T-Mobile US Offers its Customers 12 Months Unlimited LTE Usage for Snagging a Sprint, AT&T or Verizon Account

The thing about mobile marketing wars is that once launched, rival carriers keep rolling out new offers to counter the last promotion by rival carriers.

T-Mobile US, for example, will start offering unlimited LTE data for a full year, at no additional charge, for  T-Mobile US  Simple Choice customers who refer a new customer taken from one of the other providers. 

T-Mobile Simple Choice customers who already have unlimited LTE data receive a $10 credit each month for twelve months.

LTE-A Raises Question of Whether, When Mobile Internet Access Substitutes for Fixed Access

Once more Long Term Evolution-Advanced networks are launched, as Singapore is doing, LTE will support speeds up to 300 MHz.

That will rekindle thinking about the circumstances under which mobile Internet access can be a viable substitute for fixed network access.

There are fundamentally two ways to argue that mobile Internet access can be, or cannot be, a viable alternative to fixed network broadband.

The first objection is that mobile Internet access cannot match fixed network performance, the other fundamental objection is that mobile Internet access cannot match fixed network price.

The best way to illustrate the “capacity” argument is to look at typical usage buckets.

Where mobile Internet access typically features a monthly usage cap in double digits, fixed services often have monthly usage caps in triple digits. That might not be an issue for many lighter users or people who only want to buy one type of connection (only mobile or only fixed) and find mobile offers better value.

At one time, it also would have made sense to compare fixed network speeds with mobile speeds. That probably always will be something of an issue, but is becoming less a practical issue now that some Long Term Evolution-Advanced networks can deliver 300 Mbps per device.

For most practical present purposes, 300 Mbps usable by a single device will handle most applications.

The other objection to the notion that mobile Internet access really can be a product substitute for fixed access is price, or specifically, price per bit.

Generally speaking, mobile Internet access has cost more than fixed broadband, on a price per megabyte or price per gigabyte basis. In many markets, where fixed access costs cents per gigabyte, mobile can cost dollars per gigabyte, for example.

But that is not true in all markets. As some have noted, in Denmark and Finland, mobile Internet access actually outperforms fixed network and mobile Internet access “price per bit” in the German market, for example.

Mobile arguably has tended to be more expensive on a price per megabits per second metric as well.

Cisco has in the past estimated that peak hour capacity for mobile networks is about 25 to 100 times more expensive than fixed networks, for example.

Though the monthly recurring cost for mobile Internet access might not be so different from the monthly retail cost for a fixed service (mobile might cost about half as much as a fixed connection), the price per bit in the mobile realm is higher than in the fixed network realm.

But, as always, value matters. It might be an acceptable value proposition for some users to rely on mobile as a sole or primary form of Internet access. That will be easier for lighter users, including those whose total monthly requirment is 10 GB to 12 GB or less, per device.

Mobile-only might also be valuable for users who cannot afford both a fixed and mobile connection.

Mobile-only might also be quite satisfactory even for lighter users who watch some online video, as 300 Mbps is sufficient for nearly all consumer applications, at the moment.

One might still argue that mobile Internet access is not a full substitute for fixed access. But that might not be the relevant question.

The question is what percentage of total Internet access requirements could be met using only LTE-A?

NAB Sues FCC Over Auction:It's All About the Money

TV Broadcasters Sue Over FCC Auction of Airwaves - WSJ: The National Association of Broadcasters has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission's auction of TV spectrum. 



One might argue what NAB really seeks is an increase in the amount of money the FCC will provide to broadcasters who have to move from present frequencies to others. 



The FCC plans to hold a "reverse auction" in 2015, where TV stations in large cities will take bids to give up their airwaves.



Stations that take part in the auction can either go out of business or move to another channel. And that might be the issue. By suing, NAB might hope to induce the FCC to increase funds provided to broadcasters who must move to new channels, in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.  

Verizon Gives Extra Free Gig for New or Upgraded Accounts on "More Everything"

Customers who activate a new smartphone or upgrade to a smartphone on a "More Everything"  plan from Verizon Wireless will receive an extra gigabyte of shareable data.

Customers must buy a data plan with at least 1GB of data to get the extra gigabyte, and they’ll get that gigabyte each month for two years, as long as the smartphone remains active, Verizon Wireless says.

Verizon Wireless tends not to discount much, as its position in the market is "highest price, but also best network." But not even Verizon can avoid some promotional activity as the U.S. mobile market has gotten more competitive recently, not only because of T-Mobile US attacks, but now also Sprint's long-awaited assault on value-price relationships in the U.S. mobile market. 

Mobile Data Speed Gap Between Verizon and Sprint is Shocking

We can debate the significance of consumer satisfaction and network performance rankings conducted on 100-point scales, when scores are very similar. Sometimes, though, scores are not similar. 

That appears to be the case for the "speed index" ranking of the four largest U.S. mobile service providers, where the range between the best performance by Verizon, at about 76, is significant, compared to the worst performance, by Sprint, at 54. 

On most other measures, though Verizon generally leads, followed closely by AT&T, there is a gap between T-Mobile US and Sprint, according to RootMetrics. 

Overall, there still is a sizable gap between Verizon, at about 82, with AT&T at about 80, and T-Mobile US at about 72 and Sprint at 70. 

One might argue a 10-point gap in any single market or industry is significant. Customer satisfaction rankings of Verizon and Time Warner video subscription services are a case in point, where there is abou a nine-point gap, on a 100-point scale. 

Typically, differences in measured customer satisfaction feature less dynamic range between the best and worst scores. A 20-point gap is virtually unheard of. 

All the four national carriers score most evenly in the area of text messaging, where the gap is just a couple of points between high and low. On most other measures, the performance gap between Verizon and AT&T on one hand, and T-Mobile US and Sprint, on the other hand, matches with the market share positions. 

At some level, customer experience with Verizon and AT&T seems to correlate with market share held by each of the four carriers. 

Canby Telecom Gigabit Service for $20 a Month Increment Over Prior "Fastest Speed" of 60 Mbps

That Canby Telcom, which has been planning to offer 1 Gigabit symmetrical Internet service to its customers in Canby, Oregon, since early 2014, has done so, is not surprising. Perhaps the most interesting angle is how the new top-end gigabit service will lead Canby to readjust prices for slower speed options.

Canby sells stand-alone gigabit access at about $100 a month (10 cents per Mbps), without promotional discounts.

The 60-Mbps offer costs $80 a month ($1.33 per Mbps), without promotional discounts. A 30-Mbps offer costs $60 a month ($2 per Mbps), without promotional discounts. A 10-Mbps service costs $50 a month ($5 per Mbps), without promotional discounts. The most-affordable 5-Mbps plan costs $40 a month ($8 per Mbps).

So the issue really is value. All the plans of 60 Mbps or less offer “per Mbps pricing” between $8 per Mbps to $1.33 per Mbps.

The gigabit access plan offers each Mbps at about 10 cents, or two orders of magnitude less, per Mbps.

You might argue that consumers will pay only so  much for Internet access, as they only will pay so much for video entertainment or voice.

But those consumer value propositions have changed over the years. Once upon a time, consumers would willingly pay about $20 a month for a dial-up service at 56 kbps, an implied per-Mbps price of about $357 or so.

Clearly, the absolute price mattered more than any esoteric “per-Mbps” considerations, and many would argue that will remain the issue, even when gigabit services are offered.

The issue will come at the margin, where a buyer of the $60 a month or $80 a month plans evaluates the value of a $100 a month plan what offers 17 times the speed for a price difference for a price about 25 percent percent higher, or 33 times the speed for a price delta of about 60 percent.

One might argue a single-user household will be hard to convince. But a multi-uer household, especially where there is lots of video streaming going on, with significant work at home happening, is quite another matter.

In that case, even a price increase of 60 percent, to gain 33 times the speed, might be quite attractive.

Canby had begun installing fiber to the home backhaul facilities in 2008 and began installation of drops in 2009.

By the end of 2009, Canby Telcom had wired about 1,000 homes.

By about 2010, the new Fiber Optic Zone (FOz) service offered three speed tiers, the lowest operating at 20/10 Mbps; the intermediate tier running at 40/20 Mbps; and the fastest tier offering 60/30 Mbps.

Canby Telcom provides information, communication and entertainment services to more than 7,000 customers over an 84-square-mile foot print in the northern Willamette Valley of Oregon.  

Canby Telcom will be able to offer gigabit services to more than 2,500 local residents and businesses already wired with fiber to the home.

Speed	Monthly Pricing
5 Mbps	Everyday Price: $39.95 Special Offer: $19.95 / month
10 Mbps	Everyday Price: $49.95 Special Offer: $24.95 / month
30 Mbps	Everyday Price: $59.95 Special Offer: $29.95 / month
FOz 60 Mbps	Everyday Price: $79.95 Special Offer: $39.95 / month
FOz 1 Gbps	Everyday Price: $99.95 Special Offer: $49.95 / month

The point is that the advent of gigabit services will eventually cause an adjustment of user expectations of what a reasonable value-price offer is for high speed access, with the greatest discontinuity at the top of historic ranges, where a $20 monthly price difference provides 17 times the bandwidth.

"Unified Communications" Has Become a Fuzzy Concept

“Unified communications” has been an evolving issue for business and consumer users for some time, as the number of devices and media types has grown from the original “phone messages” to include email, text, social and other content and information types; PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Beyond phone numbers, email addresses or social identities, there are growing needs to extend a single identity to multiple devices, if not to merge identities of various types on a number of devices.

Cloud apps, which eliminate the need for active synchronization, play a part. So do various unified communications systems, devices and apps.

AT&T's Foundry innovation center also is working on Project Cascade, which links AT&T voice and messaging services to any secondary device.

As new classes of devices get connected to the AT&T network, Cascade will allow users to access their AT&T services seamlessly across their personal network of devices.

At first, Cascade will allow users to send and receive calls and messages from any of your devices, including wearables and connected cars, without Bluetooth pairing.

In principle, shared identity and access for voice and messaging is only the first step towards making new and existing services available to any device seamlessly.

That might primarily be seen as a development of primary value to consumer end users. But that also is part of a trend, where many consumer apps perform functions once associated with business phone systems.

That is one reason why the term “collaboration” has joined “unified communications” as a term of art. “Collaboration” speaks directly to people engaged in common work-related tasks.

“Unified communications” might apply to any number of apps and features provided by communication or social apps, devices and access services. That is one reason why many observers essentially lump IP telephony and unified communications into a single category.

Project Cascade represents one more way that “unified communications” might provide value in a consumer context, but also an illustration of how imprecise “unified communications” has become, as a category.