Posted by: Bob Quinn on January 26, 2012 at 3:08 pm
“Broadband is the great infrastructure challenge of the early 21st century.”
That is the opening sentence of the National Broadband Plan, and the challenge that the Plan spends almost 400 pages trying to address. And that’s the point Sprint has ignored entirely in responding to my recent blog.
Fact: There are vast territories in rural Kansas and Oklahoma where Sprint used to offer their customers a 3G on-net broadband wireless experience where they will now rely on roaming (or, the practice of piggy-backing on competitors’ networks). Sprint may now claim that it had some type of “infrastructure” deal which it characterizes as “roaming” but that is not what Sprint proclaimed in its maps in identifying the “Sprint footprint” and it is certainly not what Sprint told its customers in the affected areas when it started selling them iPhones last year.
Read More 
Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on January 26, 2012 at 10:17 am
By Eric Loeb, AT&T Vice President of International External Affairs
While many people may not have heard of it yet, there is a critically important global meeting happening later this year in Dubai. Known as the WCIT, the World Conference on International Telecommunications is crucial because it will revise the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), which essentially lay out the ground rules for the global interoperability of networks and exchange of telecom traffic between borders.
The WCIT, which falls under the umbrella of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), will mark the first time the ITRs have been revised since they were established 24 years ago.
The process for revising the ITRs began back in 2006 when it was decided by the Plenipotentiary Conference that the ITRs needed to be reviewed. AT&T was there six years ago and we have been working hard with the United States Government and industry throughout. As one way to help people understand this important process, on behalf of AT&T, I have been working as chair of the International Chamber of Commerce’s Task Force on Internet and Telecoms Infrastructure and Services (ITIS) along with the 120-country business community membership of the ICC as it prepared its views on successful ITRs. Just last week, the Task Force released a paper outlining the ICC’s views and recommendations to ensure that global telecom markets continue to grow and develop.
Read More
Posted by: Bob Quinn on January 24, 2012 at 3:48 pm
I saw a little noticed news blurb published in The Oklahoman business section and the Kansas City Business Journal the other day that said Sprint had announced in both Kansas and Oklahoma that it was going to rely on roaming, rather than its own network, to cover the vast rural geographies of those states. So, instead of actually investing – and creating jobs – to build out its own network, Sprint wants its customers to roam on other carriers’ networks and investments. Don’t take my word for it, Sprint helpfully provided these maps (see below) to illustrate the level of disinvestment that was enabled by a couple of FCC Orders I will describe below.
Sprint rationalized its move by explaining that it is selling a lot more smartphones these days and that its customers are using a lot more data so it needs to conserve its cash.
“The move is a cost-cutting measure for Sprint, which has been selling more smartphones and seeing its customers using more data, Cook said.”
Now that is a real head scratcher. If its customers are using more data, don’t you think it would be logical for Sprint to actually use its cash to build more capacity? I mean, at AT&T we have spent a lot of time and money investing in recent years racing to keep up with our subscribers’ surging broadband demands precisely because those demands are growing so rapidly. Verizon has been doing the same in building its own 4G LTE network. But at Sprint, the logic is different, and investment – Sprint investment – does not appear to be the solution. My guess is that Kansas and Oklahoma represent the tip of tip of the iceberg here. Does this represent the beginning of Sprint’s Disappearing Network Vision? Will this disinvestment story go nationwide and appear in your local paper soon?
Read More
