Struggling cellular carrier T-Mobile USA, fresh from merging with
pay-as-you-go provider MetroPCS, has been hinting for months about a radical new
approach to data plans for smartphones and tablets. Those plans went public this
week and bear out T-Mobile's claim of offering better deals than its
competitors. The only "radical" part of the long-awaited plan is that you won't
have to purchase additional data as you approach your cap, but you will see your
speed severely throttled. Don't be fooled by the lack of a two-year contract
either; U.S. cellular networks are largely incompatible, so you can't move a
phone from one carrier to another, except between AT&T and T-Mobile -- and
then only for 3G service.
Those lower prices come with three costs:
No iPhone, though that device should arrive this summer.
The end of subsidized smartphones, though customers can pay on an
installment plan to lessen price shock. Once you've fully paid for the phone,
your bill goes down -- which is not the case with the other carriers.
Poor coverage in many parts of the country, though T-Mobile has finally
begun investing in sorely need infrastructure, which will take years to
accomplish.
[ See InfoWorld's recommendations for a road warrior's must-have mobile
toolkit, and discover the best productivity apps for your iPad. | Keep up on key
mobile developments and insights via Twitter and with the Mobile Edge blog and
Mobilize newsletter. ]
Once you do the math on the often-confusing options (see my calculations
later in this article), the data plans tend to break into two broad camps:
T-Mobile and Verizon are the relative bargains, while AT&T and Sprint come
with higher costs. For many usage scenarios, the four carriers' prices are very
similar.
Service quality continues to vary considerably, with each carrier having
sections of the country with great coverage and speed, and other areas where the
coverage is spotty and unreliable. Your odds of coverage are highest to lowest
in the following order: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. For LTE 4G
coverage, the odds follow the same pattern, but the odds are steeper: Verizon
has by far the most coverage, AT&T has moderate coverage, Sprint has
isolated coverage, and T-Mobile is only now starting to deploy LTE, though it's
inheriting limited LTE coverage in some urban areas from MetroPCS.
The bottom line is that it matters where you are, AT&T and Verizon
included, though they have the largest coverage areas. Even with the same city,
coverage quality can vary dramatically, due to both signal available and network
saturation.
Given the lack of price difference in many usage scenarios and a consistent
set of popular devices supported, the right choice for your carrier more and
more comes down to where you use the service.
Clearly, the competition among four carriers has done nothing to spur
meaningful innovation, whether in technology or in business approaches. In fact,
it has made the carriers more the same, while also raising prices. For example,
Verizon's Everything plans last summer actually raised total spend for
customers, yet customers did not flee. That sent a strong signal to the other
three that there was room to charge more -- and they have.
You have to wonder why the United States bothers with having four cellular
carriers, considering the similarity between their offerings. It would frankly
make more sense to unify the wireless spectrum and have all the carriers use it
based on demand. This approach to using the public airwaves would get rid of the
silly lock-in and overcome the disparate service quality from region to region
as smartphones and tablets would no longer be bound to one network.
That notion has a snowball's chance in Hades of occurring. If there's any
comfort from today's cellular plan quadropoly, it's that you can focus on what
matters most -- service quality -- and worry about pricing only if your area has
at least two strong providers.
http://www.windowsanyway.com/windows-7-home-premium-product-key-p-3526.html
No comments:
Post a Comment