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0 pointsrayiner11y ago0 comments

No it's not. The amount of bandwidth available on a wireless network is a function of the amount of spectrum ($$), the sophistication of the cell equipment ($$), and the density of the cell sites ($$$).

Sprint's network is slow because it spends a fraction of what AT&T and Verizon do,[1] while trying to get the same nationwide footprint. It's a simple math problem.

As for prices--every company charges what they estimate people might be willing to put up with.

[1] Last year, $6 billion versus $17-20 billion. These are combined CapEx, but most of it goes into wireless.

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zanny11y ago

You are describing the costs of total network capacity. The poster above is describing marginal costs of bandwidth.

If there is infrastructure in place that is going underutilized and I want to download a megabyte of data, the marginal cost of that data transfer is incredibly negligible. But that infrastructure exists to meet the conditions of peak utilization, when at capacity, and that is what is expensive.

If anything, Sprint should give flat rate mobile data and have fixed funding campaigns to increase capacity for each residential block around a tower. If the speeds are too slow end users would then pay to upgrade the infrastructure themselves, or more specifically heavy and business users would subsidize network upgrades.

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