Yeah, that’s a bummer. But I’m seriously thinking about switching to AT&T over this, but I would need to know if the frequencies are covered as good on AT&T.

I can’t believe how few choices we have in cell phones in the United States. Where is all the innovation I keep hearing everyone talk about?

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lotsofpulp 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How are you going to innovate installing hundreds of thousands of cell towers across the USA?

Mobile network via satellite might increase number of network providers by 1 or 2, but the physics problem of needing tons of physical assets to create a wireless network usable by small, low powered devices remains.

I guess you could innovate some new physics that allows you to send wireless signals through more surfaces, that is also not ionizing radiation to animal and plant tissue, and doesn’t need a lot of power to send from a mobile device. That is a lot to ask, though.

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Noaidi 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Cell towers in the United States are primarily owned by three major companies: American Tower, Crown Castle, and SBA Communications. These companies build, acquire, and lease space on the towers to wireless providers.

No more infrastructure needs to be built.

	▲	NetMageSCW 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		When you say lease space to wireless providers, what do the carriers do with that leased space? Do you think that could be called infrastructure needed for that carrier’s coverage? Also, there are enough dead zones that satellite direct to cell is a thing.

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NetMageSCW 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What are you talking about? There are hundreds of different cell phones available for sale in the US.

	▲	silisili 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hundreds might be pushing it. If you as a user want a modern, high end or top of the line cell phone, you're pretty much just stuck with Apple or Samsung. Maybe Google. If you remove the minor variants each has that's just 3. We used to have many more - OnePlus obviously, Honor, Huawei, LeEco, HTC, LG, ASUS, Essential, Blackberry, etc.

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delfinom 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Innovation in the US is mainly how many more creative ways they can suck money out of consumers.

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mxuribe 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I can’t believe how few choices we have in cell phones in the United States. Where is all the innovation I keep hearing everyone talk about?

The beginning of your sentence - "I can’t believe how few choices we have..." - can be applied equally sadly to other areas here in the U.S....such as but not limited to lack of choice of residential ISPs, or lack of choice (or generally mis-incentivized) healthcare providers, or lack of choice of mobile service providers, or, etc., or etc. And, of course, your last part of your comment asking where the innovation is? Well, innovation often is pocketed in those who control the capital, and only released little by little at the whims of releasing more capital. Sorry, i have to step away, cuz felt sad instantly just citing my own comments here. :-(