Why the AT&T and T-Mobile Merger Is Bad For Consumers

adeelarshad82 writes "AT&T recently announced that it will buy T-Mobile for $39 billion. If the transaction gets approved by the government and closes in a year as planned, it will create the nation's largest wireless carrier by far. While this is great news for both companies, analysts believe that it's an awful idea for end consumers for a number of different reasons — from obvious ones, like a rise in rates due to lower competition, to subtler ones, like more selective phone choices for consumers."

Comments

Reject

[C_amiga_fan]

The FCC has been approving way too many mergers lately. Sirius and XM (okay). Comcast and NBC (bad). ATT and T-mobile should be negated.

Re:Reject

[C_amiga_fan]

P.S.

"AT&T's 700 Mhz spectrum" came from the selloff of TV channels 52 through 69. ATT, Verizon, and the FCC are pushing to selloff channels 25 and up, too, effectively killing free television (there would be one-half as many stations).

Re:Reject

[dgatwood]

It's ultimately not the FCC, but rather, the DOJ that would have to step in and stop it. So write them.

Re:Reject

[smelch]

For real. Where I'm at we had 2, 16, 19 (on a good day), 22 and 45. I'm pretty sure they can easily fit within the 25 channels TV would be left with.

Re:Reject

[dgatwood]

I would argue that AT&T has already abused their near-monopoly position in ways that violate anti-trust laws, and that the whole purpose of the DOJ's trust busting is to prevent mergers and combinations that would result in increased violations of those laws.

Re:Reject

[harl]

What was the last merger they denied?

Re:Reject

[AK Marc]

http://tvlistings.aol.com/listings/tx/dallas/broadcast?hid=BCAST623&zipcode=75201

That's where I grew up. Where are you from?

Re:Reject

[VGPowerlord]

"AT&T's 700 Mhz spectrum" came from the selloff of TV channels 52 through 69. ATT, Verizon, and the FCC are pushing to selloff channels 25 and up, too, effectively killing free television (there would be one-half as many stations).

This would be one of the reasons why the DTV transition is happening world-wide, so governments can reassign the spectrum for other uses.

In the US, low power stations are still allowed to transmit, but they know they are on borrowed time, as the international date to end analog television signals is June 17, 2015.

Re:Reject

[ciscoguy01]

The DOJ only has jurisdiction over federal anti-trust laws. And while we may not like it, this does not actually breach any of those laws

This does violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Why do you say having only one GSM carrier in the entire country wouldn't result in less or no competition?

GSM is the only network wherein your Iphone can talk and use data at the same time.
I for one am against any more consolidation among huge companies. We have had it in banks, supermarkets, phone companies, we don't need any more. Do you want there to be only one or two banks, one or two wireless carriers, one or two supermarkets, and that's it? If you don't like it you can just not buy any. I want more competition, not less. More companies duking it out so I have choice.

These wireless companies have spectrum licenses. They don't own those frequencies, they get to use them in the public interest.
Remember when AT&T bought Cingular? They sold off the old AT&T network and frequencies to Tmobile. They kept the better performing Cingular Wireless network. Why did they do that? They had to. The Justice Department wouldn't let them buy their competition unless they divested those assets. That's fair. MORE competition, not less.

AT&T and the baby bells were all separated out years ago in the AT&T Divestiture. Now, Pacbell turned into SBC which bought Bellsouth and others and finally bought their former parent AT&T, and whopee, they are all back together. It was a 25 year plan, they planned it all, the crooks.
Now they want to take away more customer choice.

Just say no. No to companies buying their competition. No to consolidations that limit competition. Especially where these companies have government licenses. It's just not right.

Re:Reject

[C_amiga_fan]

>>>so governments can reassign the spectrum for other uses.

Yeah but I enjoy getting 40+ channels free television (including primetime, foreign language, news, movies, retro, Qubo, etc). I don't think governments should be taking that free service away from us.

Re:Reject

[C_amiga_fan]

>>>2, 16, 19 (on a good day), 22 and 45

Based upon the numbers you listed, I was able to use wikipedia's list of markets and guess where you live. These stations are now "multiplexing" which means 2-3 channels per station. You have access to twelve channels in total, including the Big 6 networks, a movie and two RetroTV channels (think TVLand), for free.

Why would you want that taken away from you (or your poorer neighbors)? That's what will happen if the FCC goes through with its plan to eliminate TV above channel 25.

>>>they can easily fit within the 25 channels

You forget that those 25 channels have to be shared with the 5-6 nearby cities. For example Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Scranton . 25/6 == not much room per city - the FCC has already stated many stations would lose their broadcast licenses.

Re:Reject

[PopeRatzo]

It's ultimately not the FCC, but rather, the DOJ that would have to step in and stop it. So write them [justice.gov].

Listen to the man. Write a letter. Call your congress critter and tell them you want this stopped. Tell them you'll support their opponent if they don't listen (that gets their attention).

The telecommunications sector is already consolidated to the point where it's a nightmare for consumers and getting worse fast. The notion of AT&T buying T-Mobile should be laughed out of the room. AT&T should be broken (again) into little pieces.

Re:Reject

[C_amiga_fan]

>>>Where the hell do you live that every broadcast channel from 2 to 25 is actually in use, let alone 2-52?

The middle of the Northeast Megalopolis. Every channel is "booked" by the FCC's TV allocation, except 35 (reserved to radioastronomy). Some of those channels, like 5 in DC, are too far away for me to receive, but it still can't be used locally by my town, because the two stations would "collide" and neither channel would not work. Hence every slot on the dial is filled.

To give you an idea how bad things are, WPVI in Philadelphia is trying to move from channel 6 to a higher number, because channels 2-6 are near impossible to receive (motors and lightning pixelate the picture). Problem: There's no room in channels 7 to 51. They have nowhere to move to.

Re:Reject

[C_amiga_fan]

P.S. Take a look at this list, and explain to me how all these stations are supposed to squeeze down into only 2-to-25? Basically everything above 25 has to be reassigned to a lower number. It's impossible because there's not enough space.

http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tvlistings/ZCGrid.do?zipcode=17566

I wouldn't mind if "free" TV was replaced with "free" streaming video over internet or phone, but that's not in the plans. INSTEAD you'll have to pay ~$100 a month to replace the Free TV you lose. This is bad not just for me and my parents, but also for poor americans.

Re:Reject

[compro01]

1997, when SBC tried to buy AT&T.

Said merger was approved when they tried it again in 2005, which formed the company now known as at&t.

Re:Reject

[King InuYasha]

They aren't supposed to be taking it away from you. The government is forcing the free-to-air stations to migrate from analog broadcast systems to digital broadcast systems, in order to free up a huge chunk of spectrum and to meet the date that all analog systems are to be shut down.

Re:Reject

[cdrguru]

So we have a lot of obsolete televisions and people that have no choice but to migrate from OTA to cable because of the reduced distance the higher frequency digital signals travel. Sure, in urban areas and close-in suburbs you can get by with some kind of amplified antenna. But rural areas are pretty much SOL.

We went from an antenna + rotator where we could get 5 channels good and a sixth one not so good to one. The range on the others fell short. Adding amplification might have gotten us back one or two of the channels, but it was easier to move to cable for TV and Internet than keep fussing with the antenna.

There might be some valid, public-serving use for the analog TV spectrum, but I tend to doubt it. If anything, it will simply make Verizon and AT&T lots of money.

Re:Reject

[puto]

Actually you got your history wrong there a bit. And I was a former Bellsouth Mobility then Cingular, then over to Bell South corporate which then switched to ATT and I ran out the door because the CWA fucked us contractually., and was there when most of the changes took place. So from 2001 to 2006 I bounced between all companies involved. 1. SBC and Bell South owned Cingular together. It was a joint venture. SBC owned 60% of Cingular from the get go so, SBC always owned Cingular. as the majority chare ho 2. Cingular bought ATT Wireless in 2004 and moved all of the customers from ATT wireless over to Cingular. There was a huge customer backlash because ATT Wireless had better plans, customer loyalty programs, and better over seas rates. Cingular also would not allow ATT phones to be used on the network and the ATT side would not unlock them when going from "blue to orange". the NEW ATT is evil as was the old, but The old networks were an extreme pain in the ass to maintain. I was there during the big push to move the customer base to GSM from TDMA. They actually starting dumping the older networks in 2001 on. Including in the Carribean and Latin American, they sold them to Telefonica.

Re:Reject

[Targon]

So you don't think Verizon is a large enough competitor to keep AT&T from being considered a monopoly, or near-monopoly?

Re:Reject

[HornWumpus]

I've found the exact opposite regarding range.

Analog UHF might have had a slight range advantage over digital. Analog VHF never traveled as well, more or less line of sight. Digital UHF signals are easier. Straight comparison, Chico TV for Raiders games, main difference: less weather variablity in digital, VHF would go to shit in storms. Bonus I got to cut away more then half of my outdoor antenna.

I curse Al Davis for making me bother (and in general). I also curse Chico TV stations for dropping the losers and making me resort to pixelated streams...If you knew my friends you wouldn't let them slingbox anything to you ether, they are sure to switch in 2 girls one cup or goat.se at some time during the game.

Re:Reject

[Kakari]

Here, no excuse: Representative and Senator.

Copy and Paste if you really can't be bothered:

Senator / Congress(wo)man [name here],

Please do whatever you can to stop the AT&T buyout of T-Mobile USA, it is bad for consumers and will hurt consumer choice. I do not want the buyout to go through and neither do you other constituents. [Optional: This is an important issue for me and if you do not take action, I will be forced to vote for a representative/senator who will better represent my interests in the future.]

Sincerely,
[Your real name]

Re:Reject

[ciscoguy01]

It's ultimately not the FCC, but rather, the DOJ that would have to step in and stop it. So write them [justice.gov].

Listen to the man. Write a letter. Call your congress critter and tell them you want this stopped. Tell them you'll support their opponent if they don't listen (that gets their attention).

The telecommunications sector is already consolidated to the point where it's a nightmare for consumers and getting worse fast. The notion of AT&T buying T-Mobile should be laughed out of the room. AT&T should be broken (again) into little pieces.

Second that.
No more consolidations. More competition, not less.
I already got the letter from ATT about my ADSL line, I am about at their 150GB/month limit right now and I don't like it. Their limits are very low and intended to screw us. Those big companies always do that, find a way to screw their customers where they have nowhere to go.

Re:Reject

[C_amiga_fan]

>>>reduced distance the higher frequency digital signals travel.

Actually the DTV in the US is the same frequency (channels 2-51) as the old analog system. There's no difference.

Where DTV has less range is the "cliff effect". You used to be able to watch analog television in black-and-white/fuzzy marginal quality, whereas DTV just displays a blank screen. ----- Also DTV has about half as much power, so it doesn't penetrate through walls like analog did. You can overcome this effect by putting your antenna on your roof.

Overall I get more channels with DTV (~50) than I did with analog (20-to-25).

Re:Reject

[alva_edison]

I don't get analog signals in my market, but my market does have 23 channels in what the phone company is trying to claim. All of them digital. If you think there's room in the other slot, the market's pushing 20 channels there. Not only would a large amount of channels need to go away, but different companies would have to share in order to accommodate them all.

Re:Reject

[dgatwood]

FWIW, I had no trouble getting my ATTWS blue phone unlocked by the new AT&T, and further, I continued to use my blue phone plan and (GSM) SIM up until I got my iPhone in 2007 (at which point they told me that my legacy plan was not supported for iPhone customers), so that problem is not universal. I did hear stories about such problems for people who were on *other* companies that Cingular gobbled up, though, and they did force all the legacy TDMA users to switch.

Re:Reject

[dgatwood]

Not when they act in ways that looks an awful lot like collusion (one service raises rates and the other immediately follows, one service cuts services and the other immediately follows, etc.).

Ultimately, whether they really are colluding or not isn't really the point. From a consumer's point of view, they act in lockstep, so they aren't really competing in any useful sense of the word..

This sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a t-mobile customer, and I for one DO NOT like the idea of the merger... I will have poorer service, higher rates, and less selection on phones... But then, I'm just a customer and my opinion doesn't count.. does it...

Re:This sucks

[bb5ch39t]

Same here. I deliberately did NOT go with ATT. I guess I should have gone with Sprint or Verizon.

Re:This sucks

[AvitarX]

This will probably push me to a second tier carrier like Metro PCS.

T-mobile has always been customer friendly to me, and their rates are the best. They even let me save by not getting a contract and buying my phones.

Additionally I like their broadband policy the most (5gb month, then throttled, as advertised, no overage fees).

Re:This sucks

[bberens]

If anyone else is considering this, be careful. Most (by market share and coverage) of the 2nd tier carriers are owned by bigger carriers. For example: Virgin and Boost are both owned by Sprint.

Re:This sucks

[sneakyimp]

It totally sucks. My bill will go up about 30% and the Nexus S I bought JUST LAST WEEK will apparently be useless:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42195939/ns/business-us_business/

Not only that, I can't switch to any other provider with my phone because nobody else in the US is GSM.

Re:This sucks

[pixelpusher220]

Seriously? The monthly rates are lower if you buy the phone outright? I haven't seen that from any US carrier...

Re:This sucks

[PickyH3D]

I'm a t-mobile customer, and I for one DO NOT like the idea of the merger... I will have poorer service, higher rates, and less selection on phones... But then, I'm just a customer and my opinion doesn't count.. does it...

As an AT&T customer that specifically chose AT&T over T-Mobile and Verizon (I was leaving Verizon due to terrible customer service and Sprint was not in my area at the time), I feel like it's worth reminding people that the service is largely dependent on your area and that as a result of this merger, there will be more towers able to serve your voice calls, as well as EDGE (2G Data) service. Given that GSM is particularly vulnerable to over saturation compared to CDMA, having more towers should mean less dropped calls as well as higher quality service in general. As they begin to equip the T-Mobile towers with dualband antennae for 3G use on AT&T, then your future AT&T phone will be that much better.

The only thing that might change for you is customer service, which has been very good for me at AT&T. It's certainly better than I ever received from Verizon, which literally disabled my ability to receive phone calls followed by a refusal for any refund due to my continued use of the phone (I could call out, and talk to people, but all calls to me went directly to voicemail, which they could choose to use or not) during the month that I wondered how I always missed calls. To be frank, it really cannot be much worse that T-Mobile, which has made it its business to lie to its customers and push 3G as the new 4G. They even forced AT&T's hand in that regard.

In the long run, it does mean that there will be less cell phone options overall, and if I were a T-Mobile customer, then I'd be upset by a longterm future without 3G support on your current phone (unless you actually upgrade your phone every 2-3 years like most people). Still, there really is not much cell phone differentiation these days anyway. The only serious phones that I can name on T-Mobile is the myTouch series and the Nexus S, which will eventually make its way to AT&T anyway.

Now, my biggest peeve out of this whole merger is the fact that AT&T continues to charge outrageous amounts for data plans and texting, and having one less big player seeking to bleed customers from the larger pack means that they can continue this process. Without T-Mobile, then the only serious competitor with good bandwidth rates is Sprint, and I'm sure that I am not alone in wondering how long that will last. It's for this reason alone that I somewhat hope that the merger is blocked, and AT&T gets forced to pay $3 billion to T-Mobile, which can be used upgrade its network and push true 4G (LTE), wishfully without caps, to its customers.

Re:This sucks

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

Or if you finish the two year commitment with your phone and decide not to upgrade, the bill goes down as well. I'm going to miss T-Mobile and since there will only be one GSM game in town, I'll have to get a CDMA phone to replace my G2.

Re:This sucks

[ackthpt]

Same here. I deliberately did NOT go with ATT. I guess I should have gone with Sprint or Verizon.

Also deliberately avoided AT&T, Spring & Verizon. I did like what T-Mobile had to offer and have been on their service since 2005. I'm certainly going to write a letter. I do not want the US Cellular market to come a choice between Larry, Curly or Moe.

Re:This sucks

[s73v3r]

Agreed. This has shown that the entire notion of "voting with your wallet" is worthless, as the entity you are voting against can simply buy up the company you went with anyway.

Re:This sucks

[Mister Whirly]

Look harder. My T-Mobile bill was about $30 less a month when I bought my phones independently from the carrier after my contract was up. Now that I finally bought new smart phones and had to renew my contract, my bill is higher.

Re:This sucks

[AvitarX]

Yes, for plans over a certain value TMO will give you $20 month discount for non-subsidized phones (I pay $80 + tax for unlimited everything).

Re:This sucks

[E IS mC(Square)]

So, what you are saying effectively is that as long as you want to buy expensive smartphones, are okay with shitty customer service (you picked one t-mobile "lie" to justify everything else??), but will have same number of towers (AT&T and T-mo are probably already sharing pretty much all the towers in the 'congested' areas), and will have less options with higher prices is REALLY GOOD FOR EVERYBODY???

Re:This sucks

[dwillden]

True, true. I haven't checked in a few years but I know it used to be with Sprint that if you purchased your own phone you could opt for a contract free plan for only $10 more a month. I didn't see too many folks take that option, pay more for less services just so you could quit at any time. (many of the add-ons required a new 2 year contract even if you didn't get anything of monetary value (a new phone) for agreeing to pay them more money each month.

Re:This sucks

[geniusj]

Just to make sure you understood: T-Mobile is the opposite, the contract-free plan costs less.

Re:This sucks

[Locke2005]

Well, except for that fact that they offered us a contract plan that was lower priced than the contract-free plan, yes.

Re:This sucks

[pixelpusher220]

If you 'bought' new phones, why is your bill higher? since presumably buying the phone means the lower pricing?

Re:This sucks

[PickyH3D]

First, read the whole post. I practically ended with your last sentence.

Second, the myTouch 4G is more expensive than every phone on AT&T, except the larger capacity iPhone 4. A lot of the smartphones on AT&T are actually quite fairly priced, if you purchase under contract.

Third, the T-Mobile lie is a lie. A bold faced one that they use in their marketing as the basis to switch to T-Mobile. If that's not bad customer service, then I'm not sure what is. Even AT&T originally called them out for it. Unfortunately, T-Mobile persisted and actually forced AT&T's hand, which shockingly tried to do the right thing originally. Now, AT&T is calling HSPA+ 4G.

Finally, I do not know for certain, but I strongly doubt that AT&T and T-Mobile share their towers unless they lack the coverage in an area themselves. Not to mention the need and talk of dualband access (between their 3G frequencies) would not have been mentioned in the merger's press release if it was already done. Besides, it's a distinct advantage in cities to have more towers than the other company considering the bureaucratic nightmare involved in building these towers in large cities.

Re:This sucks

[ynp7]

Yes, seriously. For the same number of minutes and unlimited data that I have now on T-Mobile, without a contract, they charge $20 more for those on contract. The equipment discounts when renewing your contract are low enough that you're still getting hosed after 15 months if you go with the contract and hardware discount. It's pretty messed up.

Re:This sucks

[hazem]

From my own experience, both Virgin Mobile and Straighttalk work that way. Pay up-front for a phone and the monthly rates are cheaper. Plus with no contract, you can switch to something better whenever you want.

My Straight-talk phone was $90 and my monthly unlimited everything is $45/month. Split that 90 over 2 years and that makes my monthly rate under $50 when compared to a subsidized "free phone". Are there any first-tier carriers offering unlimited voice, text, and data for $50/month?

Of course, it's not perfect. I can't download/upload my contacts.

Re:This sucks

[maxume]

There are other factors though; part of the reason Virgin Mobile is cheaper is that the phones only work on towers that Sprint owns (whereas a Sprint branded phone will roam on Verizon towers some of the time).

Re:This sucks

[Mister Whirly]

I didn't quite explain that right. The bill is now higher because I got two $500 smart phones for $299. The higher bill is to make up for the "discount" they give you on the phones. If you own your phone flat out, (as in you didn't buy it at a discount from the carrier) the monthly bill is less because they don't need to make up the cost of the discounted phone.

Re:This sucks

[klui]

I agree. Our household use T-Mobile's prepaid plan and once we reach Gold member status wherein the account has $100 in funds, all our minutes roll over another year with a minimum charge of an additional $10. This is great for our seldom-used cells. When we switched to T-Mobile, AT&T requires one to spend $100 to roll over unused minutes for a year.

Re:This sucks

[ciscoguy01]

Interestingly, I called ATT a couple years ago, said I had my phone and I just wanted unsubsidized service rates with no contract.
Impossible. Couldn't get cellular service from ATT on any basis without a contract. Even at full price.
Crooks. Why did I have to have a contract if they were not giving me a phone? The contract was supposed to be to keep you around until you paid off your subsidized phone.
I suspect it was because the rep, whether in the store, on the phone, wherever, couldn't get paid without a contract.

So there you have it. These cellular carriers keep a stranglehold on the equipment and use that to keep their customers signed up for lengthy contracts.
The only one that doesn't insist on that is Tmobile.

Re:This sucks

[yeshuawatso]

I did the calculations on my bill as well for AT&T and Verizon based on current pricing. Assuming the pricing will increase with inflation by next year, both carriers resulted in my bill going up about $75-100/month.

T-Mobile doesn't have the best network, we T-Mobile customers know that, but when I can dial 611, press 0, enter the last 4 of my social, and get someone in less than 60 seconds; that alone is worth putting up with the spotty coverage. What AT&T fails to realize is that a LOT of T-Mobile customers don't care two shits about coverage; we care about how we're treated as customers, and AT&T's idea and record of customer service isn't about the customer, it's about the contribution margin. I should know, I used to be a sales manager for the bastards when we were acquiring Pacific Bell and Ameritech (yes, I worked for the SBC SBU; helped consolidate Ameritech), and I haven't looked back since. They're a decent company to work for, but for customers, if you're not a "Global" account, you're not worth anything to them.

Maybe this is the reason T-Mobile failed. Maybe treating customers like you want to keep them, with dignity and respect, without nickel and diming them to death, isn't a profitable model. Maybe US consumers like to be abused by our corporate overlords like an abused wife that keeps returning home to the life-threatening spouse. Maybe deep inside, we're all masochist who can't get enough abuse. Or maybe, we're too overworked, underpaid, and too stupid to worry how we're being shafted. Just take our money and give us our American Idol so we can vote via text messaging for the next pop model because voting for our next delegate to represent our voice to shape our society is too much of a pain in the ass.

I'm proposing we T-Mobile customers that truly don't want the merger to happen vote with our wallets. Let's agree to a $10 increase to our bills every month. If we can get just 30% of T-Mobile's customer base to agree to a price hike of $10, maybe the extra billion dollars will convince them that we'd rather stick it out than be assimilated into a network and company that lost their only one trick pony to Verizon, and didn't take the time and effort to improve their network or at least improve their customer service. $10 isn't that much to ask for, and I'd still be saving $65-90 per month by not being forced over to AT&T.

Re:This sucks

[yeshuawatso]

...The only thing that might change for you is customer service...

This is the primary reason T-Mobile customers stick with T-Mobile. We're aware that our network is sparse, but the customer service is second to none, regardless of what JD Power and Associates say.

To be frank, it really cannot be much worse that T-Mobile, which has made it its business to lie to its customers and push 3G as the new 4G

This is also incorrect. T-Mobile made its business from affordable pricing and great customer service. I've never heard anyone switch to T-Mobile to receive better service or because they thought their 4G was really awesome. They switched because Verizon and AT&T shaft their customers. When you have 90+ million customers, losing 5% because of overcharging, crappy service, and automated phone system hell isn't a big deal. They'll just raise the price on the remaining suckers who don't look at their bill and just pay whatever they send in the mail.

then I'd be upset by a longterm future without 3G support on your current phone...The only serious phones that I can name on T-Mobile is the myTouch series and the Nexus S, which will eventually make its way to AT&T anyway.

3G for T-Mobile is only available in major cities, for the rest of the country, we're stuck on EDGE. 3G is nice, but it's not the deal breaker. Also, EVERY AT&T Android phone is locked out, worse than any other carrier. Tethering: additional fee. Downloading Apps not in the market: disabled. Wifi hotspot: same additional fee as tethering. Updates: almost non-existent. Android adoption: slowest in the industry. AT&T is the WORST provider for Android phones. You're better off with a feature phone on this crap provider or get an iPhone or a Blackberry. Plus, they're saying that T-Mobile customers are going to have to change phones and get less features, pay more, and lose the only thing that keeps their contracts valid. Make no mistake, AT&T will force T-Mobile smartphone users to upgrade and force a new contract to get rid of their legacy ones in the process, bringing in the fewer features and higher prices with it.

You being an AT&T customer, I can definitely understand why this deal is great for you. You're already used to AT&Ts shaft and it fits more nicely since Verizon's left your hole so loose, but we T-Mobile customers don't want a bigger shaft so you can get better service. You decided to go with AT&T, we decided on T-Mobile. Now we're being forced over to the lubeless shaft without consent. It's like we've been sold to be raped for the rest of our lives, or at least until our contracts expire. But hey, you got better service. I guess someone, other than executives and lawyers, is happier.

Re:This sucks

[Mister Whirly]

And now T-Mobile is going to be AT&T so that may go away too. Great.

Re:This sucks

[sneakyimp]

Before we shell out the cash, let's write our elected reps in congress and the justice department and try to halt the merger.
http://senate.gov/
http://house.gov/
http://justice.gov/

Re:This sucks

[yeshuawatso]

I already did this when I heard the news Sunday night, well before I posted here. But let's be realistic here, neither of these governmental bodies care, they just want their political contributions so they can spend it at the most luxurious hotels, dinning, and travel, and bail out to the same contributors' businesses for a "consulting" job that pays $5 million a year to come in and stare at the lights. Understand one thing about politics: you can always rely on a politician to lie. Republicans don't believe in a completive market but trump "capitalism," "free markets," and "invisible hand-jobs," while back-dealing to the largest corporations, providing them no-bid contracts, subsidies, and passes on everything from taxes to environment raping to murder. Democrats are no better. They generate a slew of social bills, raise taxes, and lose their spine when stopping any of the antics Republicans left the country in, while trumping "fairness," "free society," and "evil corporations."

Obama is an intelligent man, a great speaker, but nothing more than a slight improvement from Bush. Those that voted for him (i'm one of them) fell for his ruse hook, line, and sinker. Unfortunately, he's the lesser of two evils. We're never going to get another Clinton again. We're never going to have a president stand up to Republicans, stand up for the consumer, and stand for science ever again. Primarily because we US Americans have conceded too far. Those with intelligence are far outnumbered by those without, and those that are in-between intelligent and idiot are too busy working our asses off for the top 5% of the social class in hopes that one day we'll be part of that social class. I never thought I'd think this, but those crazy Tea Partiers may be our only hope at waking up the moderately intelligent from their overworked slumber to realize that our country has dwindled to nothing in less than 15 years, and we let pure loons take over for the pure greedy.

Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[Joe The Dragon]

Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

The one good thing that may come from that is the room for all HD channels with ALL THE EAST / WEST FEEDS.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[halfEvilTech]

Don't give them any ideas....

But I am sure this will eventually happen as well, it is only a matter of time. After all we seem to be heading towards an inevitable time where we will have 1 mega-corp per service(s) as in some will control more than one. [cough]NBC/Comcast[/cough]

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[blair1q]

It's ideal for TV. Much less bandwidth limitation than people think. 1000 channels on DirecTV, some of them on-demand, 3-D, 1080p, or interactive gaming. I only use my local cable company as an ISP any more.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[Shikaku]

It's either that or dialup, in some parts of the USA.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[bberens]

Yes. I do whatever I can to avoid giving money to the government enforced monopolies. The only thing I still have via copper is DSL, and I'd prefer to lose that.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[Dracos]

And then Taco Bell buys all the other service-specific corporations.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[Obfuscant]

As I recall, Charlie Ergen has been hot for DirectTV for a very long time, and has already tried to buy them out. The FCC stopped it back in 2002.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[JWyner]

Followed by the unfreezing of Wesley Snipes?

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[muindaur]

To assassinate Dennis Leary?

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[pixelpusher220]

4 words.

N F L Ticket.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[smelch]

NBC/Comcast? Who gives a nut? People keep bring that up like it should mean something. Guess what? TV is a dying medium. Its only natural its successor (the internet part of Comcast) should feast off of its remains.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[517714]

The thirty second samples from iTunes will facilitate pirating of music, giving the RIAA a potential revenue 43 times the GDP of the entire planet.

"Good things from the garden, Garden in the valley, Valley of the Jolly 'Ho, Ho, Ho' Green Giant!"

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[s73v3r]

Guess what? TV is a dying medium.

It may be on its way, but it is nowhere near dead yet. It is still quite important, and very highly viewed.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[spun]

Please provide evidence that TV is a dying medium. And "shrinking" does not mean "dying." While you are at it, please explain the death of books, plays, radio, and movies. No newer media has ever killed older media.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[ToddDTaft]

This was tried, and rejected by the government in the past.

http://www.thestreet.com/s/dish-directv-deal-wont-fool-feds/newsanalysis/technology-update/10432145.html?puc=googlefi&cm_ven=GOOGLEFI&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[Locke2005]

No newer media has ever killed older media.

Absolutely... there are still millions of people with 8-track players in their dashboard!

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[spun]

Incremental improvements in media sometimes kill off older versions of that media, thus, the cassette tape killed off 8 track and CDs have mostly killed off the cassette tape. But this is like saying that paper books killed off papyrus scrolls. The underlying media is "writing" which hasn't died yet. In your example, the underlying media is "portable recording" and you will note that even with hand portable Internet connected listening devices, portable recordings are still around.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[ynp7]

This might be a good point except that television is the delivery mechanism, not the "medium" in the way that a book, play, or movie is a medium. Broadcast television as we know it could very well disappear. Which isn't the same as there no longer being things that would effectively be recognized as "television" shows. Wrong assumptions and conclusions. Impressive.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[BlackSnake112]

Well, isn't Wesley Snipes going to be "on ice" (i.e. in jail) soon?

Talk about life imitating art.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[spun]

When would you guess broadcast radio will die? Movie theaters? Opera? Plays? Perhaps I phrased things wrong. Saying that cassettes obsolesced eight tracks is the same as saying that HD TV obsolesced regular TV. True, but not very meaningful in this context.

By your definition, books are just a broadcast medium for text, and plays and movies both are just a broadcast medium for acting. Internal logical inconsistencies in your basic premise, impressive.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[smelch]

Television is the medium through which we watch video. Video is alive, broadcast television is on the way out as people increasingly move to "on demand" style services from either their cable providers or their YouTubes/Netflixes. I didn't mean we would no longer have "shows" or "videos" or "movies". I just meant television as we know it today with networks and channels is on the way out. Even the way people watch is completely different with DVRs. ::shrug::

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[Onuma]

That does not do much good without the NFL and -PA coming to an agreement.

I really don't care either way, the Superbowl is a good reason to visit friends, eat & drink.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[pixelpusher220]

indeed. Apparently DirecTV still has to pay big money even if the season is cancelled. I want to negotiate my service contract with the morons who came up with that 'deal'.

Re:Time for DISH and DIRECTV to join the fun?

[Lanteran]

Please provide evidence that TV is a dying medium.

Netcraft confirmed it.

$39 BILLION!?

[MrEricSir]

Where was that $39 billion when it came to putting up and maintaining signal towers? Where was that $39 billion when it came to customer service? Where was that $39 billion when it came to the outlandishly expensive service?

All this money, and what does AT&T do with it? It's like a slap in the face for their own customers.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Where was that $39 billion when it came to putting up and maintaining signal towers? Where was that $39 billion when it came to customer service? Where was that $39 billion when it came to the outlandishly expensive service?

All this money, and what does AT&T do with it? It's like a slap in the face for their own customers.

Though I agree, I can't help but think about this one detail: Wouldn't they suddenly have all of TMobile's already-installed hardware?

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Dyinobal]

Those wonderful 39 billion don't generate cash when put into more towers, customer service or anything that other wise improves the service they are providing. Where as spending 39 billions to take over a competitor and gain a mess load of new customers does. In short they don't care about anything besides the $$$$$ which shouldn't surprise you, considering they are a corporation and are by nature soulless evil things.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[dgatwood]

They will suddenly have to maintain all of T-Mobile's hardware, but it won't do them that much good. AT&T's 3G and T-Mobile's 3G use different bands, and the vast majority of phones don't have the hardware to support both. At best, they could offload a little bit of 2G voice and EDGE traffic.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[dgatwood]

Corporations aren't evil. They're amoral. There's a subtle difference.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[LWATCDR]

Don't forget that the caps they just put on DSL and their higher speed service. If this gets approved then we know that without a doubt that the Telco now own the government.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[blair1q]

You don't think that there would have been more iPhones sold if the data coverage had been more than a Starbucks in Chelsea?

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Where was that $39 billion when it came to putting up and maintaining signal towers? Where was that $39 billion when it came to customer service? Where was that $39 billion when it came to the outlandishly expensive service?

All this money, and what does AT&T do with it? It's like a slap in the face for their own customers.

Even though a lot of people like to pretend they are forced to do business with AT&T, they aren't. I live in a dead spot on their network, so I don't use them. It wasn't difficult.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Silly boy. It's cheaper and more effective to spend $100 million on an ad campaign telling people how much better coverage is than spending $1 billion to make it actually better.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[characterZer0]

The company is amoral. The management are evil.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Fibe-Piper]

You are right, it is the evil actions of amoral corporations that need to be stopped.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[fermion]

Well, they now have all of T-Mobile towers. Putting up towers is not just a matter of money. There are all these people who want cell signal, but do not want towers. So what can a mobile company do? Buy existing towers.

I do not care about the t-mobile thing because I never considered T-Mobile as a viable competitor. For the most part there are two main level competitors, ATT and Verizon. The choice depends on the service level and use. This will not be effected. Below these two was basically Sprint and T-Mobile. IMHO, if rates are going to effected it will be Sprint raising the rates no that T-Mobile is not longer in the market. Sprint will now dominate the market for people who are looking for less expensive service.

The reason that I think the T-Mobile deal might go through it that it will open up market opportunities for the value companies such as Boost and Cricket. A bunch of T-Mobile customers, who don't want to pay the rates of ATT or Verizon, and aren't well served by Sprint, may go to these other companies. The consumer will only be served by the growth of these value companies. I think Sprint is objective so vehemently because it knows it is going to get squeezed in this new market realities. I believe that Sprint has proven itself to be a firm who can compete. It is the only company that has survived and thrived from the long distance opening.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[bluefoxlucid]

No, the phones have the hardware to support both. It's a radio chip running different firmware.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[MickyTheIdiot]

They are amoral, but allow evil deeds to flourish because the people doing the deeds know they will never be held accountable. Lack of personal accountability is the REAL evil of the corporations.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[dkleinsc]

Or as the wonderful Canadian documentary The Corporation pointed out, if a corporation is legally a person, then it is a sociopathic person. It's not that they're actively trying to do bad things, it's just that they don't care if they do evil, so long as it benefits them.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Andy Dodd]

That's why a bunch of people think this merger happened. Supposedly it's about a 5-year process to get a new cell site approved by the FCC. (e.g. it's not about money, it's about paperwork delay).

The problem is: T-Mobile's 3G sites are all in the 1700 MHz band. No AT&T handset supports UMTS1700 to my knowledge, so AT&T phones won't be able to use the new tower assets for 3G. A cell site approval from the FCC is not based just on siting - it's licensed for a specific frequency and power level. So the T-Mo tower assets can't just be switched over to a different band.

There is a *slight* possibility it may be easier for AT&T to get an STA to change a tower to a new band than to build a new site though.

As to the negative effect this will have on equipment manufacturers (handset and network infrastructure) - Anyone claiming this will have a significant negative impact on those people is forgetting that there are more countries on this planet than the United States.

In terms of handsets - AT&T has already been in a situation of using bands not supported by any other carrier anywhere else in the world. Any phones for them had to be specially customized for them. Now, quad-band GSM has been common for a long time, but I have yet to see a UMTS handset that supported both the world frequencies and all of the US frequencies. T-Mobile was slightly fortunate in that unlike UMTS1900/UMTS850, some other countries did use UMTS1700. As a result, manufacturers could target more markets with a handset that supported UMTS1700/2100 than one that supported UMTS2100+the AT&T bands.

For network equipment providers - nothing changes. Previously you had equipment for AT&T and equipment for the rest of the world, this doesn't change. AT&T is still at a disadvantage of lacking the economies of scale the rest of the world can take advantage of.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[pnutjam]

It was sitting in the bank while the dollars rolled in...
(outlandishly expensive service) + (Apple worshipers) = $$$$$$$$$$

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Belial6]

It wasn't difficult for me either when the company now called AT&T was still called Cingular and they bought the real AT&T wireless. Moved to T-Mobile so that I wouldn't have to do business with them.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[RedEars]

I think you're searching for Lawful Evil bordering on Neutral Evil rather than amoral. So yes, still a flavor of evil. Know your D&D.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[pnutjam]

that's cute, you think they will support t-mobile's handsets...

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Microlith]

If that were true then they could just issue a firmware update to support different frequencies in different regions and carriers, yet this never happens even on handsets not sold via a carrier.

YAY FIVE MINUTE DELAY, GO SLASHDOT!

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[jaymz666]

Since MOST of that $39 billion is in shares, I don't think you can use shares to pay for towers

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[dgatwood]

Phones have antennas that are tuned to specific frequency ranges. It's not as easy as a firmware flash.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[pixelpusher220]

If you couldn't go to prison for crimes, wouldn't you do things a wee bit differently? ;-)

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[dgatwood]

They will be probably be required to do so until the end of everyone's contract period. There's some debate beyond that.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[smelch]

And lord knows its evil to offer phone service and not spend 100% of your on-hand cash for making it as good as possible. After all, better to keep no cash and risk a downturn or new competitor putting you out of business and shutting all of your towers off completely.

I'm not saying thats the case with AT&T but thats just an asshole line of thinking. "They have money for T-Mobile but I get an echo when I talk from my apartment!" is not evil or sociopathic.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[hedwards]

The issue is that there's not really much difference between the carriers. You've got Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. That's about it, and for the most part they're in a competition to figure out who can cheat the consumer out of the most money while providing the lowest quality service.

Then there's the people who didn't choose AT&T, but got sucked up when AT&T bought their carrier and for whatever reason didn't see any of the other providers as being any better.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[bluefoxlucid]

How would this help either the phone manufacturer or the carriers that want to lock you into a new 2 year contract by selling you a $600 phone for $50 + $800 of additional contract fees?

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[ackthpt]

The company is amoral. The management are evil.

Rich poor Customer Service Company buys up and then subverts Quality of Service and Support. This is not in the best interests of the market, it's a stab in the heart, with a stab in the back to consumers.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[dotfile]

You don't think they're just going to write a check, do you? They'll borrow a few billion and do the rest as a stock swap. It's a lot easier to defend borrowing and spending a few billion to acquire a competitor, than it is to spend a few billion upgrading your shitty infrastructure. One can be made to look really good on the quarterly earnings reports, the other can't -- at least to the average short term thinker, by whom we seem to be overrun.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[stevenm86]

Not so. Not all 3G phones support all the bands. For instance, there is an AT&T and a T-Mo version of the Nexus One, and a mismatched phone/carrier will allow you to access only 2 of the 3 bands.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[arf_barf]

Nokia N8, true 3g pentaband phone. Too bad it runs Symbian ;-(

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[s73v3r]

Yes it is. Their first duty should be increasing their quality of service for their customers, the ones they have locked into a 2 year contract. Choosing to buy a bunch of new customers instead of improving and maintaining their infrastructure is like being slapped in the face with their cock.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[s73v3r]

Even though a lot of people like to pretend they are forced to do business with AT&T, they aren't.

Except when they buy the provider you went with to avoid going with AT&T.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[mrzaph0d]

they don't own the government, but the officials in charge agreed to avoid AT&T from exposing just what porn sites they were hitting their usage caps from...

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Urkki]

Corporations aren't evil. They're amoral. There's a subtle difference.

When acting in a human society and interacting with people, being amoral results in being evil on regular basis. And being evil on regular basis is being evil. So corporations indeed are evil, as a direct result of them being amoral in a human society.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[s73v3r]

The reason that I think the T-Mobile deal might go through it that it will open up market opportunities for the value companies such as Boost and Cricket. A bunch of T-Mobile customers, who don't want to pay the rates of ATT or Verizon, and aren't well served by Sprint, may go to these other companies. The consumer will only be served by the growth of these value companies.

I still don't think this is a good enough reason to let this deal go through. For one, Boost is actually owned by Sprint. And two, those discount carriers aren't known for their smartphones. They still won't have the market clout to get HTC or Motorola's newest handset. Not to mention that more Android handsets are going to be sold locked down, as AT&T and Verizon would now be the two major sellers of them, and they like their shit locked down.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[AK Marc]

Amoral with a profit motive is indistinguishable from evil. Since the two are the same, the tags can be used interchangeably without error.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[spun]

If you couldn't go to prison for crimes, wouldn't you do things a wee bit differently? ;-)

No. I wouldn't. I'm not a sociopath. I don't refrain from doing evil because of a fear of punishment. I refrain from doing evil because I have empathy, and because of that, hurting others hurts me directly. It may also harm me indirectly, as people who have been hurt often lash out irrationally, and people whose choices have been constrained often make choices that harm others, potentially including me. Enlightened self interest looks a lot like selflessness .

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[whoever57]

I *think* some of the newer T-Mobile handsets support the necessary frequencies to get 3G service on both AT&T and T-Mobile's networks.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[PaladinAlpha]

Yes it is. Their first duty should be increasing their quality of service for their customers, the ones they have locked into a 2 year contract. Choosing to buy a bunch of new customers instead of improving and maintaining their infrastructure is like being slapped in the face with their cock.

Completely wrong. Their first duty is, and should be, staying in business. The "quality of service for their customers" will develop something of a negative trend if they bust and file bankruptcy.

What you're saying is no one should save money, ever, becuase it's obviously better to spend it on yourself as soon as you give it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with AT&T maintaining equity, and nothing wrong again with them using it to increase their customer base and coverage footprint. Expecting them to keep themselves constantly "broke" is a little alarming, tbh.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[prgrmr]

No. $14B is shares, and $25B is cash. RTFA.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Locke2005]

So start up your own company with good customer service and steal all their customers!

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Locke2005]

We're the phone company. We don't have to care!

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[powerlord]

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/stop-t-mobile-from-being-bought-by-att/

Target: FCC Chairmen

Sponsored by: Customers against the AT&T/T-Mobile Merger

AT&T recently announced a deal to purchase T-Mobile for $39 billion. The acquisition will eliminate a large competitor in the wireless provider market, limiting consumer's choice in provider and service plans. Worst of all, AT&T, the worst rated of the wireless providers, will take over and eliminate T-Mobile, the highest rated in customer satisfaction and service.
We as consumers want to be able to choose a provider with high satisfaction ratings, low rates, and high quality wireless service. This acquisition will allow AT&T to move towards monopolizing the wireless service industry at the expense of consumers. The only way to prevent this is for the FCC to not approve this deal. Please act now to keep an option of excellent quality and service in the wireless provider industry.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[ktappe]

Those wonderful 39 billion don't generate cash when put into more towers, customer service or anything that other wise improves the service they are providing.

Yes, it could. If AT&T had provided better coverage and customer service, they would have retained more customers and Verizon would have sold fewer iPhones, etc.

That said, it's clear that AT&T management (and beancounters) did some calculations and determined what level of bad service & coverage would be tolerated and how many customers would be retained for each amount of money spent. They chose to put up with the bad press about iPhone coverage in NYC and S.F. because the rest of the country was still buying iPhones in enough quantities to make AT&T quite a bit of money. They could have spent more on infrastructure to get better press and increase sales but apparently they figured out that those increased sales would not compensate for the expenditure.

So the real statement would be "Those $39 billion don't generate enough additional cash when put into more towers, customer service or anything that otherwise improves the service they are providing."

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[cooperaaaron]

They have said that they are planning to switch ALL TMobile hardware to ATT and go LTE, replacing ALL TMOBILE phones in the process which will take some time. So, if I hold on, I can go LTE and a NEW phone for (maybe) free ??? And be grandfathered into my (semi)unlimited plan ??? Guess I will wait and see..

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[blargster]

Why on earth do folks persist in the rumor that AT&T (and all other major carriers) are not spending many billions of dollars every quarter on cell towers and backhaul improvements? That notion is ludicrous.

I'm not sure that you can actually "buy" customer service improvements, though I doubt it would cost billions.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[yuhong]

Yea, MBAs that think that the way to "compete" is to merge to eliminate competition in that case, I think.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[maxume]

You really think a commitment to pay $39 billion actually requires that you have the $39 billion sitting somewhere?

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[colinnwn]

I don't think AT&T wants T-Mobile's 3G 1700/2100 service. I think they're planning on decommissioning those, and recommissioning as 1700/2100 LTE. Will they need to relicense T-Mobile's towers if they only switch the protocol? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110321/ap_on_hi_te/us_at_t_t_mobile_usa_phones

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[jaymz666]

I must have read a severely flawed article that said they were paying 25 million in cash, then.
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/AT-T-to-Buy-T-Mobile-for-39-Billion.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[cdrguru]

Likely they simply tell you that on some date your phone will stop working and you really, really need to come down to the store and pick out a new one. Or select on online and they will ship it to you.

Give you a phone? Sure.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[cdrguru]

Cell service is like PC software... if you need to call for support you are screwed. There is no support.

Customer service is a fantasy. The only possible good they can do you is fixing a screwed up bill. And after the third or fourth time screwing up the billing aren't you getting the message?

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Daetrin]

If you couldn't go to prison for crimes, wouldn't you do things a wee bit differently? ;-)

No. I wouldn't. I'm not a sociopath. I don't refrain from doing evil because of a fear of punishment. I refrain from doing evil because I have empathy, and because of that, hurting others hurts me directly.

I don't do evil things to people that i consider good because of empathy.
I don't do evil things to people that i consider evil but who honestly think they're doing good because of morality.
I don't do evil things to clearly evil people (people who do evil and don't give a fuck as long as it benefits them in some way) because of the law, ie fear of punishment.

If that means i'm not as civilized as i ought to be, oh well. Not that it makes a big difference practically speaking, since barring the collapse of civilization i'll behave the same in all circumstances anyways.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Nope. That's just wrong.

Phones need support chips to handle a frequency.

Just because the primary radio chip supports the frequency doesn't complete the whole story, as there are additional pieces of hardware necessary in most chipsets.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[spun]

Well put.

I think you've seen that we have more than five senses, including one I like to call the sense of justice. It is a feeling, and like all feelings it operates very quickly and imposes powerful consequences on the body and mind. It has developed because having it is advantageous to us as a species, it makes us better cooperators. Genetically speaking, being a true parasite or sociopath is a very small minority strategy. It works, sometimes. Mostly, though, our sense of justice makes us willing to risk our own lives to deter or kill a known parasite. And that makes being a parasite a minority strategy, which is better for the species overall.

In general, I feel the same way as you do. I think most people do. But I was born with a stronger empathy than most, and unlike most men, never had it beaten out of me. Having to feel what people around me feel, having to feel even what people I don't like feel, is difficult sometimes. Sure, I can hate on people, but I'm always conflicted in that hate. And anyway, I try to stretch my sense of empathy to encompass even people like, oh, Hitler. Anyone, really. Bum on the street, serial killer. Everyone. Empathy helps us understand things, and some things need to be understood well to be destroyed fully.

Let me ask you, do you submit to the law in regards to suppressing your urge to punish others because you fear punishment, or because you know it is the right thing to do? We have laws for a reason, do you agree with that reason? Do you follow all laws that may result in a punishment? Do you jaywalk or speed?

We suppress the urge to punish others because we do not have all the facts, and because they may still be of use to us. We may punish unjustly, having a fair court try to figure out the truth helps prevent that. And we may punish too harshly, and then find ourselves needing an ally we no longer have. Ideally, punishment should be shunning, we no longer have to deal with you, go somewhere else, if you try to hang around here, we'll hit you with rocks and sticks. Now, since there's no place left to go, really, I believe we are obliged to provide prisons. Because people do change, they can learn from their mistakes, most of them. And the ones that can't learn, well, keep them around locked up in case we get attacked, we can sick all our sociopaths on the enemy.

So, you know, there are logical reasons for doing the things we do. There are reasons beyond fear of punishment for not acting immediately on our sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair, good and evil. Reasons that relate directly to genetic fitness and passing on some subset of one's genes. So yeah, we have this feeling of fairness, this sense of justice, but we also have those other feelings like love and forgiveness and empathy to balance it out. And overall, we have our conscious minds, capable of logical thoughts. Totally capable of making pretty good models of the self and the world, and eventually figuring out some reasons why we have the feelings we do, yet do things the way we do in society.

But those little models aren't the world, and they aren't the self. We rarely use our logic to do anything. Mostly, we do whatever we feel like and use our logic to make up stories after. So I guess its a good thing most of us have feelings like you do, and would not act the same in all circumstances. For instance, I bet if you were in a situation outside of society, say stranded someplace, or societal collapse, or whatever, and you witnessed injustice, you would take no small risk in attempting to correct it. That makes you, and most people, good people in my book.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[PureRain]

CAPITALIST America my friend.

And the fallacy that companies actually care about their customers, is just that, a fallacy. They care when sales are going down and that's it.

Could this be a return to the golden days of the 50s where huge oligopolists/monopolies run by statesmen that actually cared about the workers and customers? Pfft.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Teh_Chris]

So start up your own company with good customer service and steal all their customers!

Pretty sure T-Mobile already tried that. Of course, startups in general are less likely to get billions of dollars out of the deal.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Bacon Bits]

Unfortunately, lack of personal responsibility is also the primary GOOD of corporations. It allows people to risk investing without risking personal bankruptcy.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[bingoUV]

Irrelevant. GP talking about crime, you talking about evil. These are two different things.

Crime and evil are not antonyms, but very far from synonyms too. Just an example where crime is extremely moral.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[spun]

You are confused about what I am saying, but I just don't have the patience or the interest in setting you straight. Have a nice day.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[electrosoccertux]

They are amoral, but allow evil deeds to flourish because the people doing the deeds know they will never be held accountable. Lack of personal accountability is the REAL evil of the corporations.

and governments

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Rexdude]

Now, quad-band GSM has been common for a long time, but I have yet to see a UMTS handset that supported both the world frequencies and all of the US frequencies

I point you to Nokia's latest Symbian^3 based handsets (N8,C6-01,C7 and E7). All have pentaband 3G radios for exactly this reason. You can use them anywhere in the world for 3G/GSM, and with regard to the US, they would work on both AT&T and T mobile 3G frequencies.

Re:$39 BILLION!?

[Andy Dodd]

Since it will be a different modulation scheme, probably they'll need a mild relicensing.

However a modulation scheme change with nothing else changing is almost surely subject to far less paperwork than a new site.

Anti-trust

[jimmerz28]

It'd be great if we had a real watchdog anti-trust group around here in the USA that could actually do something about these types of mergers.

Re:Anti-trust

[MetalliQaZ]

There is. The problem is that just because they CAN do something, doesn't mean that they WILL. AT&T has powerful lobbyists. There is also (unfortunately, in this case) a powerful anti-government movement in this country right now. They would prefer to let companies (especially large ones) do what they want.

Re:Anti-trust

[jimmerz28]

Indeed by a "real" group I meant one that "will" do something. I can't get to the EU fast enough...

But its good for Verizon and others

[Fujisawa Sensei]

It is certainly bad for customers.

But its good for Verizon and others, because there are a lot of T-Mobile who are: "Anybody but AT&T".

Re:But its good for Verizon and others

[MetalliQaZ]

Not nearly enough of them to make a difference, in my opinion.

Re:But its good for Verizon and others

[postbigbang]

We can hope, altho it's damning Verizon with faint praise. It becomes a GSM monopoly, further pushing Verizon out on an EDGE (pun intended) with LTE.

The duopoly that results (sorry, Sprint and Clearwire are dying) means that we'll have the fun of the Canadians, who deal with the Rogers- Bell Canada Conundrum. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum.

What we really need is a technology to become the successor to GSM, CDMA, and LTE. Call it, 5G. We could bribe the ITU to lower the speed floor, and use visible light modulation for phone-- with mirrors.

Re:But its good for Verizon and others

[mrchaotica]

The duopoly that results (sorry, Sprint and Clearwire are dying)...

I don't see why that should be the case; as a customer of both, I think Virgin Mobile (a Sprint subsidiary) is great and Clearwire is, well, better than Comcast or AT&T DSL.

Re:But its good for Verizon and others

[s73v3r]

A lot of those are also "Anybody but Verizon".

Re:But its good for Verizon and others

[postbigbang]

Have you looked at Clearwire's finances or their 8Ks/10K's? Not so good. Sprint's reputation among their clientele? Not so good. Marketshare when looking in any measure of this, pre-/post merger? Not so good.

I hope you're a satisfied customer of VirginM and Clearwire. Not too many of those, according to various surveys.

Clearwire isn't really comparable to Comcast save that they're both ostensible broadband providers; AT&T's DSL "broadband" isn't very good for the majority of its clientele either. Disclaimer: I hate them all and have had business relationships with all but Clearwire.

Re:But its good for Verizon and others

[aristotle-dude]

We can hope, altho it's damning Verizon with faint praise. It becomes a GSM monopoly, further pushing Verizon out on an EDGE (pun intended) with LTE.

The duopoly that results (sorry, Sprint and Clearwire are dying) means that we'll have the fun of the Canadians, who deal with the Rogers- Bell Canada Conundrum. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum.

What we really need is a technology to become the successor to GSM, CDMA, and LTE. Call it, 5G. We could bribe the ITU to lower the speed floor, and use visible light modulation for phone-- with mirrors.

Uh, LTE is what you are looking for. AT&T is going to implement it and nothing is stopping from Verizon implementing HSPA fallback support for their LTE network.

In Canada, the CDMA network carriers decided to switch over to HSPA+ but skip supporting 2G GSM or lower.

Don't Like

[medv4380]

I have an unlocked phone so that I can actually change my provider if I want to. If AT&T merges with T-Mobile then my phone is locked to AT&T since it requires a sim card to function and I'm pretty sure Sprint and Verizon won't play nice with my phone.

Re:Don't Like

[AvitarX]

T-mobile and AT&T phones don't play nice either though (different frequencies).

Re:Don't Like

[medv4380]

Unless you paid extra for a phone that can switch. Mine only supports TMobile and AT&T

Re:Don't Like

[AvitarX]

Do you have a phone that gets decent 3G on both networks?

Re:Don't Like

[hedwards]

That's 3G only, the rest of the features work just fine. But if AT&T buys out T-Mobile, then having a T-Mobile handset would be an advantage for when you get subjected to those ridiculous bandwidth caps.

Re:Don't Like

[thetartanavenger]

Even though your phone is unlocked there's not really all that much you can do with it. AT&T use frequencies that are different from pretty much every other provider in the world so if you're with them you're still locked in, if you're not you can't switch to them (without a new phone). The only other large supplier are T-Mobile who use more sane frequencies. This allows you to switch to other providers around the world, but that's not much use unless you travel. An unlocked phone in the states only really gives you selection between T-Mobile and small providers, which also isn't much use if you want nationwide coverage..

Sprint and Verizon use different technologies completely so they're out of the question entirely.

The UK on the other hand (where I am although I visit the states frequently and use T-Mobile) all are forced to use the same frequencies. Meaning an unlocked phone actually gives you choice. I think this is the same in Europe.

Deregulation

[0100010001010011]

This is where old Ma Bell ended up.

Colbert is going to have to update his take on AT&T

Re:Deregulation

[GodfatherofSoul]

Wow...just...wow. That first image is like a microcosm of our country's changed views on the market place. Reminds me of a matching graph from Discrete Math II.

Re:Deregulation

[blair1q]

It's not at all surprising that the former monopolists are the new monopolists. The inability to act in accordance with the spirit of the law is a mental disease.

Re:Deregulation

[joocemann]

Why am I somehow expecting conservatives/republicans to be in support of this? First glance you would assume, no, this goes against free markets and 'competition; words that are often associated with the expressed goals of many-a-GOP member. But if the last 40 years of experience observing republicans/conservatives/gop serves me right, they will come out largely in support of the merge because its 'good for families', 'traditional', and a 'good idea for everyone". I would almost bet our security would be brought up in the argument to support as well....

What competition?

[0racle]

There is no real competition in the US mobile market, only the illusion of competition.

Re:What competition?

[MetalliQaZ]

All the more reason to fight for everything we possibly can.

Re:What competition?

[royallthefourth]

This is the nature of all markets: the big ones buy up the smaller ones until there are only one or two big ones left. Occasionally they collapse and are replaced by others, but the diversity never really expands.
Deregulation and competition just doesn't work in the real world.

Re:What competition?

[dkleinsc]

You're overstating your case a bit.

Some markets do lend themselves to consolidation like this. If you were a hypothetical omnipotent and benevolent Grand Pooh-bah of the cell phone market right now, you could cut costs of cell service significantly by reducing things to a single carrier, and then sell the service at cost. But instead, we have profit-driven corporations, who want to cut the costs but keep the prices at their current higher (and thus inefficient) price.

Other markets don't consolidate as easily, which is why, say, plumbers aren't all working for a handful of big conglomerates.

Re:What competition?

[dkleinsc]

You're right it's not magic, but it has nothing to do with government interference.

In the case of plumbers, although there have been attempts at big plumbing companies, they tend to lose in management costs more than they gained in more efficient processing of paperwork and the like. Whereas in the case of cell carriers, you could cut your number of tower setups and fiber lines and accountants etc etc dramatically by reducing the number of companies. Hence the different market behavior in different markets.

Re:What competition?

[aristotle-dude]

All the more reason to fight for everything we possibly can.

If you wanted real competition, you should have fought for it earlier by pressuring Verizon and Sprint to both go with HSPA+ two years ago and then going to LTE in 2013 along with AT&T when LTE was mature enough.

Re:What competition?

[geniusj]

I know that moderators have a soft spot for cynical comments, but I disagree. I think there IS competition in the US mobile market. This merger, however, will be another big blow to it, as T-Mobile has recently been an innovator in the space. T-Mobile brought European-style contract-free plans to the US, encouraging the use of unlocked phones. It also was the most vocal and earliest adopter of Android.

What the US mobile competition has shown me over the years is that consumers are not solely concerned with price. If they were: Sprint, T-Mobile, MetroPCS, etc would dominate the market. Instead, what's happened is the carriers instead compete on exclusive rights to the shiniest new phones, and consumers are willing to pay a premium to get their hands on them. So if you want to blame anyone for the lack of price competition with AT&T and Verizon, blame the consumers. The competition is alive; carriers have just found something to make consumers care about other than price.

Faster move to 4G

[tekgoblin]

The only thing I am hyped about is a faster transition to 4G. AT&T's network is crippled in major cities, with 4G and 3G network speeds should increase over time with the load being split across both spectrum's given people move to 4G. There are good things and bad things, I don't think AT&T will hike rates because they are still competing with other carriers just not GSM carriers in the US.

Re:Faster move to 4G

[swb]

My sense is that while there are technically 4 carriers, there's only really competition between AT&T and Verizon. The only people I know that use T-Mobile are those who are interested in the cheapest plans; I don't think I know anyone who uses Sprint at all.

I'd like to believe that it will lead to faster LTE rollouts, but it's hard to say -- faster than what? AT&T can't afford to fall too far behind Verizon from a network feature perspective, even if "most people" think they're worse (IMHO, it's a wash in all but a few places and in my transition 2 years ago, it was actually an improvement).

I don't know what AT&T's actual network "problem" is now -- lack of backhaul, lack of radio density, some GSM/3G limitation, too much data, etc, but they can't be hurt by the increased in infrastructure that T-Mobile would give them.

Re:Faster move to 4G

[pixelpusher220]

"they are still competing with other carriers"

Except there really is only one other carrier they are competing with now. 2 is not enough competition.

Even worse possibilities on the Horizon...

[markass530]

Verizon will start looking to gobble up Sprint. Please somebody who knows more about this sort of thing tell me why this can't happen, because that would be f'n horrible. As far as why THIS merger is bad for consumers, well yea is there even one reason why it's GOOD for consumers?

Re:Even worse possibilities on the Horizon...

[PickyH3D]

I would think that Verizon might at least wait to purchase Sprint because Sprint is trying to make a-go with WiMAX rather than LTE for their 4G technology. I also don't think Sprint has much to offer Verizon in terms of gained voice/data coverage with respect to 2G and 3G.

At least with respect to T-Mobile and AT&T, T-Mobile will bring a lot of infrastructure that AT&T wants (towers) because of the inherent weaknesses with GSM in populated areas. This should increase voice quality as well as help to avoid dropped calls. With that said, AT&T and T-Mobile do not use the same frequencies for 3G, so this would not benefit 3G users in the short term. However, in the the long term, it would provide AT&T more towers to dump its 3G and future 4G (LTE) antennae onto.

And considering that it can take years to put up individual towers in certain areas, that is very good news for AT&T customers, as well as T-Mobile customers in the long term (as they buy newer hardware that runs on AT&T's 3G network, or possibly even a newer dual mode).

Re:Even worse possibilities on the Horizon...

[s73v3r]

is there even one reason why it's GOOD for consumers?

AT&T gets some new towers to offload congestion onto? That's all I've got.

Re:Even worse possibilities on the Horizon...

[s73v3r]

I would think that Verizon might at least wait to purchase Sprint because Sprint is trying to make a-go with WiMAX rather than LTE for their 4G technology.

I dunno. If this were to go through, I think it would be nigh impossible for that to stand up to regulatory scrutiny. Of course, this is assuming that more GOP "Champions of the Free Market" don't get voted into office in 2012.

Re:Even worse possibilities on the Horizon...

[faedle]

Actually, while Sprint (via their part-ownership of Clear) has WiMAX, Sprint's CEO has stated quite clearly that the future is LTE, even for Sprint.

Re:Even worse possibilities on the Horizon...

[PickyH3D]

I actually did know that, but until they actually invest in LTE (and move their users over to it), then it's just a waste of Verizon's money. They'd be investing in old technology, and technology that they don't even want (WiMAX).

It will be interesting to see how Sprint decides to handle the wedge that a WiMAX and LTE future drives between its existing 4G customers.

Great news for both companies?

[blair1q]

AT&T shareholders just watched their management pay way too much for T-mobile. T-mobile and AT&T employees are both now extremely fearful for their jobs, as there is almost 100% overlap in most markets in everything but customer service call centers. This goes all the way up the management chains.

This is less like "joining forces" than conquering your neighbor by buying his mortgage from the bank for double the house's value, then throwing him and his kids and your wife out on the street.

Re:Great news for both companies?

[stickfigure]

But at least I upgrade from my boring old wife to his MILFtacular one. Everyone wins!

Re:Great news for both companies?

[Widowwolf]

really because I work for ATT and i don't fear my job..1/2 of Tmobiles things are outsourced like most of the call tree's and HR, and they will still need to have the stores open to serve all their new customers..I haven't been fearing being laid off since SBC bought Pacbell

Re:Great news for both companies?

[pixelpusher220]

Well if you call getting 39 BILLION dollars 'being thrown out on the street' sure

Re:Great news for both companies?

[blair1q]

You misread it.

The bank got the $39 billion.

The neighbor got the air.

There's a reason I left AT&T.

[kmdrtako]

I had AT&T years ago; could never get a signal inside my house. I finally switched to T-Mobile; no problem getting a signal inside my house.

If I want GSM (so that my phone will work in the rest of the world when I travel (right?)) then I either have to have AT&T, T-Mobile, or one of the MVNOs that operate on their networks. I fear if AT&T dismantles the T-Mobile infrastructure that I'll be back to not getting any signal inside my house. Is my fear justified?

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[aztracker1]

I don't think they are going to reduce their infrastructure... however, I refuse to be an AT&T customer, my contract is up next month, so may be moving over to Verizon. T-Mobile's customer service has always been a lot better than my experiences with AT&T.

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't dismantle T-mobile's infrastructure until all of T-mobile's handsets are gone. They run on different frequencies so the more likely thing will be that they deploy combined next-generation technology (and sell phones that support it) while they keep the 2G network running along until all of the customers are gone.

Same thing happened with the old TDMA plans...you probably won't run into any issues until you want to upgrade to a phone or add features that would have required you to sign a new contract with t-mobile (at which point you will be transferred into a combined company contract on a new device that relies on new infrastructure that hopefully covers your home).

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[PickyH3D]

It sounds like T-Mobile had a tower closer to your house than AT&T. Now, it will be AT&T's tower and you will get their "new" signal.

In general, GSM is the safe way to get a global phone. Though, there are certain CDMA phones that are marketed as global. I believe that they support both modes similar to the Verizon iPhone (although the Verizon iPhone has no place to put a SIM card).

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[Rytr23]

This. Precisely what they did when they bought Cingular. Att is generally ok, except where they fucking suck. Which is pretty much customer service, phone selection/crippling, and definitely their fucking data price gouging. Assholes. That being said, I cannot fathom going to CDMA of either flavor (Sprint/VZW). So I am stuck. I was hoping T-mobile would have gotten their shit together and actually competed, but no, ATT has found a way to fuck everyone again. Hopefully Verizon's LTE roll out cranks up and I can say good bye to those fucking asshole jackasses at ATT forever.

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[Tintivilus]

If I want GSM (so that my phone will work in the rest of the world when I travel (right?)) then I either have to have AT&T, T-Mobile, or one of the MVNOs that operate on their networks. I fear if AT&T dismantles the T-Mobile infrastructure that I'll be back to not getting any signal inside my house. Is my fear justified?

Verizon has several phones with GSM (and even UMTS) for global roaming. Motorola Droid Pro and Droid2 Global come immediately to mind:

WCDMA 850/1900/2100, CDMA 800/1900, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 10.2 Mbps (Category 9/10), CDMA EV-DO Release A, EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12, HSUPA 1.8 Mbps

There are some HTC and Blackberry options too. Global roaming isn't as big a deal as it used to be for Verizon customers.

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[mrchaotica]

What, you think Verizon doesn't have shitty customer service too?!

My advice is to go with something like Virgin Mobile: no contract and ridiculously lower prices (I pay $40/month for 1200 minutes and unlimited data).

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[Svartalf]

Heh... AT&T's phone really had no place to put a SIM either... To re-SIM it, you have to tear it apart. So, why would it be different for the Verizon one?

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[Macrat]

I had AT&T years ago; could never get a signal inside my house. I finally switched to T-Mobile; no problem getting a signal inside my house.

I agree and have had the same experiences.

My factory unlocked iPhone always has signal on T-Mobile when my friends with AT&T locked iPhones have dropped calls and interrupted data connections in same locations.

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[Bake]

So inserting a paperclip into a paperclip-sized hole is considered "tearing apart" these days?

Re:There's a reason I left AT&T.

[bill_mcgonigle]

(I pay $40/month for 1200 minutes and unlimited data)

And... how do they defined 'unlimited'?

Misleading story

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone reading this story might think that AT&T had bought T-Mobile, rather than just one of their operating companies in a foreign country a long, long way from their home market.

Re:Misleading story

[MetalliQaZ]

Misleading comment.

/. News Network

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

A company practicing what amounts to price fixing pays the government to ignore the fact it will become even more of a monopoly is our top story tonight. This story and more at 11.

Re:/. News Network

[Anonymous Psychopath]

A company practicing what amounts to price fixing pays the government to ignore the fact it will become even more of a monopoly is our top story tonight. This story and more at 11.

Monopoly... I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Re:/. News Network

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

If company A and company B (and Company C, etc) produce the same product with the same quality for the same price, and any changes are mirrored immediately, as if they planned it out beforehand, they are de facto a price fixing consortium, a type of monopoly.

Re:/. News Network

[Anonymous Psychopath]

You are claiming that there are no practical difference between the four major carriers, and that they are engaged in illegal price fixing?

Re:/. News Network

[stickrnan]

Actually, in this case it's an oligopoly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly

The original commenter is correct. Reducing the number of competitors by one brings ATT one step closer to being a monopoly.

Re:/. News Network

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

What is this difference you speak of? They are the same for phones, for cable, for internet, for food, for everything. Major companies do not let other companies have a better price/product/quality of service if they can at all help it. This means that changes propagate throughout the market immediately, fast enough there is often no time to plan it out beforehand.

Re:/. News Network

[bertoelcon]

Monopoly... I do not think that word means what you think it means.

It's that game where you win by making everyone go bankrupt to you so that you own everything, right?

Re:/. News Network

[eedwardsjr]

Actually it is an Oligopoly. There is a difference. The government would not tolorate a true monopoly. As Rob Bass sung: "It Takes Two". The same reason why Microsoft loves Apple. Without Apple, Microsoft would be up the creek without a paddle.

Re:/. News Network

[Anonymous Psychopath]

In mature markets the product and pricing differentials are generally smaller. That's not the same thing as price fixing. There are many analogies in the utility industry. Pick your favorite.

Re:/. News Network

[s73v3r]

Now that T-Mobile is gone, what's the difference in, say, per message texting rates? Or for that matter, in bulk text message rates?

Its a done deal

[Fujisawa Sensei]

They haven't denied any of the other mergers that became the current AT&T.

They didn't deny SBC when they wanted to offer long distance service either.

They're not going to deny this either.

I'm rather surprised they didn't buy Comcast.

But of course, they might try it even before this deal completes.

Re:Its a done deal

[Wireless Joe]

I'm rather surprised they didn't buy Comcast.

That'd be silly, considering AT&T Created the Comcast we know today by selling them AT&T Broadband in 2001. What kind of business would buy back a business they'd already spun off...

oh.

Re:Its a done deal

[nhavar]

AT&T would. They've already bought up most of the baby bells that they originally spun off, Cingular, and plenty of others. This spin-off and re-buy happens all the time. Either companies are forced to spin off as part of a merger agreement, or because of poor performance or just to spin-off some debt to make the core business look better. Then when everything has calmed down they snatch the businesses back up.

Re:Its a done deal

[AK Marc]

First off, you missed the sarcasm (even with a link pointing it out). Second, AT&T didn't buy back the baby bells. AT&T castrated itself by keeping what would be the losing business entity with the cool name. Southwestern Bell changed to SBC to hide the regionality of its name, then bought out AT&T (and changed its name again, someone at the top of Southwestern Bell was apparently ashamed of the Dallas roots of the company). So a baby bell bought the momma because the momma was incompetently run (and was under greater regulations while the babies were passing it with fewer regulations). But AT&T didn't reacquire the baby bells, the baby bells consolidated and then committed matricide.

Not that the net effect isn't essentially the same, but the path was not how you described it.

Re:Its a done deal

[AaronW]

I remember AT&T broadband... Comcast was a MAJOR improvement compared to AT&T who was totally incompetent. From that experience alone I will never deal with AT&T.

Re:Its a done deal

[ciscoguy01]

I suspect t that whole affair was a 25 year plan.
The government made ATT divest the baby bells for more competition.
Then, 25 years later they are all together again. It was all planned. What a scam.
The zealots at the justice department that made them divest are all retired or dead. They waited for that.

Backwater, ho!

[saihung]

The USA is already a backwater for GSM service. I pay too much for AT&T, there is no competition on price or features, and now what little pathetic choice I have will be taken away. I don't want crappy proprietary technology, I want to be able to use real mobile phones that I can take with me anywhere in the world. Barring Japan and Korea, for some reason.

Re:Backwater, ho!

[Microlith]

If your handset works on HSPA+ (AT&T and T-Mobile's "4G") using the European bands, you can get full 3.5G service on both Softbank and NTT Docomo in Japan. I bet you can in Korea as well.

Suffice it to say, the US is virtually alone in being the fractured mobile backwater, as even in those Asian countries you can get good service.

Re:Backwater, ho!

[aristotle-dude]

The iPhone 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4 (GSM Model) work fine in Japan. I used my 3GS (Fido - Canada) in Japan last year during golden week and I was roaming on NTT Docomo just fine.

As long as you have a quad band phone with one of the bands used in Japan then you should be fine. If you want to be sure, just get an iPhone on a GSM network. There is a new model coming out this summer. You can buy factory unlocked iPhone up in Canada from Apple stores or on eBay as some of the carriers there allow unlocks after 90 days of service.

Stating the obvious

[MikeRT]

Let's see. You have four healthy players in a huge market. One buys out another to become the biggest. Now we have only three choices. Less choice leads to less competition. Less competition means they don't have to work as hard for our filthy lucre.

Thanks, captain obvious, for this insight. Stuff like this should be so obvious it could be used on a "voting permit application test" if we ever wanted to truly root out the potential voters so brain dead that they can't be trusted with the franchise...

Re:Stating the obvious

[blair1q]

I used to pass 7 different supermarkets on the way home from work.

Now I pass 5 stores with only 2 names on them. And they both carry the same crap off the same boat from Chile.

Re:Stating the obvious

[WatertonMan]

How about asking why there are only four major carriers and why the smaller ones never get big?

Everyone's griping about AT&T (which I do as well) but no one wants to focus on what the real problem is. AT&T's problems are due to not being able to get enough bandwidth and towers to support their customers. People gripe about this even with the other carriers. (Honestly in my area AT&T is much better than Verizon). Simultaneously most people want not just local coverage but national coverage.

So what's the problem?

Hey, how about the problem is the difficulty in putting up towers! You think AT&T wouldn't have tons more towers up if they could? Do you really think their first choice is to have to buy a competitor just to get the damn space to have towers?

And why can't they put up towers? Have any of you seen how difficult it is in places like New York, San Francisco, or other major metro areas to put up towers? If you manage to get permission to even be able to do it (and good luck getting that) the process takes years.

So we have the requirement demanded by consumers to (1) be national (2) have tons of coverage and bandwidth (3) support the latest technologies and (4) be unable to create the infrastructure to do this. Yet no one wants to look at why this is a problem. HEY! It's all the damn local regulations keeping carriers from being able to go national and become real competitors to AT&T and from AT&T, T-Mobile and others to put in the infrastructure to supply the services customers are demanding.

It's just like alternative energy. Everyone wants to move away from oil but no one wants the wind and solar plants near them and doesn't want to expedite the power lines necessary to carry the power from remote areas. People just engage in far too much magical thinking.

Re:Stating the obvious

[faedle]

"Healthy" players?

Both Sprint and T-Mobile have been losing subscribers by the bucketloads (only last quarter did Sprint finally turn the corner). The balance sheets of both companies bleed red ink. Sprint's story is especially tragic: they completely bungled the NEXTEL merger, which should have guaranteed them "second place" status. Sprint's heavy investment in WiMAX (via Clear) may only be a long-term win IF the equipment they purchased can be rolled into an LTE deployment as easily as it has been claimed, and there's still a lot of big question marks on how that will look long-term.

Most of the analysts only gave T-Mobile until the end of this year before their German parents pulled the plug. Many of the same analysts are cautious about Sprint's health as a company: while the short term picture looks much better, the company has a serious long-term cash flow problem and a hefty debt service.

There are the bit players: the small PCS providers like Cricket and MetroPCS, the MVNOs like Tracfone, and the few remaining small regional providers (who are also merging left and right). Tracfone is doing okay, but.. MVNO, baby. Everybody else is in a serious debt/cash-flow negative position.

So there aren't four "healthy" players. By the end of 2012, I wouldn't be shocked if we effectively have a duopoly in the United States for cellular coverage.

A loan from JP Morgan

[Anonymous Coward]

A loan from JP Morgan

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/g7vzu/why_the_hell_does_att_have_25_billion_in_cash/

Re:A loan from JP Morgan

[pixelpusher220]

so shouldn't this be JP Morgan buying T-Mobile? ;-)

Re:A loan from JP Morgan

[ktappe]

So does that mean that JP Morgan has 25 Billion in cash?

Yes.

I bet they are borrowing the money from the government

No. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/01/14/us_earns_jpmorgan_chase

Tracfone

[SJHillman]

I'm a Tracfone customer (it's the cheapest option by far for a basic phone with texting), and my current SIM card is locked into T Mobile, which has horrendous coverage in this area (Rochester, NY). My last Tracphone was locked into AT&T, which had very slightly better coverage in NY. Even Verizon has very poor coverage in a very large portion of NY. The only good thing I can see coming out of this acquisition is if AT&T combines T-Mobile's coverage with their own and my Tracphone can use both networks. Even then, I'll still be without coverage throughout a good portion of the state.

heres to hoping

[craftycoder]

I sure hope AT&T will let me get 3G speeds on my Nexus S now. I'm stuck on EDGE. Lame.

Re:heres to hoping

[nyet]

Your nexus s will be a useless brick when AT&T repurposes TMO's towers.

Re:heres to hoping

[craftycoder]

That seems unlikely. Care to elaborate your point of view.

This affects more than the customers

[Wireless Joe]

As one of the nation's largest union employers, this bodes well for those who support unions.

This also bodes well for those in the seciton of the Venn diagram who both hate unions and think that AT&T sucks. They have a brand new outlet to scream about how lazy union workers are responsible for AT&T's sucky network and poor customer service and are going to ruin the T Mobile experience.

Led Zepplin

[MickyTheIdiot]

Go to the T-Mobile forum if you want to know how well this is flying with T-Mobile customers.

The subject should give you an indication.

I explicitly chose NOT to have anything to do with AT&T and now I am forced into it. Does that sound like free capitalism to you??

Re:Led Zepplin

[royallthefourth]

Does that sound like free capitalism to you??

Yes. Capital is free; you are not.

Social relations are replaced by market relations so instead of each person having equal freedom intrinsic in his existence, money itself becomes a measure of the decisions a person is able to make. They've got billions of dollars and you probably have only a few thousand.
This is the meaning of freedom created by the marketplace.

Re:Led Zepplin

[joocemann]

OH WOW. I"ve read about a dozen replies and not a single one is good. And what's really scary is that about a quarter of those dozen replies are people saying they had ATT and tried to escape by going to t-mobile! WHOAH!

I realize this is bad for everyone, but I just didn't realize how much of 'everyone' was vocal and aware of it!

Knowing how the US and business works, 200 million people here could complain and the merger would still go through.

I have sprint and I love it.

Re:Led Zepplin

[egranlund]

I explicitly chose NOT to have anything to do with AT&T and now I am forced into it. Does that sound like free capitalism to you??

Yes, it is free capitalism.

If you don't like it you are free to go to another carrier (Verizon, Sprint, etc). Even if you're locked in a contract it's still free capitalism, you chose to enter into the contract in the first place, there are a myrad of contract free wireless services or you could buy your own phone and bring it to the network (or buy a used one).

Re:Led Zepplin

[mjwx]

Go to the T-Mobile forum if you want to know how well this is flying with T-Mobile customers.

The subject should give you an indication.

I explicitly chose NOT to have anything to do with AT&T and now I am forced into it. Does that sound like free capitalism to you??

Capitalism != freedom.

What you describe is capitalism but not freedom. Capitalism naturally tends towards monopolies. Monopolies are more often then not anti-freedom.

Any chance for public input?

[Eponymous Coward]

How do these acquisitions typically work? At any point, is there a chance for the public to register the concerns with the regulatory bodies?

I signed up with T-Mobile at the end of last year when I bought a Nexus S. T-Mobile has been great and I love that I can tether my laptop to my phone (or create a wifi hotspot) without having to pay an extra fee. AT&T is notorious for not allowing this and for having ridiculously low caps and I'm worried that once AT&T takes over, I'm going to lose this capability or have its usefulness seriously limited.

I would like to see the regulators require AT&T to set reasonable caps and eliminate tethering fees before allowing the deal to go through. Any way to voice this?

Re:Any chance for public input?

[joocemann]

ATT is also now crackign down on the wireless tethering that is not being explicitly paid for (the rooted kind).

Many T-Mobile 3G phones will end up bricked

[Dracos]

Because apparently AT&T wants to repurpose T-Mobile's 3G spectrum for 4G. Source: AP via Y! news.

Re:Many T-Mobile 3G phones will end up bricked

[Rich0]

Upgrade to what? ATT has lousy smarthphone selection. They tend to be even more locked down than the other carriers and not nearly as innovative.

No one looks at the real problem...

[WatertonMan]

Let's see. Everyone yells at AT&T because they can't provide the coverage and bandwidth iPhone users need. AT&T tries to install more towers but ridiculous levels of regulation and red tape either limit their ability or make it take such a long time it's the same thing. AT&T sees a competitor with towers who is losing money and wants to sell. AT&T buys said competitor as the only way to provide the support customers demand.

Customers immediately become furious with AT&T rather than the ridiculous government regulations keeping AT&T from providing desired services and demand (wait for it) more government regulation to ensure we all have crappy coverage within the United States.

People then step in and blame all the problems not on too much regulation but on deregulation. (And yes, I agree it's not just an issue of deregulation or regulation but smart regulation - however let's be honest. How often do politicians pass laws with smart regulations?)

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[dcw3]

I want some of whatever it is you're smokin'!

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[WatertonMan]

You really think AT&T would have gone to the trouble of buying T-Mobile just to get towers were there an other solution? How about looking into the difficulties of setting up towers and bandwidth in places like New York, San Francisco and elsewhere. It's been in the news a lot...

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[night_flyer]

we were just talking about that Saturday before any of us knew of the purchase. My friend works at AT&T and said that the NYC market sucks for them for the very reasons you stated... he said "If only AT&T would buy T-mobile"

I think I will ask him what next week's lottery numbers will be

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[WatertonMan]

Why not ask why that is? Do you think they might be charging for tethering and trying to limit unauthorized tethering because of the state of their network? And do you think the state of their network might be due to the reasons I outlined? Look, I've no love for AT&T. But they are behaving in a rational fashion given the incentives they are working within. What we ought to do is try and figure out what those incentives are and see if we can change them. By the same measure do you think the very nice services T-Mobile was supplying might be tied to why they are losing money and thus desire to sell?

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[Dog-Cow]

I suggest, with ample cause, that you are a complete and utter moron.

It's fairly clear that those who are currently AT&T customers can view the merger in a good light, as they will be gaining T-Mobile's towers. It's equally clear that those who are T-Mobile customers can view this merger as a bad thing, because of the expectation that their support will go down while their costs increase.

In other words, those who aren't AT&T's customers don't really give a shit why AT&T hasn't been putting up towers and those who are T-Mobile's customers aren't particularly bothered by the relative lack of coverage, but are bothered by the thought of increased costs with poorer (customer) service.

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[careysub]

Let's see. Everyone yells at AT&T because they can't provide the coverage and bandwidth iPhone users need. AT&T tries to install more towers but ridiculous levels of regulation and red tape either limit their ability or make it take such a long time it's the same thing. AT&T sees a competitor with towers who is losing money and wants to sell. AT&T buys said competitor as the only way to provide the support customers demand.

Customers immediately become furious with AT&T rather than the ridiculous government regulations keeping AT&T from providing desired services and demand (wait for it) more government regulation to ensure we all have crappy coverage within the United States.

People then step in and blame all the problems not on too much regulation but on deregulation. (And yes, I agree it's not just an issue of deregulation or regulation but smart regulation - however let's be honest. How often do politicians pass laws with smart regulations?)

After a bit of Googling over the issue of how "ridiculous levels of regulation" and "red tape" are obstructing needed AT&T tower expansion - all I can find is that local communities, where the towers are physically placed, insist on public feedback and local government approval - which indeed can take significant time to work through.

I guess if corporations could build what they want where they want without having to consider what local communities want they (the corporations) would be much happier.

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[MickyTheIdiot]

Anyone complaining about regulation in 2011 U.S. causes an instant B.S. alert.

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[WatertonMan]

After a bit of Googling over the issue of how "ridiculous levels of regulation" and "red tape" are obstructing needed AT&T tower expansion - all I can find is that local communities, where the towers are physically placed, insist on public feedback and local government approval - which indeed can take significant time to work through.

Yes and if you have that significant process then you end up with the incentives that produce the current situation.

I guess if corporations could build what they want where they want without having to consider what local communities want they (the corporations) would be much happier.

That's not the issue. The problem is that for basically any construction you have the years of effort to go through. That's fine if the communities want that. But then they have to live with the results which is bad coverage in most major metro areas and this sort of amalgamation.

It's not at all clear to me why it has to take years to build a simple tower on top of a sky scraper in order to allow local communities control. Why don't the local communities just make a standard criteria for building towers that takes a few months at most.

How would you feel if every time you wanted to paint your house you had to spend all that time on paperwork and then open it up to the community such that it took years to paint your house? (There are actually property associations where that is the case)

Once again the issue isn't if people want that. That's fine if they do. But they have to realize that situations like we have are what results.

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[aristotle-dude]

The reason people are upset is because AT&T is the worst carrier. They lock the heck out of the phones they offer, no sideloading on android, charge for tethering and hotspot and still have the lowest data limits of them all.

If this was verizon and sprint merging it would still be bad, but not this bad.

I never have any problem with their voice services when I am roaming on them. Who cares about sideloading on android? A small fraction of those who even use Android? Tethering and hotspot data is something that you should be using as a backup when you have no free wifi or are away from your home wifi. Don't you have an ISP at home? What about the free wifi at coffee shops? Verizon is irrelevant to visitors like me because they use CDMA technology. For all of your bitching and complaining, this will probably lead to better service in more places, lower local and roaming rates eventually and force Verizon to step up their game with LTE to compete instead of resting on their laurels with CDMA. Verizon might even have to provide HSPA backwards compatibility to lure customers and roaming partners.

If you are trying to do most of your traffic through cellular networks then you are an idiot because you do not understand that the bottleneck for cellular data are the towers and they were never meant to be used on a sustained basis for things like streaming or tethering. Those features are there for an emergency when you need connectivity for business while in a non-wifi area.

Re:No one looks at the real problem...

[klui]

They have a better chance of getting support from their customers/potential customers if they don't pull shit like bandwidth caps and generally screwing their customers. Recent action by AT&T don't make them appear to want to serve their customers, rather to squeeze as much money from their customers. This is the real problem, not "regulation." Their mere size all but allows them to buy their way out of this acquisition.

T-Mobile Open/Free Platform To Dissolve

[popsensation]

If there was such a thing as an open service platform in the world of US - mobile it would be and always has been T-Mobile/Voicestream. In the US they have always offered and have been friendly to unlocked devices, unlimited internet, the first android, the first wifi-hotspot active phones. Their customer service is the only one I would consider worth calling or having. AT&T is closed in comparison and I've never heard someone tell me what a great service or customer service experience they have had with AT&T. We will lose in a lot of ways, but the loss of service and open platforms is the part that will hit me the hardest.

But T-Mobile was the *good* GSM service in the US!

[alispguru]

I've had both AT&T and T-Mobile in the Washington DC area. T-Mobile had less areal coverage, but when your phone had minimal signal, it typically kept it and didn't drop your call. AT&T has more bars in more places, but using those bars to make a phone call is always a crap shoot - you can have what looks like a strong signal and get kicked off anyway, or be unable to connect at all.

Much of this experience was before the iPhone - AT&T just got worse after that.

T-Mobile Girl

[kryliss]

And I was really getting to like that hot T-Mobile Girl.

Re:T-Mobile Girl

[DoctorFrog]

She always reminds me that you can't say 4G without orgy.

Re:The real reason

[mlts]

IIRC, Sprint had the chance to buy TMO. Why they didn't? Because Sprint is sitting on two redundant networks, CDMA, and iDEN. Adding GSM would just mean they have another set of towers to look after.

Instead, Sprint chose to go and work on WiMax technology... IMHO, stupid because everyone else is going LTE and with tower sharing agreements, it means not having to worry about as many antenna emplacements.

Sprint could have easily put in SIM card functionality. In fact, China, Korea, and Japan all use R/UIM cards which are functionally identical to SIM cards, except use CDMA technology. Sprint and Verizon chose to break the standard and not have that technology in their devices.

The future will be interesting when everything goes LTE/WiMax, and the older technologies get shut down, just like AMPS did. Sprint will be on its lonesome with their Clear stuff, and everyone else will be tower sharing.

Another good take...

[VValdo]

Marketwatch had an editorial on this as well.

Who regulates this-- the FCC or the FTC?

Crap!! Lord Vader has caught up with me at last!!!

[DoctorFrog]

Even back when iPhones were the only real smartphone in town, I held off because I didn't ever want to to business with AT&T again. The reason I resisted the Apple siren song was because AT&T service sucks, and they have no respect whatsoever for customers.

I was glad I had when the Nexus One came along, because I think it's better than an iPhone anyway, of course. I've also been very happy with T-Mobile's service. Now I see the Death Star approaching, and I know my happy little world is probably doomed.

No option for GSM anymore?

[E IS mC(Square)]

You can go to Verizon or Sprint, only if you are willing to go CDMA. If, like me, you have a perfectly working unlocked GSM phone and do not want to deal with the devil, you are pretty fucked.

As I understand, everything else (from MetroPCS, Virgin to Sprint/Verizon) are on CDMA.

Re:No option for GSM anymore?

[hazem]

Straight-talk has both CDMA and GSM. You can tell which by the ending letter of the serial number. My R451C is a CDMA (and uses Verizon's network) and they have an LG620G that's GSM.

I don't know if it's possible to unlock them for use on other carriers.

Re:No option for GSM anymore?

[King InuYasha]

StraightTalk GSM uses AT&T and T-Mobile networks.

Re:No option for GSM anymore?

[E IS mC(Square)]

Thanks. But I can't find out if they let me use a GSM quad band phone (unlocked/never locked) I already have (as I mentioned in my original post).

I also checked out quite a few other GSM (sub)providers and all of them offer their own phones, and none of them mentions anything about using an existing phone.

Re:No option for GSM anymore?

[E IS mC(Square)]

Found out:
"Will I be able to use my existing handset when I move to Straight Talk?
No, in order to use Straight Talk service, you will need to buy a Straight Talk phone. Straight Talk phones are sold at participating Wal-Mart stores, please go to www.straighttalk.com/retail to locate the stores nearest you."

Sorry - fuck them too.

Finally a quality GSM network in the US

[vijayiyer]

With this merger, we should finally have quality GSM coverage in the United States. I will bemoan the superior T-mobile customer service, but I had to switch from T-Mobile to AT&T when I lived on the Pacific coast for coverage. The fact is that there isn't really room in the US for two GSM carriers.
For those who think AT&T could have just expanded its coverage, go look into the issues every carrier is facing in San Francisco where new towers face "OMG - the Radiation!" from the residents. Buying T-mobile was the best realistic way to expand coverage.

Re:Crap!! Lord Vader has caught up with me at last

[Gohtar]

Even back when iPhones were the only real smartphone in town,

Wait, iPhones were the only smart phones? When did this happen? Was that back when they couldn't send MMS text messages?

AT&T reminds me of Terminator 2

[mykos]

You freeze it, break it to pieces, and over a small amount of time it melts and re-forms itself to continue the assault.
Where's a vat of molten steel when you need it?

Re:Crap!! Lord Vader has caught up with me at last

[mlts]

The one notable thing about the N1 is the fact that if you are clued enough to fire up adb and fastboot oem unlock it, the device is yours to install what the heck you desire on it.

I really hope AT&T inherits T-Mobile's hacker-friendliness. This way, a device that is bought unlocked and not connected to a provider, such as a Nexus phone, or some of the higher end HTC phones several years ago could be used.

I personally would pay some more (although not double or an insane amount) for a device that is made for people to root/jailbreak/re-ROM, something like a modern version (with a decent dual core CPU, decent memory, etc.) of the N900 that ships with Android, but can have any OS of choice put on. Let people who think rooting is wrapping plant tendrils around a device keep buying consumer level units; it would be nice to have a "pro" phone that is well designed and made for techies.

For example, take the Motorola Atrix. Yank the signed kernel protection, et al. Have source code, binaries, and OS images available for download. Charge $100 more. This would be an ideal device. Perhaps have Webtop as a Linux distribution so it can easily be modded, perhaps built from source like Gentoo.

Since the hardware would be identical to the "consumer" model, economies of scale would be to AT&T/Motorola's advantage. The hardware modders would be happy, and the additional cost would not just cover the cost of having the files available, but also cover the dumbasses who call in to customer service with "I just re-ROMed my phone with an alpha build, and bluetooth doesn't work." Also, since the baseband chip is separate, there are no issues of dangers to the cellular network.

Ain't no $39 billion.

[Weezul]

Ahh, that $39 billion never existed. AT&T has simply offered T-mobile stockholder stock in AT&T, i.e. they're simply offering $39B of their shareholder's money. You rarely see share holders paying out for improving infrastructure, but they'll somehow always get conned into ponying up for mergers.

In fact, such mergers almost never help the shareholders of the acquiring company. Cash acquisitions average out about like investing in the S&P500. Stock acquisitions almost always cost shareholders significantly, i.e. the acquiring company overpays. Yes, the academic business literature has researched this question extensively.

I'm unsure how the stock holders in the acquired company fair, presumably they realize a short term gain, but basically all their long term investment strategy and research work gets shot to hell, costing them valuable effort instead of money.

Who benefits? Ahh, that'd be the guys who went from running a company worth $160B to a company worth $200B. Yeah, their stock took a hit, but they'll just increase their stock packages accordingly. See how that works?

Virtually all stock large mergers are bad for the economy, bad for stock holders, bad for employees, and bad for consumers.

Imho, we should require that public companies engaging in an acquisition over $1B and over say 3% of their market cap to declare a 5 year target stock price. And indemnify all stock shares except those held by the board of directors and the executives against any short fall below that price that could be traced to the acquisition. In a stroke, that'd ensure that those making the acquisition decisions took the brunt of the stock price hit, thus ending these ridiculous scams.

Re:Ain't no $39 billion.

[maxume]

What magic sauce are you going to fund that indemnification with?

Re:Ain't no $39 billion.

[Weezul]

I'd imagined just issuing more stock that devalued the shares held by the board and executives, but obviously that makes those shares no longer tradable on the exchange, which actually seems overly complex, punitive, etc. (I'm not drunk now)

In broad strokes, I was proposing imposing some form of fiduciary duty to the stock holders upon the board members and executives that directed the oversized acquisition, i.e. they must put their personal wealth on the line. An easy solution might be claw back terms in the contracts granting them stock & options, i.e. they lose all the lions share of their renumeration if the company falls precipitously during the years following a huge merger.

We might alternatively impose a "deliberative process" upon large mergers. You might for example require the justice department to prosecute every sufficiently large merger at least through the discovery phase. And then require a final shareholder vote for approval only after the discovery phase. In short, you make sure the acquiring company's stock holders understand they're paying higher than fair market value.

Re:Ain't no $39 billion.

[maxume]

Actual liability seems like it would lead to almost zero mergers where the board was "playing with other people's money".

But maybe that would be a feature.

Re:The real reason

[s73v3r]

Yeah, but I highly doubt Sprint wanted to buy Tmo either. Remember the last time they bought a carrier with incompatible technology (Nextel)?

Yes, it is.

[poptones]

Those radio "tuned" front ends are tuned very broadly, and the "radio" is essentially nothing but a fast flash A/D convertor connected to an RF amp and a DSP. It's a firmware radio.

Re:The "jumping to conclusions" game...

[Z00L00K]

Hey - this is slashdot - where we always jump to conclusions without hesitation!

As for the merger - it will be bad for international roaming customers. No competition on the GSM technology means that European visitors to the US will be even more screwed.

It's been very good for this consumer!

[straponego]

Seriously. I moved to Android/Verizon a year ago and I've enjoyed the ability to make phone calls. Now that this deal has been announced, I just checked with VZ and moving my girlfriend to an iPhone on my account (sharing minutes and messages) will cost almost $40/month less than AT&T. Plus we'll be able to talk to each other! Her ETF will be about $235 depending on when we do it (might wait for next gen phone), but at $30/month savings (ETF goes down $10/month, so I have to factor that in), we'll be ahead within about 8 months. Oh, plus it looks like I can get about $325 for her existing iPhone. So... thanks, AT&T! I'd have waited through the rest of her contract like a chump if you hadn't rubbed our noses in your douchebaggery.

New poll idea!

[straponego]

Slashdot, please do a poll on what effect customers think this will have on the quality and price of mobile services in the US.

duh

[monkyyy]

"While this is great news for both companies, analysts believe that it's an awful idea for end consumers"
ur new to this idea of capitalism; right?

Hardware Filters

[Benanov]

That's not quite the case - a lot of the radios have hardware filters that can't be removed very easily - you'd be looking at desoldering surface-mount components and then replacing them with other versions...and then recertifying the entire thing to make sure you can still transmit without breaking FCC regulations (at least in the States.)

The OpenMoko FreeRunner came in two versions - 900/1800/1900, and 850/1800/1900. It is not possible to change frequencies, and almost the entire phone is open to modification by the user.

Re:Hardware Filters

[YoopDaDum]

You are correct, the filters are band specific and are the primary limitation here.

To build on your comment and provide a bit more context: the processing chain is base-band chip, RF chip and front-end (FE). The front end is made of LNA, filters, switches, duplexers, antennas, etc.
The base-band chip is band agnostic, and can easily support all bands. The current RF chips can be limited to a few selected bands, but the trend is to multi-bands chips. For LTE where there are bands all over the place, there's a big push toward multi-band RF chips. But in the FE part, the filters are required and are limited to a specific band (the point being to reject signals from other bands to avoid saturating the A/D converter on the receive side, and to avoid polluting other bands on the transmit side). You could imagine a bank of filters with switches to select the proper band, but there's a limit to how much you can fit on a phone and it's not as simple as I make it sound.

Disclaimer: I'm not a RF and FE expert by any mean. I just want to point out that supporting a lot of bands concurrently is challenging and has cost/footprint implications.

New Parts

[bill_mcgonigle]

The problem is: T-Mobile's 3G sites are all in the 1700 MHz band. No AT&T handset supports UMTS1700 to my knowledge

My first thought, when I heard about the merger, is that AT&T must have access to some new radio parts that also include the 1700MHz band. This must have been in the works for some time; I wouldn't be surprised if new AT&T phones by summer supported the T-Mobile bands, at least in hardware if not enabled.

And..

[taosk8r]

Seems like this is also very bad because T-Mobile has been extremely uncooperative with the Gov't's PATRIOT Act requests, and ATT was one of the first and worst to kowtow.

Re:Crap!! Lord Vader has caught up with me at last

[ldbapp]

You wrote my reply for me, nearly word for word.

Verizon may buy Sprint

[bill_mcgonigle]

The duopoly that results (sorry, Sprint and Clearwire are dying)

Now that AT&T will be the largest carrier, by subscriber count, it's a no-brainer for Verizon to buy out Sprint (1:10 market-cap ratio). Then they're on top again, and their phones are already compatible.

Re:Verizon may buy Sprint

[postbigbang]

Mmmmm. Then we're down to one GSM, and one CDMA. Insane.

Re:Verizon may buy Sprint

[bill_mcgonigle]

Mmmmm. Then we're down to one GSM, and one CDMA.

Which will benefit them both.

Insane.

That's what an FCC 5-year permitting process will get 'ya. Prices will go up, the FCC will protect the status quo, and the politicians will get nice campaign contributions.

Dont worry dont worry ...

[unity100]

"invisible hand of the market" will come in disguise, on its horse and black mystique mask, and will fix it for you.

of course, it may take 5 years, and in that duration, at&t may be deciding what services and even websites you, your kids, family will be able to access from their phones, and for what price, but hey - in the end, its all good right ?

no. it isnt. i want my kids, family to have REAL choices. not superficial choices that exists somewhere else in some faraway state, just fulfilling the 'competition' requirement in appearances.

but then again, this is what capitalism is right ? a transitionary phase until the holdings get consolidated into big feudal farms. just like how it happened in between 300-600 AD.

You have to ask yourself

[tkrotchko]

If AT&T had the $39B to buy another carrier, couldn't they have spent a fraction of that to upgrade their network, both wireless and wired?

In either event, I'm not sure who this merger is good for. Its not good for consumers, its not clear its good for AT&T or any other shareholder.

This really has very little to do with government regulation either way. AT&T is free to buy more bandwidth, they're free to put up more towers, they're free to lay more fiber, they're free to buy more network infrastructure.

Seems to me they simply panicked now that the iPhone is no longer exclusive, so they're looking to prop up their revenue stream by restricting competition and raising prices.

If this isn't a case for government to step in and say "no", then I'm not sure what is.

Anybody talked to the FCC and the FTC about this?

[King InuYasha]

Has anyone emailed or called the FCC and the FTC and told them that the merger shouldn't be allowed? I wonder if people even know that that the FCC and FTC exist and have the ability to stop ridiculousness like this. Everybody I know is giving up hope because they believe they have no way to make a difference!

I say NAY! I can make a difference about this whole thing! I emailed the FCC and the FTC, I emailed my Congressmen, and I emailed my Senators about this whole thing. Every single one of you reading this article and not liking what is happening should do what I did. If you can, do more! Spread the word about contacting the right people to protest it. Start a petition if you wish. Call those agencies and tell them they shouldn't allow the acquisition!

Americans do have power, we are just trained not to use it! So get off your asses and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

This has been a public service announcement by RoyalGeekWorld Enterprises, a subsidiary of Binary Outcast. :P

Deregulation conflicts with competition

[Tablizer]

Conservatives like to talk about the "power of competition", but also call anti-trust "government interference in the marketplace". Well, you can't have both. You pretty much need government regulation to avoid big oligopolies.

Thus, my fellow conservatives, pick one and only one: competition or deregulation.

Prepaid

[ztexas]

How long before T-Mobile's reasonably-priced prepaid plans vanish? I give it 6-12 months.

Like they say...

[ideaz]

why only there's one company that makes Monopoly

more selective phone choices for consumers

[PMuse]

Ooo! Ooo! I want more selective phone choices! I, for one, welcome our new, more selective, corporate carrier overlords!

(But seriously, if WE can't manage to say "fewer / less / limited / restricted / a paucity of / really crappy / sh!ttast!c" when we mean it, then the truth is already lost.)

Re:Crap!! Lord Vader has caught up with me at last

[DoctorFrog]

Yes, multimedia smartphone is what I meant. There were many PDA type phones about that were billed as smartphones (in fact I had one); I should have been more specific. Point taken!

Obligatory Ernestine Skit

[mbstone]

We're the phone company. We don't care. We don't have to.

I hope they reject it...

[hesaigo999ca]

This would be a greater monopoly then MS is on pcs.....I think it should not be allowed, and would prove to be costly to users, already we pay more then anywhere else in the world for cell plans, now they'll spike it up even more.

Re:Do something. Or be run over !!

[InsaneProcessor]

If this goes through (and it probably will), AT&T will loose half (if not more) of those T-mobile customers to Verizon. Verizon will win on this and AT&T will probably loose money.