Question related to Cellular Data and restrictions..

Thu Dec 5 18:23:07 UTC 2013

You are misunderstanding the political reality and are instead making impermissible technical inferences.

Is moving bits between networks hard or expensive? No.

Is moving bits between asymmetric power relationships trivial? No.

When you think about how much roaming costs, you're thinking of the settlement free model which is not how cellular roaming works. Cellular roaming is a fiefdom. There is no common carriage. No one is obligated to carry anyone else's traffic.

Therefore roaming is artificially more expensive. It is political not technical.

Bear in mind, you are preaching to the converted. You don't get much more hippie-status in the telecom world than writing open-source infrastructure (which is what my company does). I know where you're coming from and I'm trying to explain why the networks are not behaving in an optimally efficient manner: because it isn't profitable.

We can sit here and rail about how bad TMobile is on a mailing list but the behavior they are displaying is entirely rational given the rules of the game.

You asked how someone could claim nationwide network without owning all of the assets, I answered you and you don't like the answer. Sorry.

If you don't like it, write Tom Wheeler or put in a false advertising claim, but you should understand that TMobile's behavior is politically rational.

Cheers,
Joshua

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 5, 2013, at 9:36 AM, "Warren Bailey" <wbailey at satelliteintelligencegroup.com<mailto:wbailey at satelliteintelligencegroup.com>> wrote:

I've been talking to their executive officer after doing that exact thing. 15 years ago roaming was very expensive.. But when you are selling something using terminology like "free" or "unlimited", I believe you should be extremely careful. I don't know how or who implemented this policy.. But they have been claiming to rock AT&T with this "actual nationwide" and this "uncarrier" talk. If you claim to be unlike your competitors.. At least make an attempt to be.. NOT like your competition. I was floored seeing the Nanog tribe reply with "it was a business decision over cost".. It's 2013 and nearly 14...get your lives together. Make these people who give you a paycheck accountable.

Sent from my Mobile Device.

-------- Original message --------
From: "cb.list6" <cb.list6 at gmail.com<mailto:cb.list6 at gmail.com>>
Date: 12/05/2013 5:33 AM (GMT-09:00)
To: Warren Bailey <wbailey at satelliteintelligencegroup.com<mailto:wbailey at satelliteintelligencegroup.com>>
Cc: Henry Yen <henry at aegisinfosys.com<mailto:henry at aegisinfosys.com>>,Joshua Goldbard <j at 2600hz.com<mailto:j at 2600hz.com>>,nanog at nanog.org<mailto:nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Question related to Cellular Data and restrictions..

On Dec 4, 2013 11:31 PM, "Warren Bailey" <wbailey at satelliteintelligencegroup.com<mailto:wbailey at satelliteintelligencegroup.com>> wrote:
>
> Blanket reply.. :)
>
> So at what point does unlimited mean unlimited? Roaming agreements have always been two sided. In my case.. I roam on to AT&T's network, the same as AT&T folk roam into tmo when they do not have coverage. At the end of the month the two are reconciled and someone gets paid. If you are selling a service that is making generalized assurances in connectivity (nationwide 4g let netwokr) , you should make a best effort to honor that. It wasn't even a fair amount of bandwidth.. I could deal with a 2gb a month cap or something.. But I am now able to use my unlimited data in 100 countries without incurring additional charges.. Are we going to start saying that international roaming costs are lower than domestic on a regularly used network?
>
> I literally feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Tmo and Att are far from small fish.. And a 50mb per month cap is absolute bullshit. Figure it into your business line.. Or do the honest thing and don't offer the service. How you guys are justifying this is BEYOND me. You can buy a ds1 for several hundred dollars per month.. And unlimited customers get 50 megs a month for data.. You can't even check email over the month on that. I'm not an abusive user.. I don't download or use my cellular data connection for hacked hotspot use.. Not to mention the hotspot I do have with them has 10gb a month nationwide.. So I can use my puck for 10gb..but my phone (on the SAME TOWER) is different?
>
> That is like saying sms costs network providers money.. (don't bring up ran gear or smsc costs.. It's not related)
>

If you have a beef with tmo, here is the complaint department https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnLegere or you can email him at john.legere at t-mobile.com<mailto:john.legere at t-mobile.com>

You can probably just forward this thread

Given that tmo now has free (rate limited) intl data roaming, it is a bummer to see domestic roaming is now less well served.  I think in belt tightening years limiting domestic roaming saved substantial cost ... since it can be expensive having some users living on roamed networks

CB

>
> Sent from my Mobile Device.
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Joshua Goldbard <j at 2600hz.com<mailto:j at 2600hz.com>>
> Date: 12/04/2013 4:10 PM (GMT-09:00)
> To: Henry Yen <henry at AegisInfoSys.com<mailto:henry at AegisInfoSys.com>>
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org<mailto:nanog at nanog.org>
> Subject: Re: Question related to Cellular Data and restrictions..
>
>
> Ting is an MVNO (just like my company 2600hz) and while it would violate the terms of my NDA to confirm the 10x number I can say that we found it to be prohibitively expensive.
>
> One should be aware that, just like in the IP transit world, the small players have different rules than the big kids. It might be prohibitively expensive for us, but it's a different order of magnitude for a carrier like Sprint proper.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Cheers,
> Joshua
>
> P.S. shameless plug: we provide white-label cellular service to operators including full provisioning and call control plus it can be tied back into corporate phone systems (and it's open source!!).
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Dec 4, 2013, at 2:59 PM, "Henry Yen" <henry at AegisInfoSys.com<mailto:henry at AegisInfoSys.com>> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Dec 04, 2013 at 22:18:12PM +0000, Joshua Goldbard wrote:
> >> ...  When you send your data
> >> over a partners network it raises your wireless company's cost of
> >> delivering service, in some cases so much so that you become
> >> unprofitable.
> >
> > Some folks over at Ting(.com) suggest that the cost for data roaming is as
> > high as ten times that for voice/SMS roaming, which is why they don't charge
> > extra for the latter, and do not at all provide the former.
> >
> > --
> > Henry Yen <Henry.Yen at Aegis00.com<mailto:Henry.Yen at Aegis00.com>>               Aegis Information Systems, Inc.
> > Senior Systems Programmer                       Hicksville, New York
> > (800) AEGIS-00 x949                             1-800-AEGIS-00 (800-234-4700)
> >
> >
>