Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
I guess we can add at least one more person to the list of those telling us what’s good or bad for us. And that person is T-Mobile US CEO John Legere, who took it upon himself to put into words what the more than 300 million people of this country could not: The nearly $45 billion raised by the Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 97 was a “disaster for American wireless consumers.”
That’s right, the recently concluded, record-setting auction of wireless spectrum that generated more than twice what anyone thought it would, was like a tornado taking out a small town for wireless consumers.
Hyperbole? Legere? Surely you jest?
http://youtu.be/0A5t5_O8hdA
But, let’s hear Legere out. He is obviously a very smart man with a penchant for pink and social media, thus he probably has some good reasons for thinking an event that will put more spectrum in the hands of at least some mobile operators, and was open to all, will doom the American wireless consumer.
Legere’s initial argument for the AWS-3 auction’s dooming nature was that it showed the market’s two largest operators will spend a lot of money to acquire spectrum. To reiterate, a pair of mobile operators with more than 200 million connections on their networks will spend a lot of money to make sure they have enough spectrum in order to serve those customers. Not sure about the math involved, but this would seem to be a good thing for those customers that choose to get their mobile service from one of those two operators.
These are the same operators that recently did pretty well in an “independent” evaluation of network quality and reach, showing that they seem to know what to do with spectrum. These firms also seemed to do pretty well in a recent “independent” customer experience survey, which would seem to indicate that they know how to treat their customers, at least relative to their rivals.
I am also guessing Legere is leaving out any thought of the common good that came from the extra billions of dollars the auction generated to pay down the national debt thanks to the loose spending of those participants. Disaster for American wireless consumers? Perhaps. Disaster for Americans? Maybe not so much.
Of course, Legere’s looking out for the American wireless consumer would likely also filter back to a time when AT&T was attempting to acquire T-Mobile USA, in a move that would have reduced the number of nationwide competitors. I know Legere was not involved directly with the wireless space at that time as he was heading up Global Crossings’ acquisition by Level 3, but I can only assume he was live-tweeting his displeasure at the impact such a move would have on the American wireless consumer.
It could also be noted that AT&T was the most aggressive participant in the AWS-3 auction as it gave up nearly all of its AWS-1 spectrum to T-Mobile USA as part of that acquisition deal falling apart. That seemed to work out pretty well for at least one carrier.
While it may seem that I have some reservations about Legere’s motives in claiming what a disaster Auction 97 was for wireless consumers, I do give him full credit for maintaining pressure on the FCC to take a look at how spectrum auctions are conducted. Though I would think a stronger focus on spectrum squatters rather than those companies with just fat bank accounts would be of more importance in trying to avoid another disaster for American consumers.
In his blog post, Legere did not specifically call out Dish Network, though we all know that Dish is the participant referred to when he notes companies that purchased spectrum and “sit on it for ten years.” Dish’s spectrum history has been well documented, with its latest actions again drawing the ire of many, though for some reason not a specific shout out by Legere. Interesting.
Legere did speak about Dish in T-Mobile US’ recent quarterly conference call, when he noted:
“We look at their spectrum portfolio, and video, as a fascinating idea to consider. I think Dish offers a great opportunity for the country and possibly T-Mobile.”
Huh. Sounds like Dish is a pretty all-right company after all.
There is no doubt that the current pricing environment, which has seen rate plan pricing drop across the board, was due to the aggressive marketing efforts of the Legere-led T-Mobile US. Some may counter that statement by noting that any drop in actual rate plan pricing has been offset by consumers now paying full price for their mobile devices, but at least there are now more pricing options out there.
But, it seems Legere’s pink-tinted view of what is good for American wireless consumers fails to take into account the full color spectrum.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
• Speaking of disasters for the American wireless consumers, a recent report found that a pair of domestic mobile operators have so far “failed” to do their part in allowing their customers to unlock their mobile devices, in accordance with FCC regulations and just being nice to their customers.
Sina Khanifar of RepeaterStore (do with that information what you will) noted in his evaluation of how the nation’s four largest operators have so far followed up with their pledge to implement clear device unlocking steps for customers “Sprint and T-Mobile have failed to fulfill half their own voluntary commitments.”
The evaluation gave Sprint and T-Mobile US scores of 3 out of 6, dinging Sprint for its “clear, concise policy,” hitting both carriers for a “lenient postpaid policy,” calling into question T-Mobile US’ “eligibility notifications,” and hitting Sprint again for “deployed personnel policy.”
Verizon Wireless came out of the rankings with a perfect 6 out of 6, while AT&T Mobility lost a point for questionable “eligibility notifications.”
While this is probably far from a scientific evaluation, it does show that perhaps mobile operators have some work to do.
• Finally, Transit Wireless, which operates Wi-Fi services in the New York City subways, launched a “Subway Selfie” contest offering to give away five $100 MetroCards and an iPad Mini to people who post “selfies” of themselves in front of subway station signs or at one of the 76 subway stations where Transit provides Wi-Fi services.
Seems innocent enough, but not sure people need any sort of incentive to post selfies of themselves anywhere.
Also, it’s nice that Transit’s PR folks offered up interviews in case anyone needed to dig a bit deeper into this news. If I had the time, I know my first question would be: “What an original idea. Where did you guys come up with it?”
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