely competitive pricing, so so customer support (well, understaffed so hard to reach but polite and competent, nothing like the horror stories coming from the US). Very simple commercial offering, little in the way of options and extra charges. They design lots of their networking equipment, from the triple play boxes customer get to some of their core infrastructure. They also keep their engineering in house, where the competition (Orange, SFR, Bouygues) relies a lot on external companies for about everything... A very peculiar company, unlike any other in France, save maybe OVH the hosting giant.
      - jamesbritt 12y ago
        (... nothing like the horror stories coming from the US). I've had really good experiences with Tmob customer support, so I get aprehensive when there is acquistion talk.
    - leeoniya 12y ago
      > Being so far removed from the country they're based in You do know that T-Mobile is German, yes? [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Telekom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Telekom
      - Zikes 12y ago
        Semantics and a poor choice of wording on my part. T-Mobile may be based in Germany, but they do operate in the US and are one of the most well-known cellular providers.
      - freehunter 12y ago
        Yes, but they do business in the US. Aldi is German as well, but they have stores in the US so Americans can visit and form their own opinions about the brand. Not so with Illiad, so T-Mobile being owned by DT isn't relevant to the discussion.
        Deusdies 12y ago
        I am not sure how it is not relevant. Tmobile is owned by Deutsche Telekom, a German company. T Mobile operates in the US and many other countries. If this offer goes through, T mobile US will be owned by Free, a French company. But it will continue to operate in the US.
        burkaman 12y ago
        I'll break it down. Generally, an acquisition implies some type of change. Not always, obviously, but usually when a company gets bought, its customers are going to feel some effects. Now, current customers of T-Mobile know the company pretty well. They know its reputation, its quality of service, its recent history, etc. If, for example, AT&T were considering acquiring T-Mobile, these customers would have some idea of what to expect. They have all heard of AT&T, know its reputation, service, etc. So they could make some reasonable assumptions about what is going to change. However, these customers probably haven't heard of Iliad. They don't know its reputation, its quality of service, its history, anything. So making any guesses about what this acquisition would entail is very difficult. The locations of these companies are only relevant because they give us an idea of whether most people know anything about each company. T-Mobile is based in Germany, but that doesn't matter, everyone in the US knows them anyway. Free is based in France, which does matter because most Americans have never heard of them and know nothing about them.
    - conradfr 12y ago
      > How is their customer service? Not that bad, not that great, and its developers are underpaid ;) (I was one of them).
- lloeki 12y ago
  Definitely excited. If they win that bid, prepare for some shake up down the line. Their strategy is to provide service at a fixed, fair price: No options, all included. Although they provide additional services, it's an ISP that actually knows it's a dumb data pipe: on broadband, you get the maximum bandwidth you can have; on mobile, data is data, so tethering is bundled. They were the first to provide native IPv6, FTTH, Gbps ports, etc... to end users. They definitely like to try out new tech (e.g they have additional compression and error correction on their ADSL2+ system, that provides a boost to throughput and stability). They leverage FOSS products to integrate them into their architecture. For example, their set-top box is an AirPlay audio and video receiver. Back in the day they provided free FTP and web hosting (basically Apache and vsftpd) to their users, along with 1GB of IMAP mail storage when everyone was stuck with a dozen megabytes and POP. On the whole, they have a tendency to please the tech tinkering crowd, the router having features often found on homemade Linux NAS or Sinology systems†. They regularly stand up for their users. When they were legally required to provide personal data from IP adresses, they did so in the most unpractical way possible (IIRC printed out via fax or snail mail). Recently they refused to pay for unbalanced peering, resulting in slow Youtube performance. On the bad side, they're known to sacrifice stability to reach the price target, knowing that things will improve later as the system stabilises. Their service usually works well but they often have trouble scaling up to match demand, up to when the demand stabilises and they're finally able to catch up. Customer support used to be weak but has greatly improved. On mobile, SMS suffered delays and delivery issues††, calls failed to connect, power consumption was higher (I bet a failure to negotiate proper power profiles with baseband), but things have largely stabilised. IOW, they release early and often. † but NO STATIC ROUTES. Seriously. †† actually left for that reason.
  - hokkos 12y ago
    What is the difference between free on youtube (and app/play store) and comcast on netflix ? I don't see one, Free is an enemy of net neutrality, I left them for that, and had a 15min call with their customer support after where they acknowledged that fact. I also left their mobile offer because it just didn't work (dropped http, call, sms).
- opendais 12y ago
  Both. They are a pretty good group of people by US standards but I'm not sure they are better than the existing T-Mobile management. They do provide some very nice hosting [ Online.NET ] if you are looking for dedicated servers. ;) http://www.online.net/en/document-legal/legal-notices http://www.online.net/en/document-legal/legal-notices
ucha 12y ago
Iliad is awesome. They own "Free" in France. It's the company that started offering TV + phone + broadband at 30€/month that every other company had to align with in the mid-2000s. They entered the mobile carrier market two years ago and offered something unheard of - Unlimited calls/text (to France and dozens of other countries) + a few gigs of data for 20€/month and another plan that costs 2€/month. Other carriers had to lower their costs as well. They managed to capture more than 10% of the market in 2 years. I'm very excited to see what they'd be up to in the US; the current oligopoly needs a bit of a shake up... and I don't think there could be a better new for US consumers that Iliad entering the market. Savings for French consumers were estimated to 7B€ and a minister even said that "Free increased the purchase power of the French people by more than Nicolas Sarkozy ever did in 5 years".
- Zikes 12y ago
  Thank you, that helps to put this announcement into context. It sounds like their business strategy is pretty closely aligned to T-Mobile's, so that's one less thing for me to worry about as a T-Mobile customer.
- Gmo 12y ago
  Iliad/Free is nice as an "agitateur", but not everything is pink int Iliad-land. Yes, they promised and delivered unlimited calls and texts, but with a launch which was relying on 90% on the main French provider (Orange) and with plenty of technical problems. Same with their box, the launch was much smoother, but lately, there has been a lot of complaints regarding streaming rate for Youtube particularly. In short, they have a lot of followers and supporters, who, sometimes, talk only about their brighter side and never about their darker side. Like pretty much everything else, nothing white or black.
  - nakkiel 12y ago
    Regarding the fact that they relied mostly on other operator's networks, I really don't see that as an issue (passed the initial technical glitches). It's business and as long as they sign agreements (and pay!) with other operators for their infrastructures, there's nothing to complain about. They essentially rent the infrastructure.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
chrisBob 12y ago
TmoNews claims this has already been shot down. http://www.tmonews.com/2014/07/french-telecoms-company-iliad-makes-bid-for-t-mobile-us/ http://www.tmonews.com/2014/07/french-telecoms-company-iliad...
adelain 12y ago
Iliad/Free is amazing, when I was in France I had a 20GB of Data with unlimited calls/texts (some foreign countries are included: US/Can/EU etc...) for 15.99 euros (~ 20 dollars/months). PLEASE COME SAVE US FREE
sudonim 12y ago
Related for this crowd, Xavier Niel, the founder and majority shareholder of Iliad is also a large portion of the capital behind Kima Ventures - http://kimaventures.com http://kimaventures.com . They're our investor and have been a pleasure to work with.
- jber 12y ago
  Thanks ;-)
cnst 12y ago
Iliad is simply amazing. They've opened up dedibox.fr / http://online.net http://online.net for international customers sometime last year; if you know anything about dedicated servers (like how much stuff costs and on what terms), your jaw will simply drop when you visit the site!

76 points by djug 12y ago

Zikes 12y ago

I'm on T-Mobile and have no idea who Iliad are. Should I be excited or scared?

djug 12y ago
"Iliad is a French provider of telecommunication services. It is based in Paris and its operations comprise fixed and mobile telephony services, prepaid phone cards and internet access providing and hosting services. The company was founded by Xavier Niel in 1999." -Wikipedia
- Zikes 12y ago
  That's not exactly what I'm after. Being so far removed from the country they're based in, I have no idea what the general sentiment about the company is. How is their customer service? Are their product offerings priced competitively? Do they generally "go to bat" for their customers on issues like privacy and net neutrality? On a scale of Google Fiber to Comcast, how do they rate?
  - brohee 12y ago
    Extremely competitive pricing, so so customer support (well, understaffed so hard to reach but polite and competent, nothing like the horror stories coming from the US). Very simple commercial offering, little in the way of options and extra charges. They design lots of their networking equipment, from the triple play boxes customer get to some of their core infrastructure. They also keep their engineering in house, where the competition (Orange, SFR, Bouygues) relies a lot on external companies for about everything... A very peculiar company, unlike any other in France, save maybe OVH the hosting giant.
    - jamesbritt 12y ago
      (... nothing like the horror stories coming from the US). I've had really good experiences with Tmob customer support, so I get aprehensive when there is acquistion talk.
  - leeoniya 12y ago
    > Being so far removed from the country they're based in You do know that T-Mobile is German, yes? [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Telekom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Telekom
    - Zikes 12y ago
      Semantics and a poor choice of wording on my part. T-Mobile may be based in Germany, but they do operate in the US and are one of the most well-known cellular providers.
    - freehunter 12y ago
      Yes, but they do business in the US. Aldi is German as well, but they have stores in the US so Americans can visit and form their own opinions about the brand. Not so with Illiad, so T-Mobile being owned by DT isn't relevant to the discussion.
      - Deusdies 12y ago
        I am not sure how it is not relevant. Tmobile is owned by Deutsche Telekom, a German company. T Mobile operates in the US and many other countries. If this offer goes through, T mobile US will be owned by Free, a French company. But it will continue to operate in the US.
        burkaman 12y ago
        I'll break it down. Generally, an acquisition implies some type of change. Not always, obviously, but usually when a company gets bought, its customers are going to feel some effects. Now, current customers of T-Mobile know the company pretty well. They know its reputation, its quality of service, its recent history, etc. If, for example, AT&T were considering acquiring T-Mobile, these customers would have some idea of what to expect. They have all heard of AT&T, know its reputation, service, etc. So they could make some reasonable assumptions about what is going to change. However, these customers probably haven't heard of Iliad. They don't know its reputation, its quality of service, its history, anything. So making any guesses about what this acquisition would entail is very difficult. The locations of these companies are only relevant because they give us an idea of whether most people know anything about each company. T-Mobile is based in Germany, but that doesn't matter, everyone in the US knows them anyway. Free is based in France, which does matter because most Americans have never heard of them and know nothing about them.
  - conradfr 12y ago
    > How is their customer service? Not that bad, not that great, and its developers are underpaid ;) (I was one of them).
lloeki 12y ago
Definitely excited. If they win that bid, prepare for some shake up down the line. Their strategy is to provide service at a fixed, fair price: No options, all included. Although they provide additional services, it's an ISP that actually knows it's a dumb data pipe: on broadband, you get the maximum bandwidth you can have; on mobile, data is data, so tethering is bundled. They were the first to provide native IPv6, FTTH, Gbps ports, etc... to end users. They definitely like to try out new tech (e.g they have additional compression and error correction on their ADSL2+ system, that provides a boost to throughput and stability). They leverage FOSS products to integrate them into their architecture. For example, their set-top box is an AirPlay audio and video receiver. Back in the day they provided free FTP and web hosting (basically Apache and vsftpd) to their users, along with 1GB of IMAP mail storage when everyone was stuck with a dozen megabytes and POP. On the whole, they have a tendency to please the tech tinkering crowd, the router having features often found on homemade Linux NAS or Sinology systems†. They regularly stand up for their users. When they were legally required to provide personal data from IP adresses, they did so in the most unpractical way possible (IIRC printed out via fax or snail mail). Recently they refused to pay for unbalanced peering, resulting in slow Youtube performance. On the bad side, they're known to sacrifice stability to reach the price target, knowing that things will improve later as the system stabilises. Their service usually works well but they often have trouble scaling up to match demand, up to when the demand stabilises and they're finally able to catch up. Customer support used to be weak but has greatly improved. On mobile, SMS suffered delays and delivery issues††, calls failed to connect, power consumption was higher (I bet a failure to negotiate proper power profiles with baseband), but things have largely stabilised. IOW, they release early and often. † but NO STATIC ROUTES. Seriously. †† actually left for that reason.
- hokkos 12y ago
  What is the difference between free on youtube (and app/play store) and comcast on netflix ? I don't see one, Free is an enemy of net neutrality, I left them for that, and had a 15min call with their customer support after where they acknowledged that fact. I also left their mobile offer because it just didn't work (dropped http, call, sms).
opendais 12y ago
Both. They are a pretty good group of people by US standards but I'm not sure they are better than the existing T-Mobile management. They do provide some very nice hosting [ Online.NET ] if you are looking for dedicated servers. ;) http://www.online.net/en/document-legal/legal-notices http://www.online.net/en/document-legal/legal-notices

ucha 12y ago

Iliad is awesome. They own "Free" in France. It's the company that started offering TV + phone + broadband at 30€/month that every other company had to align with in the mid-2000s. They entered the mobile carrier market two years ago and offered something unheard of - Unlimited calls/text (to France and dozens of other countries) + a few gigs of data for 20€/month and another plan that costs 2€/month. Other carriers had to lower their costs as well. They managed to capture more than 10% of the market in 2 years. I'm very excited to see what they'd be up to in the US; the current oligopoly needs a bit of a shake up... and I don't think there could be a better new for US consumers that Iliad entering the market. Savings for French consumers were estimated to 7B€ and a minister even said that "Free increased the purchase power of the French people by more than Nicolas Sarkozy ever did in 5 years".

Zikes 12y ago
Thank you, that helps to put this announcement into context. It sounds like their business strategy is pretty closely aligned to T-Mobile's, so that's one less thing for me to worry about as a T-Mobile customer.
Gmo 12y ago
Iliad/Free is nice as an "agitateur", but not everything is pink int Iliad-land. Yes, they promised and delivered unlimited calls and texts, but with a launch which was relying on 90% on the main French provider (Orange) and with plenty of technical problems. Same with their box, the launch was much smoother, but lately, there has been a lot of complaints regarding streaming rate for Youtube particularly. In short, they have a lot of followers and supporters, who, sometimes, talk only about their brighter side and never about their darker side. Like pretty much everything else, nothing white or black.
- nakkiel 12y ago
  Regarding the fact that they relied mostly on other operator's networks, I really don't see that as an issue (passed the initial technical glitches). It's business and as long as they sign agreements (and pay!) with other operators for their infrastructures, there's nothing to complain about. They essentially rent the infrastructure.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

chrisBob 12y ago

TmoNews claims this has already been shot down. http://www.tmonews.com/2014/07/french-telecoms-company-iliad-makes-bid-for-t-mobile-us/ http://www.tmonews.com/2014/07/french-telecoms-company-iliad...

adelain 12y ago

Iliad/Free is amazing, when I was in France I had a 20GB of Data with unlimited calls/texts (some foreign countries are included: US/Can/EU etc...) for 15.99 euros (~ 20 dollars/months). PLEASE COME SAVE US FREE

sudonim 12y ago

Related for this crowd, Xavier Niel, the founder and majority shareholder of Iliad is also a large portion of the capital behind Kima Ventures - http://kimaventures.com http://kimaventures.com . They're our investor and have been a pleasure to work with.

jber 12y ago
Thanks ;-)

cnst 12y ago

Iliad is simply amazing. They've opened up dedibox.fr / http://online.net http://online.net for international customers sometime last year; if you know anything about dedicated servers (like how much stuff costs and on what terms), your jaw will simply drop when you visit the site!