MOD UP -- lots of people defend T-Mobile/MetroPCS merger by citing ATT/Alltel, but this key qualifying detail isn't easily found. Thanks!

How do you know this? Please cite sources on how the "tower equipment T-Mobile is using and deploying is capable of running all four with either a software update or very little hardware changes." I am not doubting your assertion; in fact, I logged on here looking to see someone make exactly this assertion because I assumed that most cellular technology was very similar from the hardware dimension. Can you expand a little and point us to a link on this?

I was wondering the same thing all yesterday when this popped up on the wire. In fact, I had a similar concern back a few years ago on the ATT-T-Mobile linkup. After all, although ATT and T-Mobile both use GSM, they use different frequencies to do so. T-Mobile phones will work on an ATT network and vice-versa for regular calls, texts, and slow data -- but not at 3G speeds. (For the record, that is now changing: T-Mobile is now doing some 3G on the 1900MHz band that is compatible with most phones, namely the iPhone. It used to do 3G on 1700MHz, which only phones sold by T-Mobile are configured to use. But that was not happening at the time. See this article).

Moving on: PC Mag reported on a presentation the two companies released indicating that the MetroPCS CDMA network will be largely turned-off and dismantled with all customers transitioned by 2015. The brief seems to claim that customers replace MetroPCS devices so quickly as it is, there won't be a difficult public relations situation:

From what I have read about MetroPCS, most of its customers use cheap feature phones. The idea then is that they'll tire or break their cheap phones and T-Metro will be able to take advantage of that trend to shift them over to equally cheap GSM phones to run on the legacy T-Mobile network. There are certainly a share of customers that use more expensive phones that they expected when they purchased them to be more durable and last longer than 2015 -- I would suggest that that number is small given the focus of MetroPCS on those that want what is now considered to be bare minimum for cell phone service. (talk/text/30MB BREW/WAP web).

All of this said, I will note that when AT&T/Cingular acquired Alltel, Alltel also used CDMA. I don't know how AT&T was able to make that acquisition work, but they did manage to do so -- T-Metro looks to be pursuing this transaction with a page out of that playbook.

Why can't I mod "ironic"?

The great thing about Straight Talk is that is uses the AT&T network. Because most unlocked phones are built to use AT&T frequencies for 3G, you'll generally get faster data speeds than T-Mobile -- if your phone is built to use the AT&T frequencies. This would generally be an argument against using Simple Mobile.

It's $45 a month for unlimited everything.

Yes, I had a similar progression. fvwm to Window Maker -- still use WM when I boot into BSD.

Well, so much for that. From the Navy's "About Navy ERP" page:

I highly recommend review of the This American Life Episode referenced in TFA.

Although broadcast only a few weeks ago, I'm not sure when TAL recorded the interview. That said, the enthusiasm of the company's CEO was striking given the strong line of questioning posed by the This American Life Interviewer. I would imagine the interview was fairly recent.

Although conceding that the stories sometimes lacked full detail on the things going on on the community being covered, with base material consisting often of only a quick phone interview to get a quote and a press release to provide the story -- Journastic CEO Brian Timpone did clalim a degree of passion for enabling some form of coverage for stories that may simply go unreported on.

This kind of enthusiasm for idealistic coverage of Norman Rockwell's Small Town America really files in the face of the general approach of the company to the job at hand -- which included a policy to use falsified (read: made-up) by-lines. That is to say, the off-shore reporters writing the stories for Journastic and then syndicated to newspapers like the Chicago Tribune had a field in the story submission setting for a name to associated with the story. Amazing.

You can play the game easily with a nVidia GTX460 or with the ATi 4870, either of which you can get for less than $150 in the US. I'm confident that even with the Euro markup, you can do it for under 200 euros.

Honestly have no idea what your point with all this is (invoking church and state? WTF?), but I will respond to one of your notes:

Like it or not, telecom companies generally have what amounts to a monopoly or at-best -- a shared duopoly. The consumer has little choice in who provides internet service to their home (usually just two choices). Under that circumstance, it seems a reasonable intervention by the government to impose minimum standards on the company's behavior to protect those who allow the government to rule in the first place.

Internet access is no longer a luxury item -- something for discretionary spending. It is vital to operating a business and participating in the workforce. It is invaluable for education. It makes keeping in touch with far-flung family in friends easy. I would posit that internet access is a public utility like electricity. Verizon using business practices prohibited by so-called net-neutrality rules are akin to an electric company providing preferential electricity delivery (luckily, not really a thing in this country) for the users of devices made by companies that pay it a license fee on each refrigerator it sells.

That is clearly a ridiculous idea. So is providing a faster connection non-transparently to certain online content providers at the expense of speedy connections to the servers the rate-payers actually want to use...

Have to agree with this. From original question:

Unless his "other means" is to spend a lot more time at your friends house or at a bar, I would not be so sure about that.

ESPN3 is available free if you're using it from an internet connection of certain internet providers. However great ESPN3 is, it leaves much to be desired. You do get a lot of live games from the ABC and ESPN networks for free. However -- although most put a premium on live coverage of games, ESPN's feature and news programming is the best in the industry and not available (legally or even conveniently) at all online. I have found that I miss Baseball Tonight and Sports Center more than anything since I cut the cord in 2006. As a note, ESPN3 does provide access to SportsCenter and some other feature programming -- but the list of participating ISPs is limited to 4 as of today.

Additionally -- I personally find it highly dissatisfying to watch a three hour football game on the same thing that I use to build spreadsheets and answer e-mail. While it is possible to run an HDMI cable to watch the game on your LCD, the image quality is clearly not really HD and the pain of changing the channel with a mouse is annoying to say the least.

I am finding that old frugal me is learning as my income increases that some things were just worth paying for all along instead of hassling with "other means"...ESPN is on that list.

Well, this certainly wasn't this year -- or so I hope. If you're in the United States, you can likely choose AT&T's gophone which will sell you as many text messages per month pre-paid as you'd like. You can buy a 200 messages plan for $.024 per message or a 1000 messages plan for $.01 per message. You can buy 2 200 messages plan or three 1000 message plans. Or you can buy an unlimited plan.

You can even choose to only text if you'd like to avoid costly voice service. Bottom line -- SMS is not as expensive as it may have been 10 years ago when you got a $50 text charge.

Did you read the headline? The guy complaining is the guy that runs Netflix:

How do you have no income? I thought that even those receiving social security retirement checks were required to file a 1040...