Saturday, June 17, 2017

We Won't Talk About Sprint's Free Plans

Sprint has sort-of announced they will offer a certain number of Unlimited lines for FREE.  Instead of spending a bunch of money advertising this rather generous promotion, they're hoping its ridiculous nature will get people with blogs and news web sites to talk about it and help it go viral.  Well that ain't gonna happen here.


Sprint does need to do something to get noticed and Free is always a good gimmick.  There are some limitations to these Unlimiteds, but it's worth looking into.  Make your decision before the end of the month before Sprint comes up with another outlandish proposal.  Be careful, sometimes FREE isn't cheap enough, but don't miss an opportunity that looks too good to be true.

Fortunately, we won't be suckered into talking about these Free plans.

Friday, June 9, 2017

Dish Wireless: The Invisible Network

Dish does not operate a wireless network of their own but they possess one of the largest assignments of wireless spectrum.  They have notified the FCC of plans that include the date of a required buildout and what type of network they will construct.  Their notification indicates they will construct a nationwide network to serve the IoT (Internet of Things) market that they project will grow from 17 Billion devices currently to over 75 Billion devices within the next 8 years.  This has the potential of being a network that most of us will use, but won't have the opportunity, or the need, to sign up for.  This Dish Wireless network may be connected to all our new wireless gadgets that could include our autonomous cars or, the Next Big Thing.


Of course this could all be smoke and mirrors.  Most likely, the existing cellular networks will have the capacity to connect all the IoT devices.  Critics say Dish is just buying time until someone comes to the table and buys all their spectrum.  We hope they do build a new network, even if we never know when we're using it, but we fear we'll lose one of our current major carriers before they can get a new one built.  We'll share updates as we find them here at the Wireless Noise.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Do They Have Their Own Network?

We already know about the carriers that use "The same network at half the price," but we discovered a few small networks that sold their network and didn't tell you.  This isn't some devious plan to fool us, it's just another question you have to ask when you sign up with one of our favored local carriers.  I now ask, "Do you have your own network?"  The answer should be something like, "Sure, we have 56 cell sites," or the like, and you move on from there.

In most cases, when one of these small carriers decides to discontinue service, they just disappear and the "wireless department" is let go.  In a growing number of others, the wireless people in the office are still there and still sell phones and plans, but the network has been turned over to someone else.  These carriers become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator or "MVNO" and, unless you ask, will continue to present themselves as the "local" carrier.


In some cases this is just fine.  We like MVNO's and they often come up with better prices.  A few don't.  Some of these carriers keep the local Customer Service staff and may be more responsive to local customers than the national carriers using far-away service agents.  So it's not a bad thing.  When we discover a network that has turned over their physical network to somebody else, we delete them from the Mountain Wireless Carrier Reviews and add them to the "Same Network, Different Carrier" List.  Just don't be afraid to ask, "Do you have your own network."  We ask on a regular basis.