Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

W00ties! From the article: "Sprint said that a survey showed 54 percent of AT&T’s consumers believed their “5G E” network is the same as or better than a 5G network and 43 percent said if they buy an AT&T phone today, it would be capable of running on 5G." and "...Sprint said it plans to release 5G smartphones with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in the United States during the summer, while rival Verizon Communications Inc in December also disclosed similar plans for the first half of 2019."

This is part of the problem - there ARE NO 5G PHONES RIGHT NOW. Yes, 4G can be upgraded and you'll get better performance, but calling it 5G or 5GE is pure fluff.

Of course the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have been utterly silent on the issue.

Break out the popcorn (with lots of butter, at least for me), this should be entertaining!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sprint-at-t-5g/sprint-sues-att-over-5g-branding-idUSKCN1PX1JV

AT&T is putting fake electronic network signal 5G labels on phones that are only 4G. They're justifying this because their 4G network has been upgraded and is faster than a typical 4G LTE network, whatever that means. They did the same shit with 3G phones by labeling them 4G before they'd rolled out 4G across the country.

If your phone display shows that you're connected to a "5Ge" (small caps E) network, you're not connected to a 5G network. AT&T is saying that 5G Evolution will be in over 400 markets by the end of the year, but it's not 5G: it's an upgraded 4G. Actual 5G tech will be in very few markets - it will take a couple of years to roll it out - and I think it will mainly be east coast, but don't quote me on that. And then you have to look at phone upgrades to use 5G.

So yet another great big marketing scam.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolution-logo-rollout-fake-network

In 2006, Mark Klein was working for AT&T in San Francisco and learned about a room that only a very small group of techs had access to that all internet lines passed through. He suspected that it was being used to siphon all data on the internet and pass it to the government. He later learned that similar/identical rooms were installed in other major switching centers across the country.

Turns out he was correct, his suspicions were vindicated by Snowden's release of information on PRISM.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, revealed in 2006 that his job duties included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to a secret room in AT&T’s San Francisco office. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabins were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego, he said.

The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to other internet backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also diverting traffic routed from its network to or from other domestic and international providers, Klein said.

That’s how the data was being vacuumed to the government, Klein said today.

“This is a complete vindication,” Klein, a San Francisco Bay area retired man, said in a telephone interview.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-klein/

One of the things that people questioned about AT&T wanting to buy T-Mobile was that AT&T claimed that they needed the additional spectrum that they would acquire in order to meet customer need, when it was demonstrable that they could re-engineer their network and spectrum use, and expand their network in to spectrum that they already owned, for less than it would cost to buy T-Mobile.

And now they're pouting and threatening to raise prices.

They lost a lot of customers when the merger was announced, and they're going to lose more.

The interesting thing is that this really demonstrates how bad the management philosophy and practices are at AT&T. Years ago, AT&T Wireless tried to implement a new CRM (customer relation management) system to provide better service to their customer base. When you call in with a question about your bill or to modify your service, this is all handled through their CRM system. Well, the implementation was totally botched. It was well past schedule, massively over-budget, and it didn't work. And AT&T Wireless was sold to Cingulair. From all reports, Cingulair provided pretty good customer service and they were very profitable. Which made them a ripe target and AT&T bought Cingulair out and re-invented AT&T Wireless.

And now AT&T Wireless is going back down the same road. They don't seem to have learned that providing good service will make you profitable, instead they're trying to buy out competitors instead of providing the service that their customers expect and that other wireless carriers deliver.

I am SO glad that I switched to Verizon after my carrier was bought out by AT&T, not that I'm 100% happy with them.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/01/27/1632250/att-threatening-to-raise-rates-after-merger-failure

The FCC announced that they were opposed to it, the Justice Dept filed suit against it, now AT&T has temporarily withdrawn (whatever that means) their proposal to merge with T-Mobile. And will apparently have to take a multi-billion write-down to pay off T-Mobile and Deutche Telecomm for failure to perform.

The merger is history for now, but it's likely to come back. AT&T is spouting that it will create jobs and investment opportunities and I don't see how. If the merger goes through, you'll see customer support staff at T-Mobile downsized and AT&T will go on like business as usual. AT&T claims the merger will make it easier to expand, but the reality is that, while both carriers are GSM-based, they use different frequency spectrums and are not cross-compatible. The two networks would either remain distinct, or AT&T would have to re-tool the T-Mobile towers with new equipment to make them compatible, making the orphaned users have to buy new gear.

The most blatant, bald-faced lie is the study that it would cost less for AT&T to build-out their infrastructure for better coverage than it would to buy T-Mobile. This merger was for one reason only -- eliminate a competitor.

The sad thing is that T-Mobile is in financial trouble as they've lost their European partner, so we shall see what happens with them.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/11/att-withdraws-tmobile-merger/all/1

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/24/2348203/att-stops-t-mobile-merger-bid-with-the-fcc

The main reason behind it is that it's the cheapest way for AT&T to expand their "4G" network (in quotes because it is not 4G) which was horrible in some areas like San Francisco and NYC for iPhone users. Both carriers use GSM radio tech, and T-Mobile is the sole remaining GSM provider in the USA, so it's a natural. Unfortunately T-Mobile is regarded as the best customer service among American providers, and AT&T is far from the best, so I think it is likely that the T-Mobile people are about to get royally screwed. It is possible that AT&T will use T-Mobile's customer service department as the main model going forward, but I ain't gonna lay any money on it.

On the other hand, it gives T-Mobile customers the chance to get iPhones without paying the unsubsidized price and jailbreaking them, so minor plus there. At the same time, T-Mobile was actually friendly to jailbreaking phones and would actually do it for you in some cases, and AT&T isn't, so I expect that will go away.

With this acquisition AT&T becomes the biggest cell carrier in the US, about a third bigger than Verizon. And all that's left of the big boys are AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint.

Didn't we used to have something about anti-trust rules in the United States that were supposed to foster competition and lower prices? I guess that's just a myth. Silly me.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/att-to-buy-t-mobile-usa/

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/03/20/196245/ATampT-To-Acquire-T-Mobile-From-Deutsche-Telekom

I'm not in the least bit surprised. AT&T's network is struggling with 3G load as is, there's no way they could continue to support unlimited data plans, especially at the rate that Apple is selling iPads, not that I know how fast the 3G iPad is selling.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/att-adds-iphone-tethering-kills-unlimited-data-for-ipad-smartphones/

http://blackberrycool.com/2007/08/16/005386/
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/18/1913246

The new phone has GPS capability, and AT&T doesn't want it to seem more cool than the iPhone. Never mind that the iPhone is not suitable for corporate use, whereas the BlackBerry is, never mind that you have a weird text messaging paradigm vs BlackBerry's qwerty keyboard. Never mind that AT&T will lose a lot of corporate business when their customers realize what they've done and that Verizon will be happy to be their BlackBerry service provider, complete with GPS functionality.

Myself, I'm not a fan of the BlackBerry. I thought that I was going to get one at work, and now that I've found out that it's strictly a messaging device, I'm not sure that I want one. I need a device that I can remotely administer my servers if I have to, and though I might be able to cobble together some sort of system where I could email SQL commands to my servers and they would send the results back the same way, I think I'd rather have a WinCE device that allows interaction with my servers at the GUI administrator level.