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AT&T Officially Ends Plans To Acquire T-Mobile USA
An anonymous reader writes "AT&T has officially announced that it no longer plans to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom. In a press release, the company said, 'The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.'"
A t-mobile subscriber.
It just seems odd that AT&T would let a leak stop them from acquiring T-Mobile.
As a very satisfied T-Mobile customer with flat-rate 3G, I'm not going to put it beyond AT&T to try some less-visible route to get rid of the only national carrier that doesn't try to meter data.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The story just rehashes the press release by AT&T.
And by the time the story got to Slashdot, others have already written decent stories about it - those would have made much better links.
The business perspective .
The regular news
And the tech perspective
T-Mobile is the ONE operator that's pro-openness. GSM (bring your own device) from the start, no restrictions on how you use data, until the AT&T stuff started they even offered low cost, subsidy free, contract free talk plans. There's a reason it was T-Mo, and not AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint, who Google picked to launch Android.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Bite me, AT&T. Auto repair is competitive.
* Cell phones in the US have a small pool of providers, especially the nation-wide crowd.
* They primarily operate with 2 year contracts, and it's hard to get a phone without one.
* There's a financial disincentive for buying a phone without a contract.
* Text message rates (for which there is very little data usage, being measured in bytes) have been increasing.
* Data plans have been increasing in price and providing tighter bandwidth restrictions at the same time.
I loathe AT&T, and I'm stuck with them. Competitive? I'd get out in a heartbeat if I felt I had somewhere to go. T-Mobile has been the closest saving grace to AT&T, so I really don't want to see that absorbed.
Thanks to the Fed did -- they did one right there.
SIG: HUP
I know a lot of people who's contracts were up and jumped ship on the news that AT&T was going to buy them. I don't know the percentage but every T-Mobile subscriber I know all moved to other carriers when they heard the initial announcement.
Our cell phone oligopoly will have four participants instead of three!
Write Only Memory: Another pointless blog.
"We own our customers." has been the attitude for decades.
Has anybody forgotten their CEO's "my pipes" speech with the subtext of "That's a nice internet connection you have. Be a shame if anything happened to it."?
DoJ/FCC Officially End AT&T's Plans To Acquire T-Mobile USA
Because that's who really made the final decision.
There is a reason that AT&T was broken up 25 or so years ago. Those reasons still hold true. They were the worst service and most dishonest company around in the 70's. I have not dealt with them since I was given a choice and never would again. They don't need to buy other companies and become bigger.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
T-Mobile will still get bought, or will go under.
To say nothing of the assets that will come available when T-Mobile declares bankruptcy
T-Mobile USA makes money. It just doesn't make enough money for the corporate overlords at DT. They don't view the United States as a growth market without billions of dollars in capital investment they've thus far been unwilling to make. Absent that investment T-Mobile USA will remain what it has always been: an urban focused value carrier.
T-Mobile will still get bought, or will go under.
Vodaphone is a possibility if they divest their 45% share of Verizon Wireless. Verizon would love to buy them out; the question is would they be willing to sell to jump into the US market with both feet or does it make more sense for them to keep cashing VZW dividend checks?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.
And I bet the grapes were sour too.
Right. T mobile is a very pervasive player in the Telecommunications landscape. SBC or AT&T as they like to be called, LOVES to buy out direct competitors. They saw Tmobile as a very large player in the space and coupled with T-mobile's 4g network and affordable prices, it was a natural fit for them. I worked for AT&T both before and after they where purchased by SBC. Which I detailed some of my experiences at http://whyattdestroysjobs.wordpress.com/ ... Let's just say while I was there, ATT management as well as Sales Managers such as myself while I was employed with AT&T where constantly going up against T mobile.. Simply because they T-mobile offered affordable plans, greater flexibility in devices, and more affordable and faster service(s) and CUSTOMER SERVICE that was hands down better than AT&T/SBC.
Only what ATT did not bargain on- which frankly they should of KNOWN is the current economy and state of affairs in DC - that proposing a Merger in an election year when unemployment is at record highs and their is further economic uncertainty around the world, that a deal like this that would stifle innovation, lead to higher consumer prices, et al could not of been proposed at a worse time!
This probably had something to do with it. Verizon found a way to buy as much spectrum as they wanted while jumping through way less regulation hurdles. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/12/verizon-buys-up-spectrum/2/
I'm not sure why you're not getting modded up. Verizon is as much "Ma Bell" as AT&T is.
http://www.freepress.net/files/att_history.jpg
Now ya see THAT is what I don't get. Now wasn't the whole point of breaking up AT&T to get rid of the " giant money sucking lousy service lucky if we get around to it 3 weeks from Tuesday wallet raping nickle and diming royal PITA with customer service that hell wouldn't have" one size fits nobody phone service? so WTF?
I have watched AT&T reform like the damned T-1000 and as someone who has to deal with their sorry asses on behalf of customers frankly I've seen third tier Bangalore cue card readers with better service and you could probably get better coverage from a CB radio than their damned overloaded towers. Its bad enough i had to get dad one of those mini cell towers that plugs into his DSL (which thankfully comes from someone else) just so he could use his damned cell phone without walking down to the corner in the cold just to get reception!
Frankly I don't know whose bright idea it was to let AT&T get back together but I think I'd rather see the return of Enron or Worldcom than lousy ass AT&T. so let me say congrats T-mobile users,lucky bastards .As someone stuck in an AT&T only area let me say i wouldn't wish AT&T on my worst enemy, be thankful and consider this reprieve a most glorious Xmas prezzie, because you could have been in for a world of suck!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Verizon and Sprint areâ"or should beâ"no-gos for anybody even thinking about ever visiting outside North America.
For the iPhone the opposite is true.
If you have an AT&T iPhone you can pay a large amount of money for international data and voice plans - but AT&T will not unlock the phone.
But if you get an iPhone 4s on Verizon or Sprint, they will unlock the phone for you - they don't care because it will not help you in the US where they are CDMA services, the GSM portion they unlock is only good for you overseas.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As a person who used to work at T-Mobile, and was privy to some insider information about the economic and technological aspects of the deal, I believe this is going to be a bad thing for T-Mobile and its customers. The problem T-Mobile is facing is that its parent company, Deutsche Telecom, is not investing in T-Mobile in the amount that it needs to catch up to the bigger customers. All of the 4 billion dollars that AT&T is required to pay T-Mobile is going to DT, and not likely* to be used for T-Mobile infrastructure. T-Mobile simply cannot catch up in terms of capital to compete with Verizon and AT&T.
* I can't say how much of the 4 billion dollars will or will not be, but the idea when we were discussing the deal was that 1. we didn't think we had to worry about it, and 2. if the deal did actually fail, the money went straight to DT and would not affect their investments in T-Mobile USA.
There was lots of talk about how the merger would have stifled innovation and created monopolistic problems. Well, those who said it don't understand the technological problems of the wireless utility industry. There is not enough spectrum for either AT&T or T-Mobile to compete separately while providing the best service for their customers. There is not enough capital for T-Mobile to build wireless infrastructure across the country. If there were, you may have a case about a monopoly. But there isn't, so you don't. There isn't enough spectrum for AT&T, and there isn't enough money for T-Mobile. T-Mobile isn't going to be able to provide the best customer service in the business and the coolest phones (only one of the four without iPhone) and the capital infrastructure for 4G and future wireless technologies.
Both companies, and the American consumer, has lost because of this deal's breakdown. I no longer work at T-Mobile, and I think they will continue to be a successful company, but I believe they will be drowned out by Verizon and AT&T due to their size, regardless of T-Mobile's continued nimbleness and "scrappiness".
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
This is what is wrong with the business world as a whole worldwide. It isn't 'good enough' to make a quality product that provides something useful to you customers and pays all the employees while turning a smallish profit. it must GROW GROW GROW , which sooner or later always messes over the customer and creates unstable markets, because guess what , resources and capital aren't infinite.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.