boost mobile – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Despite A Decade Of Complaints, US Wireless Carriers Continue To Abuse The Word 'Unlimited'

from the that-word,-it-does-not-mean-what-you-think-it-means dept

Way back in 2007, Verizon was forced to strike an agreement with the New York State Attorney General for falsely marketing data plans with very obvious limits as “unlimited.” For much of the last fifteen years numerous other wireless carriers, like AT&T, have also had their wrists gently slapped for selling “unlimited” wireless service that was anything but. Despite this, there remains no clear indication that the industry has learned much of anything from the punishment and experience. Most of the companies whose wrists were slapped have, unsurprisingly, simply continued on with the behavior.

The latest case in point is Boost Mobile, a prepaid wireless provider that was shoveled over to Dish Network as part of the controversial T-Mobile Sprint merger. For years the company has been selling prepaid “unlimited” data plans that aren’t, by any definition of the word, unlimited. In part because once users hit a bandwidth consumption threshold (aka a “limit”), users find their lines slowed to around 2G speeds (somewhere around 128 kbps) for the remainder of the billing period.

No regulators could be bothered to thwart this behavior, so it fell to the wireless industry’s self-regulatory organization, The National Advertising Division (NAD), to dole out the wrist slaps this time. The organization last week told Boost that it should stop advertising its data plans as unlimited, after getting complaints from AT&T — a company that spent a decade falsely advertising its plans as unlimited:

“AT&T had challenged Boost for its ?Unlimited Data, Talk & Text? claims, asserting that the prepaid brand?s 4G LTE data plans are throttled to 2G speeds once a monthly data cap is hit. For the ?Talk & Text? portion, NAD sided with Boost, saying the company was able to support its message.”

Carriers (including AT&T) have historically tried to claim that a connection is still technically “unlimited” if you slow it to substandard speeds, something regulators and the courts haven’t agreed with. NAD didn’t much like this explanation either, noting that trying to use modern services on the equivalent of a 1998 IDSN line amounts to the same outcome:

“At 2G speeds, many of today’s most commonly used applications such as social-media, e-mail with attachments, web browsing on pages with embedded pictures, videos and ads and music may not work at all or will have such significant delays as to be functionally unavailable because the delays will likely cause the applications to time out,? NAD stated in its decision.”

Granted NAD’s punishments never really carry much weight. As a self-regulatory organization NAD’s function is basically to pre-empt tougher, more comprehensive regulatory action on things like false advertising (which are already pretty rare in telecom). So usually what happens is the organization steps in, doles out a few wrist slaps for ads that have already been running for a year or two, leaving little incentive for real reform in an industry long known for its falsehoods. Which is precisely why we keep reading this same story in the press with little substantive change.

Filed Under: false advertising, unlimited
Companies: at&t, boost mobile

The DOJ's Plan To 'Fix' The T-Mobile Merger Is Already A Hot Mess

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Fri, Jun 12th 2020 06:18am - Karl Bode

Earlier this year the Bill Barr DOJ absolutely tripped over itself to approve T-Mobile’s controversial $26 billion merger with Sprint, despite a mountain of evidence that the deal would erode competition, raise prices, lower wages, and result in thousands of layoffs. It was so grotesquely corrupt, the approval process even involved “antitrust” DOJ boss Makan Delrahim literally helping guide T-Mobile through the proposal process using his personal phone and text message accounts.

The DOJ’s “fix” for the problematic deal also involved shoveling some spectrum from T-Mobile over to Dish Network, which (it was promised) would then spend the next seven years building a replacement fourth wireless carrier to help offset the competition lost by gobbling up Sprint.

As we noted at the time, the proposal was never likely to work. One, Dish has a long, long history of empty promises when it comes to wireless (just ask T-Mobile), hoovering up valuable spectrum, making ample promises, then failing to deliver. The proposal also requires an FCC and DOJ that are proud of being “hands off” (read: fecklessly obedient to industry giants), suddenly being forced to closely shepherd the deal to fruition. This despite the fact that FCC BFFs AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all incentivized to make sure this new fourth competitor never succeeds.

Not too surprisingly, none of this is going particularly well. T-Mobile has already started closing prepaid outlets and firing employees, something the US government and T-Mobile repeatedly promised wouldn’t happen. The pandemic is also making it harder for Dish to secure financing and begin the deployment of its promised 5G network. Even some of the basic aspects of the deal (like offloading T-Mobile prepaid brand Boost Mobile to Dish) have been mysteriously stuck in neutral:

As part of the government’s remedy in the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, Dish Network is supposed to buy Boost Mobile for $1.4 billion, but so far, that deal hasn?t closed. Analysts are asking: What?s up? And as usual when it comes to Dish and wireless, it?s complicated.

?We are unaware of why Dish has not closed the Boost deal,? wrote LightShed Partners analysts Walter Piecyk and Joe Galone in a blog post today. ?It should have been done by June 1st. Something is up.”

Dish and T-Mobile have been unable to agree to terms on a 600 MHz spectrum lease as required by the DOJ judgement on T-Mobile?s acquisition of Sprint, and Dish hasn’t yet been able to explain why the Boost transition hasn’t happened. Again, keep in mind, T-Mobile is incentivized for Dish not to succeed, since they (like AT&T and Verizon) don’t actually want a viable fourth competitor to emerge from this process. And, not surprisingly, analysts state that Dish and T-Mobile have been more combative than cooperative:

“Among the questions: How will disputes between Dish and T-Mobile be resolved? ?It is clear from recent filings that the momentary kumbaya relationship between DISH and TMUS during the final phase of the merger review has left and there has been a return to the more combative relationship that marked the first phase of the merger review,? wrote New Street policy analyst Blair Levin.”

Dish CEO Charlie Ergen is notoriously difficult to get along with. Now, as we’ve predicted, you’ve got the “hands off” DOJ and FCC tasked with nannying this deal through to completion, without any indication they have the motivation or competence to do so.

My assumption has always been that this entire merger “solution” has all been little more than elaborate theater.

Dish may simply want to hoard spectrum and then offload it down the road at a premium, dragging feckless regulators the entire way. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon lobbyists and policymakers are all incentivized to make sure this added competition never takes root. And the DOJ and FCC, little more than glorified rubber stamps to industry at this point, are keen to create the illusion of strong ethical leadership, when in reality they rubber stamped a shitty merger (again, ignoring all objective data). And the US press, so eager to stenograph hype pre-merger, will likely be far less involved in documenting the real cost of merger mania as this paper mache proposal slowly falls apart, employees are laid off, and US consumers inevitably face even higher prices for mobile data in the years to come.

Filed Under: 5g, antitrust, charlie ergen, competition, doj, fcc, spectrum, wireless
Companies: boost mobile, dish, sprint, t-mobile