What's in a fee?

Wow!

That's what I said to myself when I saw how many people were complaining (want some cheese with that whine?) about Sprint's $10 charge for "4G". Ok. Now I can understand that those not yet in a 4G environment wouldn't want to pay more for something they can't get access to. But to think themselves so isolated from other geographical locations so as to "wish" Sprint to take into consideration they shouldn't pay for the access rights to 4G is ludicrous!

Consider this:
Sprint is not charging for 4G.

Sprint is charging a fee because of the device's designed demand on a data network. The $10 is a pre-determined penalty for using the device as it was intended to be used. As a stand-alone data use device.

Now take a look at AT&T. They were ill-prepared to handle the data demands when iPhone came on the market. If they hadn't snapped up Cingular, they would have had capital to meet the demands of the iPhone. Instead, they carried a liability in an attempt to gain market share.

Verizon is still reeling from their purchase of Alltel with a high liability of Alltel equipment. A friend of mine was an Alltel customer and his data speeds were fast, calls were clear and didn't have any holes in service in the areas he works. When his phone died and had to replace it, Verizon told him he could keep his plan but it had to be through Verizon. So he did and ever since has had untold headaches with data access and call quality. To be fair, a new tower was installed (about four months later) so he could use his phone reliably from his home again, but only upstairs.

Sprint has had the longest time since their purchase of Nextel to get straightened out. How much so seems to some to be yet determined. When they bought Nextel, they knew Nextel's system was incompatible to their own and since it was to be Sprint's business class of communication, it didn't matter much. Sprint installed equipment to allow their regular customers to push a button and use their phone like Nextel's walkie-talkie style set up. and communicate with those Nextel phones!

Later, Their 3G service expanded. I know as up in Nebraska I noticed I still had Sprint service between Grand Island and Kearney along I-80 where I didn't before. North Platte, Nebraska still doesn't have a Sprint signal but it now is within Sprint's included roaming area so I don't get charged for the calls anymore. Even now I can get phone service most of the way between Salina, Kansas and Limon, Colorado where only two years ago it was either totally void or an non-contract roaming zone.

So where is Sprint in the process of 4G? You guessed it right if you said "Building it up." I'll just bet most of these same whiners pitched a fit when they didn't have 3G in their town yet had to pay a higher price for a new plan that included "Power Vision". So let's look at the scale of things now.

I noticed that in the last two months, my phone no longer makes or receives calls in EVDO mode. All calls now are in 1x mode. With the coming demands on the data side of Sprint's network from the EVO, HD2 and Touch Pro 2, to name a few, it seems that Sprint is putting voice calls into the lowest common denominator as voice calls use the least amount of bandwidth. This would suppose that Sprint is making a pre-emptive move to ensure EVDO and 4G (where available) is unhindered for use by Sprint TV, web browsing, web-enabled apps and texting. This also may indicate that future phones will use the 3G side for simultaneous voice and data usage like video phone calls or looking up something on the web while talking to someone. We know 4G will do this better but it would seem that by moving the voice calls to 1x mode, it frees up EVDO for more demanding usage.

So what's in a fee? Capability and future growth. Not speed.