Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
FREE magazine : http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/
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.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
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".
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
This is where old Ma Bell ended up.
Colbert is going to have to update his take on AT&T
There is no real competition in the US mobile market, only the illusion of competition.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
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.
Same here. I deliberately did NOT go with ATT. I guess I should have gone with Sprint or Verizon.
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?
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.
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.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
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.
A loan from JP Morgan
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/g7vzu/why_the_hell_does_att_have_25_billion_in_cash/
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).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
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.
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.
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??
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.
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.
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.
Because apparently AT&T wants to repurpose T-Mobile's 3G spectrum for 4G. Source: AP via Y! news.
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.
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.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
"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.
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.
Who need's speling and grammar?
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.