t-mobile

No help for California in FCC’s lifeline plea deal with T-Mobile

24 November 2020 by Steve Blum
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Sprint booth mwc la 2019 22oct2019

T-Mobile will pay a $200 million fine to clear Sprint’s bad conduct off of the Federal Communication Commission’s books, but the deal doesn’t include repayment of state subsidies that the company took for low income “lifeline” customers who weren’t actually using the service. T-Mobile assumed responsibility for Sprint’s lifeline service – Assurance Mobile – when it took over Sprint earlier this year. The violations of the subsidy rules and improper collection of “tens of millions of dollars” from the FCC’s lifeline piggy bank happened before the merger but came to light while the FCC and the California Public Utilities Commission were reviewing it.… More

FCC report on T-Mobile nationwide outage is a case study in network complexity and best practices (or lack thereof)

11 November 2020 by Steve Blum
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Tmobile billboard 2 las vegas 6jan2020

The installation, and incomplete configuration, of a new router and a fiber link failure, both in the southeast U.S., combined with software and hardware bugs to take down T-Mobile’s national phone network in June, according to a report published in October by the Federal Communications Commission. The cascade of problems that began with a fiber route going down led to a “registration storm” in Atlanta as “mobile devices repeatedly attempted and failed to register” on the network, first using 4G, 3G and 2G mobile systems, and finally trying to complete calls via WiFi connections.… More

T-Mobile might get extra time to deploy in California, but must add extra jobs and meet California test standards

19 October 2020 by Steve Blum
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Tmobile billboard las vegas 6jan2020

T-Mobile will get another two years – until 2026 – to deploy 300 Mbps 5G service to 93% of Californians, if a draft decision published on Friday is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. But two other requested “modifications” to the CPUC’s conditions for approving T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint were rejected in the decision proposed by administrative law judge Karl Bemesderfer.

Assuming that CPUC commissioners vote in favor of it – a pretty good bet – it means that T-Mobile will have to add 1,000 net new jobs in California, instead of firing 1,000 higher paid employees and hiring 1,000 lower wage workers at a call center in Fresno County, as it appears to be doing.… More

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile accuse each other of spectrum hoarding and market domination

25 September 2020 by Steve Blum
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Tmobile los angeles spectrum

T-Mobile is building up its inventory of mobile bandwidth, first by leasing low band, 600 MHz spectrum from a private investment firm and then, it hopes, by buying more capacity when the Federal Communications Commission auctions off C-band frequencies later this year.

That bothers AT&T and Verizon, which have formally registered their annoyance with the FCC. Although neither company publicly opposed T-Mobile acquisition of Sprint (what their lobbyists and lawyers do behind closed doors is often a different story), they’re both complaining that T-Mobile is already holding too much spectrum – exceeds the spectrum screen as the jargon goes – and shouldn’t be allowed to buy or lease any more, until AT&T and Verizon have a chance to catch up.… More

Mobile carriers use arbitration board to debunk each other’s ads

17 September 2020 by Steve Blum
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The three major U.S. mobile carriers are fighting each other’s advertising claims via an arbitration process run by the Better Business Bureau. First, it was T-Mobile who successfully challenged AT&T’s 5GEvolution scam. The BBB’s National Advertising Division (NAD) said that putting a 5G label on 4G service was misleading, and the appeals board run by BBB agreed.

Verizon objected to T-Mobile’s wide-ranging claims of wide ranging 5G coverage and NAD agreed, albeit while blessing verbiage about the superior building penetration ability of the low band spectrum it’s using.… More

Ad watchdog says some T-Mobile 5G claims are bogus, some aren’t

28 August 2020 by Steve Blum
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Tmobile billboard 2 las vegas 6jan2020

T-Mobile’s ads about the wonderfulness of its 5G network and the limitations of Verizon’s went too far, according to an independent watchdog. The national advertising division (NAD) of the Better Business Bureau, which has been acting as a mobile broadband advertising referee lately, said that T-Mobile supported its claim that its 5G service is faster than its competitors and covers more ground, but was misleading about metrics and its ability to project 5G service into places where even 4g is troublesome…

NAD noted that the challenged claims also convey a message about metrics other than speed.

… More

CPUC reaffirms T-Mobile/Sprint approval, but wrangling over California jobs continues

20 August 2020 by Steve Blum
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Tmobile store la 23oct2019

The conditions imposed by the California Public Utilities Commission when it approved T-Mobile’s takeover of Sprint will stand, at least for now. The CPUC decided earlier this month to reject a request to re-do its decision made by opponents of the deal. Tweaks were made to the April decision that approved the merger, but those amount to yes, we meant what we said.

Requests for rehearing are often made but rarely granted. It’s a procedural box that needs to be ticked before a CPUC decision can be challenged in court, either by T-Mobile or its opponents.… More

T-Mobile asks CPUC for permission to employ fewer people in California

25 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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Sprint store

T-Mobile wants the California Public Utilities Commission to dial back some of the obligations it imposed when it approved the Sprint merger in April. A “petition for modification” of the CPUC’s decision asks for three changes:

… More

Hundreds of layoffs are following in the wake of the T-Mobile/Sprint deal

18 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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Sprint booth mwc la 2019 22oct2019

T-Mobile is laying off hundreds of former Sprint employees as it consolidates the operations of the two mobile carriers that merged in April. A story by Zack Whittaker and Brian Heater at Tech Crunch broke the news about Sprint employees on Tuesday…

In a conference call on Monday lasting under six minutes, T-Mobile vice president James Kirby told hundreds of Sprint employees that their services were no longer needed. He declined to answer his employees’ questions, citing the “personal” nature of employee feedback, and ended the call.

… More

AT&T rejects California disaster response obligations

10 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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AT&T is striking back at covid–19 emergency relief measures adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission. Flanked by Verizon and T-Mobile (via the mobile industry’s lobbying front organisation), AT&T wants the CPUC to repeal rules that require the company to waive things like installation or remote call forwarding fees when people are forced to relocate because of the covid–19 emergency. Those are CPUC mandates that also apply to any other “housing or financial crisis due to a disaster”.… More