T-Mobile boss: 'High and mighty' Verizon and AT&T are 'raping you for every penny you have' T-Mobile CEO John Legere is outspoken at the best of times, but went further than ever before in his criticism of the conduct of Verizon and AT&T in the US market at the company's latest Un-carrier initiative launch. "These high and mighty duopolists that are raping you for every penny you have," Legere said. "The fuckers …
There are days when I wish they offered residential DSL so I could ditch my crappy Verizon line. What do you say John? How about a nice T-Mob mimo ofdm mofo olsr ospf phased array 802.11ya wifi mesh to the home?
Yeah, I had a few extra buzzwords (buzzacronyms?) that I had to use by the end of the day, and...?
He should have said "the duopoly has bought the entire USG, lock, stock, and barrel and your so-called representatives HATE you and will do anything to deny you lower prices and actual competition." Verizon and ATT are only the way they are because they have (cheaply acquired no less) legal cover.
...and a load of others are still metered, it's a good start but there are a lot more to add if they are serious.
Also that "Rhapsody unRadio is free to those who have signed up to T-Mobile's unlimited data plans" is not exactly true - it does not include anyone with 'unlimited' data plan nor w/ 1-3-5GB 4G LTE plans added, it is only free for subs with 'unlimited' data plan with "Unlimited 4G LTE" package added (most expensive data plan.)
I would love to switch off of Verizon for a cheaper but equivalent service. Too bad nothing is even close. I have truly Unlimited Data and I get 4G LTE in places others completely lose signal. I pay a little more, for substantially better service. I also have student and military discounts which I would probably lose if I switched.
When I had Verizon, I paid (including my 20% EMPLOYEE-OF-BIGCO discount) literally triple my T-Mobile rate, and had a locked phone to boot. In addition, I didn't have cell coverage at work, and I barely had it at home.
Now with T-Mobile, I have yet to find a coverage issue in Florida, except just south of NASA/KSC where it's kind of spotty. Plus I've used my completely unlocked Nexus 4 & Moto G w/o a problem.
This is why I want Sprint to keep their damned paws off.
You'll probably find the coverage north of KSC/CCAFS is pretty poor too and not just on Merritt Island side of the "river". The whole Turtle Mound area on South Atlantic Ave south of New Smyrna Beach has coverage (partially) from AT&T and that's it.
The Green Swamp between Kissimmee, Poinciana, and basically Sebring also really sucks for coverage from any provider except near the Turnpike, same thing with the Econolockhatchee forest (which really shouldn't be as terrible as the swamp is), and last time I was east of the Prison near 528 but west of the 520 interchange there was no coverage either except on the 528 and 520 themselves. So yes there are coverage issues in Central Florida, but you have to kind of work to find them. They're also usually in areas people consider backcountry for some stupid reason (even though they usually really aren't).
Geneva, Chuluota, Lake Harney and Lake Jesup used to be really astoundingly terrible, especially insane considering that the Sanford airport is on the other side of the Lake. Haven't been in that area in years though so it may have improved.
My inner mental dialogue takes over:
"T-Mobile boss: 'High and mighty' Verizon and AT&T are 'raping you for every penny you have' "
T-Mobile boss: "They should at least have left one unsullied orifice for us to violate...."
"T-mobile/EE still rape UK punters. Not much different to AT&T and Verizon."
Retail customers should be grateful they aren't business customers. My employers have a group wide contract with T-mobile for many tens of thousands of employees, and if we want a PAC code (eg employee leaving the business wants to take their old work number) the thieves or T-Mobile charge us £400 a time as a "non standard request". Needless to say we don't let employees take their number, but it does show what a bunch of greedy bastards T-mobile are. And their sh1tty network coverage and weak signal is a right pain.
Message to T-mobile: You might have my employers over a barrel, but your greed, crap service and poor coverage guarantee that I wouldn't have a personal contract with you c***s if you were the last mobile network on earth.
T-Mo US acts very differently from T-Mo UK. In the US, they're in the "underdog" category and thus competition has pushed them to be actually nice. You'll see the same thing when comparing Telcel in Mexico vs. America Movil-owned subsidiaries in the US (i.e. TracFone). Not owning a large % of the mobile market makes wonders to a carrier...
Excuse me?
T-Mobile?
The company that tried to bill me $7,000 for three days light to moderate internet use in Iceland four years ago? And insisted the bill was correct, represented the true cost of providing the service, and was perfectly reasonable, a bargain even?
And only backed down (and backed down quickly!) when I threatened them with the law of unconscionable contracts?
Pot? It's Kettle on line one...
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Talk and text all you want. 2 GB of LTE data and unlimited 3G data for a price I can afford and NO Overages! No surprises, ever. T-Mobile has no problem with I don't trust any carrier enough to let them fondle my phone before I get it - I want it straight from the OEM unlocked and un fooled around with.
I called their customer support line yesterday to tell them thanks for not being a herd of jerks. No issue, no problem, no concern, no question. Just "thanks for being so awesome!"
Having dealt with many carriers over the last 20 years I have had none better. Not even close. "Uncarrier" indeed.
I've tried their prepaid plans but have since gone back to their traditional service (month-to-month in other parts of the world) because only those plans have WiFi Calling (great in buildings) and Visual Voicemail (prepaid plans tend to lack both this and the Call Forwarding you need to employ a third party).
"Same name, two completely different(ly run) companies."
Quite.
Here in south Birmingham I have been a happy Orange phone customer for a decade or so with no real issues.
But post-EE, they appear to have switched off a cell or two, and significant numbers of punters in the area now have basically no coverage in places that matter to them (home, work, etc).
Push EE hard enough and (a colleague says) EE admit that it's part of the cost savings in the run up to 4G, and if you ask really nicely they may ship you a femto(?)cell which might help with coverage when at home but won't help with coverage when away from the femtocell in the wider affected area.
Well if I ever get 4G it won't be with EE. Getting my exit ticket (my PAC) will be my next reason to contact them.
When I first started looking into this, I found a crowd-sourced signal-mapping website that showed a few mile east-to-west stripe in south Birmingham where it looked like coverage had been abandoned. Can't find it again (don't think it was OpenSignal or DownDetector).
Anyone know how easy it is to definitively verify stuff like this ? Is there a GSM/PCN/3G Android equivalent of NetStumbler so I can plot my own map given a bit of local wardriving? Again OpenSignal doesn't seem to be the answer. (Simon?).
Until the Carterphone decision, ATT used to literally scare people not top touch 'their wires'. I installed special high-speed modems way back in the late '60s in the States and when I simply wired them directly to AT&T terminals WITHOUT AN INTERFACE the customer was surprised the world didn't collapse.
If you can find a copy of FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS NOT, written by a Telco man, it describes many of the evil things Bell and AT&T did.
Old habits die hard.
In Canada things are worse. We have Bell Canada, and all it's siblings, and Rogers, but outstripping the US for all the surcharges they make on their captive customers. These two companies practically sleep together.
It's refreshing to see a rebel upsetting the quiescent market state - only risk is he might get taken over, then it's game over.
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