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AT&T tries to defend why it shouldn't let you unlock your phone sooner (www.androidauthority.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There are still a ton of MVNOs though, and from what I can tell, MVNOs are generally not getting bought out by other telecoms, but by companies looking to diversify/transition their business. For example, Dish bought Ting and Boost, probably because they see their core offering (satellite TV) dying out w/ streaming taking over, and they want to diversify a bit. I've been seeing a lot of internet companies trying to offer mobile service, and it honestly doesn't bother me if that's the kind of consolidation we're seeing.

Verizon buying Tracfone is a lot more troubling, but that seems to be more of the exception rather than the rule. I don't necessarily like it because any acquisition tends to change the business model, but I don't think it's dangerous in any way, it just means customers may end up needing to shift around who they get service through to find what they're looking for.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Mint and Tmo?

I shot off the hil based on tmo and vz deal.

Point being if they want to, they can cut us off.

Mint was taking too much biz from tmo is why it was bought out is my understanding

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah, that one is painful too. But again, those deals are fairly rare, and for every Mint, there's another MVNO.

The only real change we should make here is to require network operators to offer their service to MVNOs at reasonable rates. Ideally, the network would operate as a separate business from the carrier. But we only really need to enforce that if MVNOs disappear, and there are still a ton of options.