so what is USC like honestly

[ilvla2]

How can you be financially sound when you lose more customers than you gain though? That seems like a bad position to be in. It'd be one thing if they were staying level, but they are losing customers and not gaining them back, that's a recipe for eventual disaster I would think. I mean, if they are happy with that position and can somehow manage, more power to them, I just wouldn't want my business to be losing more than it was gaining, it's extremely hard to get lost customers back.

[freibrauer]

Yes LONG term its a problem. However in the near term 1-3 years it's not. There making more money because of smartphone adoption now despite having fewer customers. If your running a business its like having 2 customers who only buy candy bars. One customer leaves but the one who stays upgrades to buying a soda and 2 candy bars. Your balance sheet is actually better off despite losing a customer.

Also for what its worth USCC gained 7% more customers last quarter so their actually getting more new customers than before, the problem is their existing customers were leaving in larger numbers to.

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

[newyork4me]

Yes LONG term its a problem. However in the near term 1-3 years it's not. There making more money because of smartphone adoption now despite having fewer customers. If your running a business its like having 2 customers who only buy candy bars. One customer leaves but the one who stays upgrades to buying a soda and 2 candy bars. Your balance sheet is actually better off despite losing a customer.

Also for what its worth USCC gained 7% more customers last quarter so their actually getting more new customers than before, the problem is their existing customers were leaving in larger numbers to.

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

The problem is that USCC has nationwide Verizon roaming agreements for 3G--that allows them to market themselves as providing the coverage people want no matter where they go. They can't roam on VZW for LTE.

Once the iPhone gets LTE this year, that is all smartphone buyers are going to be thinking about (even if they don't want an iPhone) because of the huge marketing focus that will placed on LTE (in general) as a way to get people to upgrade.

That spells an absolute recipe for disaster for USCC. Their own LTE coverage is anemic, and even if they fully build out their service areas, it is still a very small subset of the U.S and it misses almost all of the population centers.

Consider ilvla2: USCC offers service for his area in Northern California--even if they roll out LTE to his area, they won't have LTE for Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Do you think customers like him will want to sign up for service on a provider that doesn't offer LTE when they go to the main/touristy/etc. areas of the state? I'd guess not--after all, you are more likely to be uploading thousands of photos/Video and streaming Netflix using the cellular network when you are on vacation in those places...

[newyork4me]

Bleeding customers sure, about 5% over 3 years. They're losing customers yes, but thus far its been a very slow bleed and smartphone revenue has more than offset their losses in customers. Despite the customer losses USCC is making more money with 5.8 million customers than they ever did with 6.1 million. USCC will be fine for a few more years, TDS could sell sure but their not in the kind of shape that would cause them to sell at an unfavorable $ figure. They're actually doing well financially still.

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

Now is when they are worth more though. After mass defections start for customers no longer seeing a pretty nationwide LTE coverage map (as I mentioned in the post above), the company isn't going to be worth as much.

More importantly, USCC holds significant value to AT&T and Verizon right now because they rely on them for roaming. As T and VZ begin to build out in USCC's CLR territory with their 700MHz spectrum, the value to AT&T and VZW seriously declines.

For example, USCC provides roaming to Verizon in Hagerstown, MD. Avoiding roaming would be a reason to buy USCC in that area for Verizon. However, Verizon built a native LTE network in that area. At the end of the year when VoLTE is launched on VZW, VZW customers will start weaning off USCC roaming. That removes all the value of buying USCC for Verizon.

As this happens in more and more places, USCC's value to the two main operators drops. And, their roaming revenue will plummet which removes a huge source of value to potential buyers besides AT&T and VZW.

[BodomSlayer]

Now is when they are worth more though. After mass defections start for customers no longer seeing a pretty nationwide LTE coverage map (as I mentioned in the post above), the company isn't going to be worth as much.

More importantly, USCC holds significant value to AT&T and Verizon right now because they rely on them for roaming. As T and VZ begin to build out in USCC's CLR territory with their 700MHz spectrum, the value to AT&T and VZW seriously declines.

For example, USCC provides roaming to Verizon in Hagerstown, MD. Avoiding roaming would be a reason to buy USCC in that area for Verizon. However, Verizon built a native LTE network in that area. At the end of the year when VoLTE is launched on VZW, VZW customers will start weaning off USCC roaming. That removes all the value of buying USCC for Verizon.

As this happens in more and more places, USCC's value to the two main operators drops. And, their roaming revenue will plummet which removes a huge source of value to potential buyers besides AT&T and VZW.

I'm interested in how VoLTE will work. Data rates? Minutes? Will phones be able to fall back to CDMA should network congestion be high? If bandwith is such an issue won't VoLTE be a big strain?

[newyork4me]

I'm interested in how VoLTE will work. Data rates? Minutes? Will phones be able to fall back to CDMA should network congestion be high? If bandwith is such an issue won't VoLTE be a big strain?

VoLTE will theoretically still use minutes. It can fall back to CDMA, but it can't continue a call. That is, if you start on VoLTE and leave an LTE area, your call will drop and you have to call back. On GSM providers, you can handoff between LTE and HSPA.

CDMA codes use something like 8 KB/s right now with ERVC-B, and that is a rounding error for a LTE network. VoLTE will use wideband codecs for "HD Voice" but that still is a negligible amount of data. Also, VoLTE is integrated with a QoS system, so voice calls have first priority. (again, not really an issue...it would take a nearly inconceivable amount of users to strain an LTE network down enough that VoLTE had problems)

[BodomSlayer]

VoLTE will theoretically still use minutes. It can fall back to CDMA, but it can't continue a call. That is, if you start on VoLTE and leave an LTE area, your call will drop and you have to call back. On GSM providers, you can handoff between LTE and HSPA.

CDMA codes use something like 8 KB/s right now with ERVC-B, and that is a rounding error for a LTE network. VoLTE will use wideband codecs for "HD Voice" but that still is a negligible amount of data. Also, VoLTE is integrated with a QoS system, so voice calls have first priority. (again, not really an issue...it would take a nearly inconceivable amount of users to strain an LTE network down enough that VoLTE had problems)

I'm sure the carriers will find a way to justify a price increase for VoLTE. It would be nice if they could figure out a way to hand off the call from VoLTE to CDMA. Will Voice and Data still work over VoLTE?

[freibrauer]

Even at that point Verizon will be the only provider with large scale LTE. ATT and especially Sprint are way behind, does that mean their all doomed?

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

[newyork4me]

I'm sure the carriers will find a way to justify a price increase for VoLTE. It would be nice if they could figure out a way to hand off the call from VoLTE to CDMA. Will Voice and Data still work over VoLTE?

It would be very, very difficult to do a VoLTE to CDMA handoff. SRVCC (the standard that supports VoLTE to HSPA) has only been in lab environments thus far, and is expected to cause enough headache on its own--and LTE and HSPA are part of the same family of technologies and development group.

This isn't that big of a problem though because when it is launched at the end of this year on VZW, most of their footprint will be covered (and all of their 3G will be by June of 2013). I'm sure USCC will likewise delay launch of VoLTE until most of their native footprint is covered.

Voice & Data will work simultaneously with VoLTE, too. And, only one radio needs to be powered for this, so battery life will actually be better.

[newyork4me]

Even at that point Verizon will be the only provider with large scale LTE. ATT and especially Sprint are way behind, does that mean their all doomed?

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

AT&T can use SRVCC to handoff between networks, and Sprint has committed to end of 2013 being done with deploying LTE across their whole network. I suspect Sprint won't push VoLTE at all until then (if even then), and they don't need to. As part of Sprint's Network Vision project, they are upgrading to 1x Advanced, which has terrific sound quality and capacity enhancements too.

[freibrauer]

By which point either compatability regulations or 4G roaming agreements via Sprint or ATT may be possible for USCC.

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

[freibrauer]

Also it wasn't until late 2010 that USCC got their 3G roaming agreement. They weren't doing any worse with limited data coverage then despite 3 G being universal. And that was during Verizon and ATTs huge 3G coverage war. Its more important for high end users but I'm not sure I buy the argument that most people pay much attention to that. They'll struggle as time goes on sure but an LTE iPhone isn't going to make them any worse off due to coverage maps than they will already be just because a new iPhone cones out.

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

[newyork4me]

By which point either compatability regulations or 4G roaming agreements via Sprint or ATT may be possible for USCC.

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

AT&T should technically be pretty easy; Sprint would be a tough cookie with currently foreseeable hardware. Even so, AT&T isn't building out LTE that aggressively, as they have HSPA+ as a solid fallback.

The real problem for USCC will be lack of future roaming revenues. If you look at their financials, inbound roaming provides a pretty substantial portion of their revenue, and all of it is threatened with VZW's LTE in Rural America program. When VoLTE is deployed and LTE is in the area, the roaming revenues will fall off a cliff. Sprint provides some but not nearly the levels of Verizon.

[freibrauer]

True but that's some way in the future as only VoLTE devices will support it and it will take VZ time to migrate people.

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

[newyork4me]

Also it wasn't until late 2010 that USCC got their 3G roaming agreement. They weren't doing any worse with limited data coverage then despite 3 G being universal. And that was during Verizon and ATTs huge 3G coverage war. Its more important for high end users but I'm not sure I buy the argument that most people pay much attention to that. They'll struggle as time goes on sure but an LTE iPhone isn't going to make them any worse off due to coverage maps than they will already be just because a new iPhone cones out.

Sent from my LG-US670 using HowardForums

That's very true.

Though, a few things have changed since then:

--Verizon & AT&T have improved their coverage to (often) match USCC
--USCC is no longer much cheaper than the big two
--Data became far more important
--Popular hardware became much more in demand, even excluding the iPhone