stockdoc06

AT&T: The iPhone's Achilles' Heel

I recently moved from central ohio. I had VZ and they were much better than T as far as coverage. I also traveled a lot. T is fine on the Eisenhower system, but leave that, and VZis much better...even better now because they bought Alltel.


On Jul 19 09:45 PM boomeranging wrote:

> I live in central Ohio and just about everyone I know has left T-Mobile,
> Sprint, Verizon and switched to AT&T
>
> Plus they are second to none when traveling

AT&T: The iPhone's Achilles' Heel

I agree completely. I recently switched from VZ to T. I live in Center City Philadelphia in a high rise with views as far as the eye can see. Guess how my T service is? Terrible. The strange thing is that my phone cycles between having a full 3G signal, zero signal, and full signal on the extended network. Clearly I am covered, but the network can't handle it. My guess is that T doesn't have the capacity for all of the iPhones that are currently out there, especially in high population density areas, overloading the network. T apparently has no clue how to fix the problem either. Take a look at their balance sheet. They are already highly leveraged, so they can't borrow more. They pay a huge dividend that they can't cut because their farce will be exposed and therefore, they have no money to invest in their network. Watch for a cell "partnership" with a foreign telco (T-Mobile mabe?) that will give away their network for a cash infusion. T is in debt, retirement benefits, and operating trouble (sound like any other company you have heard of?), and I will be the first to say that.

Is Netflix the Next Apple?

Movies are different than music and AAPL does not have nearly the advantage they had in music. AAPL's music rise was driven by a highly desirable playback device and DRM that forced you to use iTunes to buy music for your iPod. With the movement to eliminate DRM music will be purchased as a commodity through iTunes, Amazon, WalMart, etc where artists will once again be able to control price and demand their terms be met, though the iPod device still seems to be the preferred playback device for now.

Despite the ability to play movies on a 2" iPod screen, the preferred playback device for movies is a TV, a business APPL knows nothing about, has no advantage, and it would foolish to try to enter the TV business unless they come up with 3D without the glasses. The interface may eventually be the TV itself (as LG, I believe, just announced) but there are also established 3rd party players already (Xbox, playstation, Tivo, Nintendo, Apple, etc) where no one has a clear advantage. Netflix has been working to establish relationships with as many of these as possible to capture as many TV's as possible. So rather than Xbox negotiating with Paramount Studios for distribution rights, Netflix does the negotiating and distributes throughout their platform. Time will tell if Netlfix manages the relationships well enough to make a little for themselves but disuade the 3rd parties from going it alone without the Netflix toll road, but I think they will learn from Apple's mistake of dictating to artists and consumers how the relationship will work.

Apple's Walmart Deal Will Effectively Kill Google's Android

You are missing the point of Android. Remember that spectrum auction a little while back...remember the inclusion of language in one of the nationwide blocks that stated it must allow an open platform...now you know why Andriod exists (not to say Apple couldn't open the iphone once the ATT contract expires). I don't expect much from the first generation of Andriod phones. Google is trying to get the lay of the land. They have never done retail, nor been involved in the hypercompetitive cell phone market. When the open spectrum goes live (and devices/companies can take advantage of it) it will change the cell phone market forever.