Then HSPA 7.2 even at 3 should be good enough

Makes you wonder if 4G from Sprint was not coming would AT&T even bother to bring HSPA ?

Hey, good, they're about a year behind Verizon and Sprint


For mobile, the backhaul network is the tower-to-backbone/core link. It's a mix of terrestrial and more and more wireless. The more visionary providers are probably going to pure wireless, which should help with the CapEx-OpEx stuff that comes into play hard with these guys.

This stuff is basically a cash flow business. CapEx is investment in the business, adds shareholder value, but the assets are basically worthless since they're in the ground and depreciate rapidly. You don't do telcos for their assets - You do them for the cash flow from good assets, but that plummets as their assets depreciate, falling bandwidth prices, etc.

OpEx is your operating expenses ( including R&D, if you have half a brain ) - Deducting that from revenue you're left with operating profit, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

Then from operating profit comes your CapEx, but also stuff like taxes, interest on service debt, etc, then finally what's left over after all that goes into the bank and/or shareholders.

So, it's pretty ugly if ATT is a year behind everybody else ( and everybody else has been building out their backhaul a while ).

Ed

Oh yeah, what that quote/article doesn't mention is that Verizon has been going fiber optic for all new backhaul and local fixed-voice and digital ( data and entertainment ) subnetworks/last mile stuff since 2000 and phasing in retro work on the pre-exisiting backhaul and local fixed subnetworks - So they really didn't have that much to do for mobile. I'd suspect it was the same for Sprint-Nextel. I had fiber optic in 2001.

ATT could choke on a pure IP network ( and really, none of these guys got right away that applications and devices' convergence drive this stuff, but some have been smarter than others ), and have to throttle, tier, disable whatever, etc, etc, whatever they can to keep from getting overwhelmed. They might not keep up with the devices' convergence ( multi-mode/everything handsets, laptops and pads, whatever ) and applications. That's just pure unfounded speculation, but I guess anything's possible

And getting back to the original post, if your phone/pod/pad is jailbroken you can get Wifi Sync for $10 through Cydia. Don't smash the system, just step around it .

Of course, you have to weigh the advantage of cordless syncing convenience against the disadvantage that it hits the battery instead of charging it, but I find it does make me back up more regularly, so that's got to be a good thing.

Yeah, the Telco guys are almost like the perishables guys, corn guys.

The corn guys have this enormous appetite to feed, big money to chase, and they have enormous capacity, with this replenishable stuff cycle after cycle, stuff to boost yield, overcapacity, falling price, growing appetite ( from basically technology, better living through chemistry, HFCS-and-corn-based foods, feed, global demand, etc ), overcapacity, falling price, growing appetite, etc, etc.

Telcos have sorta the same thing. All IP convergence of wifi-wimax-lte-etc on devices/silicon. Rapidly changing world, streaming multimedia, videoconferencing, 3D holography, VOIP, fixed-mobile enterprise, etc, etc. Replenishable infrastructure to match capacity to demand. Falling price. Insatiable demand. Grow capacity.

It's all money, like with the corn guys, but it's quite a trick.

Like with the corn guys, if you can't keep up, you're done.

Ed

And like with the corn guys, they'll go to the government to pimp their ride. The corn guys get subsidies. The telco guys will go after Google, Youtube, Hulu, etc, peer-to-peer, bandwidth tiers, etc.

Here's your free market fundamentalism The market's always right. Screw these guys. For all the whining they do, they make BIG money - They just want it bigger and easier. They'd be slumlords if they could.