Slashdot Mirror
Cingular Wins bid for AT&T Wireless
Newer Guy writes "Cingular has won the bidding war for AT&T Wireless with an offer of $15 a share, or about $40.5 billion." This means Vodafone is out, and the number of competitors for wireless devices in the US is down by one.
the number of competitors would still be reduced by one. Vodafone is a major player in Verizon Wireless.
The UK has a small number(4-5) of major players in the mobile phone industry. However, prices aren't kept down, and regulators have to force the operators to reduce them.
Decode these
... rallied after it was announced that they had lost the bid for purchase of that ATT segment to Cingular.
A lot of relieved Vodafone investors (or potential investors for that matter) then who it seems didn't have much confidence in the ATT buyout.
Now, next try for Vodaphone: Vivendi.
You Now what, customers are gonna pick up the bill. That's right. Here in Europe everybody got frenzy when the governments put teh 3G licenses on auction. Well all our operators forked out Billion$. How are they paying for it? Well we are! Altough there are ever more susbcribers to their service prices have not come down. Forget about the whole economies of scale and inversed moores law for telecommunication prices. We have kept a steady Price tag. Every time we text we have to pay roughly 20 Us cents for a 160 caracter SMS! Beter yet whenever we travel abroad (to another EU country) we end up paying calls for about 1.2$ per minute. That's for inbound calls too. I'm sick of it and have decided to ease off on my phone. Email is massively back in my live. Welcome to the club America
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
I tried to buy a phone and service from AT&T Wireless last November, only to find that their store literally was incapable of selling me one because "their computers were down." This was the case for days. I've seen postings online by their employees detailing what a mess their internal systems are. Hopefully Cingular knows what they are getting into in terms of merging their operations.
Also it's important to remember here that AT&T Wireless hasn't been a part of AT&T proper since 2001. They are a separate company with rights to the name and logo.
Well, if you get a tri-band "world" GSM phone it works in 90% of the rest of the world where there is GSM coverage. My SE T68i worked all over Australia and Europe when I traveled there AND everywhere ATTWS has coverage (or roaming agreements) in the USA (which was getting larger and larger each month). Seems like it was compatible "with most of the rest of the world" to me...
I'd run, if I were you. I finally got my fiance out of Cingular's grasp after her seemingly endless contract stopped getting renewed and added her to my TMobile plan. The prices are great and TMobile is awesome for customer service (at least they have been for me for several years back into the Voicestream years).
As someone else has said, it can get much worse.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
AT&T Wireless has never been a massive monopoly or even part of one. AT&T used to be an independent cellular carrier (McCaw Cellular Communications) competing with the AT&T-owned Bell carriers. After the AT&T breakup, AT&T bought McCaw. It was demerged in 2001, and the name really is the only part that has anything to do with old monopolies.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"Map depicts an approximation of outdoor coverage." As a current Cingular customer, I can attest to the fact that it's a *WILD* approximation - their coverage actually sucks. I've been in several major metro areas where I could get *no* signal, while my Verizon-using counterparts were okay.
THINK
Watch that billing with Verizon also! I pay my Verizon home service through an ebill with Checkfree. I can not simply select "pay bill" for it to be sent automatically, I have to subtract at least 2 business days because they were doing the same delay thing and charging late fees. Funny thing, I called to Verizon to inquire about the delay, they stated they have to hold on to a check for "3 to 5 days" before actually crediting the account. I explained it was an electronic payment through Checkfree, she claimed it was paid with physical check but could not give me the check number because of technical problems (I know why, because a check number did not exist). I know sometimes physical checks are sent out by Checkfree but my Verizon payment is all electronic but for some reason, still delayed.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
If you have AT&T Wireless, get out NOW. Cingular has the most awful, broken billing system ever. They will shut down your account if your bill is one day late and charge you an activation fee to turn it back on. Their highest national plan still does not give you anywhere near unlimited national service. Not to mention it takes them about a day to get a phone activated right. Unfortunately, AT&T Wireless, one of the better (but still not good compared to what Asia has) wireless providers will most likely cease to exist as we know it. This can be a really good thing for Cingular, as they were the most logical buyer, but they will likely botch this. I have AT&T Wireless; as soon as I saw they were up for sale I started looking for another provider and am now in the switch process. Good luck.
I am feeling fat and sassy
"AT&T's network is CDMA. Current AT&T phones won't work on Cingular networks, and vica versa. They wouldn't improve their coverage at all, instead they'll wind up slowly migrating all of their phones to one network, selling off the other set in the process."
I'm curious as to what market you're referring to? In western Washington state, AT&T is selling TDMA and GSM phones (I just bought a TDMA-version Motorola v60). They're referring to GSM equipment as "next-generation network" capable, so it appears that they're trying to migrate to GSM. The carriers in this area use the following technologies:
Nearly two years ago I was with Cingular. Roughly half way into my one year contract with them, my nokia phone, "died" (for lack of a better term). I really never cared becuase I had two phones on the plan, the other being an Erikson model. Roughly two months after this incident, my erikson model "died" (the other end could not hear me when i called out on the phone). So, I traveled down to my nearest cingular office (not one of those small, teenage staffed joints), but one of their corporate offices here in central new york. I informed a representitive of what had happened, and as politely as possible she informed me that there was nothing she could do for me, and I would have to continue paying my phone bill for the last 3 months of my contract (for phones that no longer work). I then reluctantly asked if i could pay a penalty fee and switch phones, or exchange the non working ones for at least one new phone that would work. The representivie informed me that I was not allowed to do this until my contract expired. Well, to sum up what happened, I still owe three months of service to Cingular, but like hell will they ever see one penny from me. They did not provide me with a service for my remaining three months, considering I was never able to use it. Cingluar is bad news. I'm now with Cricket Wireless (yeah i know.. not the best choice.. but the coverage on my phone suits me everywhere I venture, and unlimited service for $29.99/month is'nt bad.) I will never go back to Cingular, ever.
AT&T's TDMA network had great nationwide coverage, and they were the first major provider to offer a nationwide no-roaming plan. My understanding is that their GSM network isn't nearly as good yet.
Vodafone (which is a major provider in Europe, where everyone is GSM) is also a major shareholder in Verizon, which uses CDMA.
Here's the list of the major providers and their network types:
AT&T TDMA-->GSM Cingular TDMA-->GSM Verizon CDMA Sprint CDMA T-Mobile GSM Nextel iDEN Alltel CDMA US Cellular CDMAI used to work in the construction office for a celluar company. The first year cost for a tower was about 150K in 2000. I have no idea what it would be now