T-Mobile

01 Apr 2016

The Un#ballogetic World of Wireless Ads

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I belong to that rare breed of human that enjoys commercials.  As a social scientist with an interest in the impact of advertisement on consumer behavior, I often find myself, possibly to the chagrin of my wife (though she has not complained), assessing commercials out loud.  Are they informative?  Are they persuasive or attempt simply to elicit attention to the good in the ad?  Might they unintentionally lead to brand confusion?  Most importantly, are they funny? Thus, having also spent some time among wireless regulators, I cannot help but comment on the recent spate of wireless attack ads perpetuated by […]
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24 Nov 2015

Testing the Limits of Net Neutrality Rules

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In the past few weeks we’ve seen both a wireless and wireline carrier launch new “zero rating” video streaming services that test the boundaries of the FCC’s net neutrality policy: T-Mobile’s Binge On and Comcast’s Stream TV. According to published reports, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has praised Binge On as “highly innovative” and “highly competitive,” while also noting that the Commission will continue to monitor the service under its “general conduct” rule. According to Ars Technica, an FCC spokesperson declined comment on Comcast’s Stream TV, which does not count against the company’s data caps. The FCC’s reported response to the two […]
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06 Apr 2015

Unlicensed Spectrum: A Look at Google’s Project Nova

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Though Google has not revealed much in the way of details, the Internet search giant is expected to launch a WiFi/MVNO wireless service sometime in the near future. Based on limited comments from company executives and reports in the Wall Street Journal (see here and here; subscription may be required) and elsewhere, it seems that the service will: rely on a combination of WiFi connectivity supplemented by cellular connections provided via MVNO agreements, most likely with both T-Mobile and Sprint; initially be available only to owners of the Nexus 6 smartphone, built by Lenova’s Motorola unit, which was acquired from […]
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01 Apr 2015

“LTE Unlicensed” Deployments Planned for 2016

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In the last post in this series I reviewed several different points of view regarding the pros and cons of cellular carriers using “LTE Unlicensed” (LTE-U) to expand their network capacity. In this post I’ll take a closer look at movement in this direction among U.S. carriers. [Note: The deployment of LTE in unlicensed bands is referred to by multiple names, including “LTE Advanced in unlicensed spectrum,” “LTE Unlicensed” (LTE-U) and, most recently “Licensed Assisted Access” LTE (LAA). In this post I’ll refer to it as LTE-U, though other names may appear in some excerpts included in the post.] The two […]
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