Month: December 2021

Abstract image representing the idea of circumventing or finding a loophole

Dish’s Legal Obligations & Ting’s Acquisition

Christian

In the leadup to the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, Dish acquired Sprint’s prepaid subscribers and made a number of commitments to regulators. Among other obligations, Dish agreed to offer nationwide, postpaid service:1

DISH must offer nationwide postpaid retail mobile wireless service to American consumers within one year of the closing of the sale of the Prepaid Assets.

Peter Adderton, the original founder of Boost Mobile, brought Dish’s commitment up on Twitter:

Stephen Stokols, the CEO of Boost (now a Dish-owned company) pointed out that Dish met its commitment after acquiring Ting:


Technically, Stokols is right. Ting offers postpaid service, and it’s available nationwide.

I feel like Dish found a loophole. I’m guessing regulators perceived “nationwide postpaid” to be a proxy for something like “high-end service for the mass market.” Ting is a small-scale carrier that largely caters to budget-conscious consumers.

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Are We Moving Beyond “Unlimited” Plans With 2G Speeds?

Christian 6 Comments

For a few years, it’s been common for cell carriers to label phone plans as “unlimited” while capping the amount of full-speed data subscribers can use each month. On these “unlimited” plans, subscribers that run out of full-speed data are often throttled to a maximum speed of 128kbps (sometimes called “2G speeds”).

I’ve been critical of carriers calling these plans unlimited. In a pedantic sense, it’s not true. If a service imposes throttling after a certain number of gigabytes of data use, there’s an absolute limit on the amount of data that can be used each month. More importantly, “unlimited” plans that throttle to 2G speeds don’t allow subscribers to use the internet in a roughly normal way once they run out of full-speed data. 128kbps is extremely sluggish for many activities. A lot of web pages won’t just load slowly but will time out and fail to load altogether. Video streaming, even at 240p (a low resolution), won’t work.

Fortunately, the cellular industry seems to be moving towards less aggressive throttling on unlimited plans. Here are a few example of carriers’ throttling policies for heavy users:

  • Boost: 500kbps
  • US Mobile: 1Mbps
  • Google Fi: 256kbps
  • Xfinity Mobile: 1.5Mbps download (750kbps upload)

Google Fi’s 256kbps throttle has been around for a while. It’s still too aggressive to allow for what I’d consider more-or-less normal internet surfing, but it’s still a huge improvement over the 128kbps standard. Xfinity Mobile’s 1.5Mbps cap isn’t bad at all. While downloading huge files or streaming 4K video won’t be pleasant, speeds will be passable for most things people use their phones for.

I’m pretty sure both US Mobile and Boost came out with their current throttling policies in 2021. I wonder if we’ll see more carriers move beyond 128kbps throttles in 2022.

Image representing the idea of a network

Ookla Acquires RootMetrics

Christian

Today, Ookla announced that it acquired RootMetrics. I’ve long argued that RootMetrics has the best methodology for assessing the quality of cellular networks at the national level. Further, I’ve argued that Ookla’s traditional methodology is lousy. Since Ookla primarily relies on tests initiated by users, the company’s data is subject to biases that RootMetrics’ drive tests and Opensignal’s automated tests avoid.

Effects of Consolidation

The network-evaluation industry has consolidated substantially over the last year. In September, a similar story surfaced when Comlinkdata announced that Tutela and Opensignal would join forces.

I’m curious how the consolidation will affect the messages consumers receive about the quality of networks. Here are some optimistic possibilities:

  • Now that Ookla owns RootMetrics, Ookla might be more upfront about the limitations of user-initiated tests.
  • With fewer independent companies publishing evaluations, we might see movement away from today’s situation where questionable financial incentives nearly guarantee that even lousy networks will win awards.
  • Ookla’s app is used by a lot of people. The app may end up integrating some of RootMetrics’ data that otherwise wouldn’t be available to consumers.
eSIM concept art

US Mobile Launches eSIM Beta

Christian

Yesterday, US Mobile launched a beta version of eSIM plans. Initially, eSIMs are only available with US Mobile’s service over Verizon’s network (the Super LTE network according to US Mobile’s parlance).

Device Compatibility

At the moment, only a handful of devices are will work with US Mobile’s eSIMs:

  • iPhone SE (second generation)
  • iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max
  • iPhone XS and XS Max
  • iPhone XR
  • Google Pixel 4a.

US Mobile suggests eSIM options are coming soon for the iPhone 12 & 13 lines along with the Pixel 5, Pixel 5a, and Pixel 6.

US Mobile Is Early With eSIMs

Additional details about the beta program were shared in an announcement on Reddit. One part of the announcement stuck out to me:

We’re also proud to be one of the first major carriers to make the step of bringing eSIMs to our domestic customers. In fact, we’re now one of two (outside of the big three carriers or carriers owned by them…) to offer eSIMs.
Earlier this year, Mint Mobile launched eSIMs, and I believe Mint is the one other carrier referenced by US Mobile. While Straight Talk quietly started offering eSIMs before US Mobile, Straight Talk is technically owned by Verizon thanks to last week’s TracFone acquisition.1

US Mobile has tried to brand itself as a next-generation carrier that leverages technology better than its competitors. While the company has sometimes overpromised, it’s impressive that a company of its size managed to become one of the first MVNOs offering eSIMs.