[nathancahill]

Yeah, it's really shocking to see how US carriers compare to the rest of the world (choose US in the Countries dropdown under the chart). I knew our wired internet speeds were lagging behind, but didn't realize LTE was that far behind as well.

[zanny]

AT&T and Verizon pretty much dominate and own the industry. Why improve when you can collude? Its not like anyone can actually compete, they own the spectrum.

Sprint and T-Mobile have significantly worse networks and access to spectrum.

Does not help that AT&T and Verizon are also huge stakeholders in the wired telecom oligopoly. They are overflowing in cash to crush competition.

[toomuchtodo]

With Google jumping into the wired internet business with Google Fiber, I'm surprised they haven't bought a controlling interest in T-Mobile yet (as Deutsche Telekom is always trying to unload T-Mobile on someone).

[potatosareok]

I don't understand why they would want to. Cell phone carriers aren't high profit business and has a ton of employees. Verizon has 180k employees and has net income of I see around 5billion profit on around 100 billion in income last year. Verizon FiOS pretty much got last Verizon CEO fired.

Google margins are way higher and Verizon employees more call center reps then all of Google in total.

From my understanding Google fiber is basically cheap dark fiber they got with some great regulatory concessions.

My view of it is Google spends enough just to prompt others to take actions (see their involvement in specturm bidding). Though my post might come off as judgemental, I'm not judging Google - that's merely good business for them to do. Wireless companies themselves are hardly examples of efficiency.

[toomuchtodo]

The same reason they acquired a mobile operating system: to prevent the loss of access to an ad delivery channel (mobile, in this case).

[potatosareok]

I don't see how them having controlling stake in TMobile helps them on that goal. I don't see either how wireless carriers have a real way to limit Googls mobile ad. I think Android alone accomplishes that goal, and until and unless phone carriers role out their own os alternatives that people don't hate, they'll be forced to offer Android.

Their involvement with spectrum bidding got them open access rights for only a few million.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious here though..