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AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

Well, I guess this is the best way for AT&T to get all those unlocked iPhones on T-Mobile USA... :eek:

hushmartin said:
I foresee this raising prices for T-mo customers *eventually*, but those old plans will be grandfathered for a while. They'll have to select a new plan when they upgrade to a new handset, most likely. I don't expect it will make one whit of difference to At&t customers' prices. Signal might improve a whole lot on both networks though!
Click to expand...

I would expect they'd let us grandfather our voice and text plans. Our old unlimited EDGE data plans on our unlocked iPhones for $6/month - I highly doubt.

AT&T has a rule that if they see an iPhone on their network without a proper iPhone data plan, they will automatically switch you to one...
 
This is bad. Less options is bad. And ATT will most certainly eliminate what was once more competitive pricing from t mobile.
 
zenio said:
The funniest post of all, Apple saves AT&T... Not a chance. The only thing Apple accomplished is to get everyone pissed at AT&T because the iPhone sucked.
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You don't know much about this do you? Besides, it's the other way around.
 
Made no allusions to whether the iPhone sucked or not. Point is, since the iPhone is popular and AT&T was the only provider offering it for a while (subsidized), the iPhone brought a lot of customers to AT&T. Other than that value judgments on the quality of the phone has nothing to do with. Before I even bought an iPhone I was with AT&T, then cingular, then back to AT&T.

zenio said:
The funniest post of all, Apple saves AT&T... Not a chance. The only thing Apple accomplished is to get everyone pissed at AT&T because the iPhone sucked.
Click to expand...
 
Macboy Pro said:
LOL, no... If someone is going in and buying a new iPhone and CHOOSING AT&T, it has nothing to do with contracts. It has to do with choosing a real data network and a company for 3 years that has proven to be able to expand and grow with the huge iPhone boom.

iPhone users do not want a Verizon data network from 1997. Commercials can get you press (which worked for Verizon), but you have to deliver the good to get the customers. Verizon isn't ready.
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The 14 million people who re upped or signed up before Verizon was a option (me) for the iPhone 4 aren't going anywhere until 2012. Fact. Us hardcore apple people would move in a heartbeat but average Joe will wait for his contract to run out. So that's 14 mil that may or may not choose Verizon given the choice.
 
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Kinda like the girl in the T mobile commercials making fun of the iPhone and ATT. Now, who's laughing? :D
 
applefanDrew said:
The 14 million people who re upped or signed up before Verizon was a option (me) for the iPhone 4 aren't going anywhere until 2012. Fact. Us hardcore apple people would move in a heartbeat but average Joe will wait for his contract to run out. So that's 14 mil that may or may not choose Verizon given the choice.
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I bet the Att tos changes before then, or peeps can just get out and pay the ETF.
 
applefanDrew said:
The 14 million people who re upped or signed up before Verizon was a option (me) for the iPhone 4 aren't going anywhere until 2012. Fact. Us hardcore apple people would move in a heartbeat but average Joe will wait for his contract to run out. So that's 14 mil that may or may not choose Verizon given the choice.
Click to expand...

Though even people who jumped ship to Verizon when they had the chance are now wanting back to AT&T because the whole "Verizon is better" isn't really true.
Most people don't care what the fanboys say, they live in reality. Most people on AT&T won't move to Verizon because they are on family plans with good discounts. They don't want to jump to an inferior network just because fanboys hate AT&T. With this deal going through in the next year, and with people happy with t-mobile as it is, I doubt Verizon will make much into that number with this far inferior CDMA network.

I love your "fact" that most hardcore apple people would jump, when the vast majority of Verizon iPhone 4 buyers were already Verizon customers. They didn't "steal" very much from other carriers.
 
Full of Win said:
My question is - why did Apple not buy them and tell AT&T to pound sand?
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Because then Apple would have no one to blame for poor phone call performance.

Apple has to have someone else to blame.

"they all do it" and on and on, says Apple.

If Apple had the courage, they'd do it. But this would put it all on them, a position Apples deathly afraid of.
 
KPOM said:
That said, it would eliminate a competitor, and unlike a Sprint/T-Mobile deal would not create an equal to the "Big 2." It just makes one of the Big 2 bigger, and puts pressure on Sprint and Verizon to merge. I don't think the FCC or FTC would tolerate a duopoly.
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If the FCC or FTC allows this merger, however will not allow a Verizon-Sprint merger then it looks like they are playing favorites. My guess is that Verizon will wait on the outcome of this merger and if it is approved they will make an offer for Sprint. Once the precedence has been set it will be hard for them to backtrack.
 
This is not the way to go--less choice for consumers is not a good thing. I hope the SEC does not approve this, but I imagine they will.
 
DakotaGuy said:
If the FCC or FTC allows this merger, however will not allow a Verizon-Sprint merger then it looks like they are playing favorites. My guess is that Verizon will wait on the outcome of this merger and if it is approved they will make an offer for Sprint. Once the precedence has been set it will be hard for them to backtrack.
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Doesn't Sprint have to approve of the deal? Sprint could tell Verizon to go pound sand.

I don't think Sprint is hurting nearly as much as T-Mobile is right now.
 
i-John said:
Though even people who jumped ship to Verizon when they had the chance are now wanting back to AT&T because the whole "Verizon is better" isn't really true.
Most people don't care what the fanboys say, they live in reality. Most people on AT&T won't move to Verizon because they are on family plans with good discounts. They don't want to jump to an inferior network just because fanboys hate AT&T. With this deal going through in the next year, and with people happy with t-mobile as it is, I doubt Verizon will make much into that number with this far inferior CDMA network.

I love your "fact" that most hardcore apple people would jump, when the vast majority of Verizon iPhone 4 buyers were already Verizon customers. They didn't "steal" very much from other carriers.
Click to expand...


Fact referred to the previous sentence not the last one. I.e. It's a fact that most of the people that signed up for iPhone 4 on att will at least stick with them til their contract is up.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8F190)

i-John said:
applefanDrew said:
The 14 million people who re upped or signed up before Verizon was a option (me) for the iPhone 4 aren't going anywhere until 2012. Fact. Us hardcore apple people would move in a heartbeat but average Joe will wait for his contract to run out. So that's 14 mil that may or may not choose Verizon given the choice.
Click to expand...

Though even people who jumped ship to Verizon when they had the chance are now wanting back to AT&T because the whole "Verizon is better" isn't really true.
Most people don't care what the fanboys say, they live in reality. Most people on AT&T won't move to Verizon because they are on family plans with good discounts. They don't want to jump to an inferior network just because fanboys hate AT&T. With this deal going through in the next year, and with people happy with t-mobile as it is, I doubt Verizon will make much into that number with this far inferior CDMA network.

I love your "fact" that most hardcore apple people would jump, when the vast majority of Verizon iPhone 4 buyers were already Verizon customers. They didn't "steal" very much from other carriers.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for telling the truth. Hurts Verizon fanboys doesn't it?
 
cvaldes said:
You have no idea what you are blathering about.

T-Mobile USA has a nice HSPA+ network. However, HSPA+ is not technically 4G, it's more like 3.5G. T-Mobile USA does not have any allocated spectrum for 4G (LTE or WiMax). They were in a bit of a quandary because of this.

Verizon and Sprint already had 4G spectrum (the 700MHz frequency freed up by the FCC when the transition from analog television broadcast to digital). AT&T lost out to Verizon during the government's auction, but later acquired 700Mhz 4G frequencies from Qualcomm.
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I guess T-mobiles definition of 4G (HSPA+) will suffice for AT&T since it's their's as well... AT&T considers HSPA+ (in addition to LTE) to be "4G":
http://www.attinnovationspace.com/2010/12/01/more-than-one-acronym-for-speed/

So who's blathering?
 
benthewraith said:
Doesn't Sprint have to approve of the deal? Sprint could tell Verizon to go pound sand.

I don't think Sprint is hurting nearly as much as T-Mobile is right now.
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Sprint will be hurting plenty if this deal is approved. They (and Verizon to a lessor extent) just won't have the size to compete with AT&T who will own a huge majority of the market.

If they approve this deal then I would totally support a Verizon-Sprint tie up because the only way to keep AT&T in check will be another company with as much size and power in the market.

beany boy said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8F190)

Thank you so much for telling the truth. Hurts Verizon fanboys doesn't it?
Click to expand...

Just wait and see how much you love AT&T when they own so much of the market they run the pricing and make everyone follow them.
 
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said one of the goals of the acquisition would be to move T-Mobile customers to smart phones, which have higher monthly fees. AT&T "will look hard" at keeping T-Mobile's no-contract plans, he said.

F•ck. You.
 
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