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

[305golden]

As a cellphone dependant I can only hope this is for the best. I was an ATT customer for many years until i decided i didnt want to spend so much money on a cell bill. Now that Tmobile is being acquired by ATT i hope Tmo keeps its fair pricing.

Now, something to think about, at least in the Miami market, ATT does NOT beat Tmobile. I have tested ATT, Verizon and Tmobile in many places along South Florida and i came to the following conclusion:

ATT has great coverage in Florida. They have the highest amount of cell towers and they are the only ones with towers along the Florida Keys. They also have the highest 3g coverage in the Miami area. Their plans are expensive but their phone selection is great. So basically ATT is good but expensive.

Tmobile has the fastest network in Florida hands down. They also have a good phone selection although more limited thab ATT's. Tmobile has the cheapest plans and they offer unlimited international talk and text for 10 bucks a month which is a must for Floridians (keep in mind that most of the Florida population has family abroad). Tmobile also pffers Wifi calling where there is no cell coverage. They also have an unlimted international Blackberry plan fpr 20 bucks a month and free tethering for up to 5 devices.

Verizon has very poor coverage in Miami and Florida in general. There are many dead spots. Their pricing is also high. They charge for basic services such as visual voicemail. They also charge for tethering. The only benefit is that their data plan for cellphones is unlimited. Now their lte network is VERY fast but again with their lousy coverage they cant provide good service.

In conclusion i hope ATT will take adavantage of Tmos services and infrastructure without taking away from tmobile. If this is the case then ATT and tmobile will become the top carriers in the US. By the way are they going to merge under one name?

 

[ToroidalZeus]

Yup. Welcome to "The United States of America, Inc." After the Supreme Court ruled that corporations may provide unlimited finances to any political figure/party, America will have more businesses and lobbyists moving their politicians into the White House with their divested interests at heart (Ginsburg said she was heavily outvoted by the GWB Supreme Justices). Over the past 1-2 decades small business growth has severely declined in the U.S. More products are being manufactured overseas, and large corporations are cleaning out their competition with tax incentives, deregulation, a weak economy/less jobs, etc (Walmart forced Rubbermaid to close down their US plants to manufacture their products in China in the 90's, when Rubbermaid refused they almost went bankrupt as Walmart is ~60% of their business, so Rubbermaid closed their US plants and along came Walmart to employ ex-Rubbermaid employees who had great salaries and pensions to now make minimum wage).

As for those who have stated that AT&T is already working with t-Mobile. That's not 100% true. Before AT&T acquired Cingular, Cingular had been leasing out their towers to the only other GSM compatible mobile provider to stave off bankruptcy, t-Mobile. Before AT&T acquired Cingular, Cingular renewed those leases and basically screwed AT&T in the process as a good 30-40% of those towers were leased. This is a major factor as to why AT&T service in SoCal and other area's is so horrendous, getting towers approved in area's where competitors already exist is impossible, add area market research, town/city approval, building the towers - all takes years.

So instead of spending all that money, AT&T saved up and waited, and bought out the competition. They knew full well that as the only other GSM provider, t-Mobile would not stand a chance with AT&T's iPhone exclusivity. Sure enough, we will have one major GSM provider. Given Sprint's financial status, I would not be surprised if Verizon is looming in wait. Many businesses who dominate an industry have worked together to gauge prices (electric municipalities, oil/gas companies). Given that Verizon and AT&T work on different bands, it's only a matter of time before it's Verizon and Sprint.

We're all working for "the man", this just solidifies that reality even more so.

Less competition, higher prices,

You should look up the definition of natural monopoly.

 

[benthewraith]

U.S. Cellular

TIL that U.S. Cellular existed. Wow.

 

[applesith]

You should look up the definition of natural monopoly.

Agreed.

 

[3282868]

You should look up the definition of natural monopoly.

A natural monopoly arises where the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, has an overwhelming cost advantage over other actual and potential competitors. This tends to be the case in industries where capital costs predominate, creating economies of scale that are large in relation to the size of the market, and hence high barriers to entry; examples include public utilities such as water services and electricity. It is very expensive to build transmission networks (water/gas pipelines, electricity and telephone lines); therefore, it is unlikely that a potential competitor would be willing to make the capital investment needed to even enter the monopolist's market.

So basically it's semantics, but essentially whether you realize it or not, they are one and the same.

How can you ignore the politics involved? Economics in the classroom is one matter, but in reality what is taught in school is naivety.

Follow the money. Business and government, the lines are blurred and a lot of backroom deals are made. It's not simply AT&T buying out t-Mobile, just as it wasn't as simple as BP getting a slap on the wrist for the largest environmental crisis to date (BP supplies out government with 75% or more of oil and gas). Government intervention with MaBell was during a different time, when mobile and global communications were a pipedream. Now who controls the information controls the world. Since the past decade communications and information technology has brought the world together, for better or worse. It's the new "black gold", and don't believe for a second that lobbyists haven't been working politicians over for allowing this gradual merger and eventual monopoly to occur.

Anyone recall the AT&T warrantless wiretaps? Why AT&T, not Verizon? Why was this allowed?

Think. It's not paranoia, the fact is our rights have been dwindling away with "The Patriot Act", our government banning pharmaceuticals from Canada (as if they are dangerous), warrantless wiretapping, big businesses such as BP getting huge tax incentives after a devastating environmental disaster, future trading driving up and nearly doubling the price on oil during Katrina (it wasn't a lack of refineries) and bring in billions in record profits in 2005/2006 for Exxon/Mobil and millions in commission for traders:

Oil industry under fire
Soaring earnings prompt calls for a windfall profit tax, but will big oil end up having to pay?​

"However, there have been allegations of price gouging in the wake of the hurricanes. This is unacceptable, and any company who does it will be prosecuted," he added. "Our oil companies need to do more to inform the American people about what they are doing to bring down the cost of oil and natural gas."

...more tax cuts for the top 2% of the nation... need I go on?

It's all about MONEY and CONTROL. How is this related? It's no different than the health insurance/pharmaceutical/oil and gas companies - information and who controls it is the largest growing commodity. With the acquisition of t-Mobile it's one more step towards less competition and more opportunity for control and power. This is not simple economics...

Great, I can see that I've already been personally insulted for posting my thoughts and some facts. It never ceases to amaze me that people will not hesitate in using the anonymity of the internet to slam people they don't know. Civil discourse whether social or political is severely lacking...

 

[benthewraith]

Edumacate me

Seriously shouldn't have banned **************************.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

 

[mac*jedi*g]

What's going to happen to all those Jail-Broken iPhones that uses T-Mobile as a primary carrier? Will AT&T honor them as they come back into the fold, or will Apple make them pay for their insulence!?

 

[3282868]

Seriously shouldn't have banned **************************.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

Read my post... a little slow on the uptake...

...and seriously, sarcasm? We're adults, let's respect each other, there's no need for juvenile and insulting comments, it's a waste of everyone's time.

 

[Full of Win]

AT&T-Mobile

Next up: Verizoprint

I think "Verizont" sounds better

 

[ToroidalZeus]

Economics in the classroom is one matter, but in reality what is taught in school is naivety.

Exactly. In the real world there is a lot of competition in an emerging market. This is usually caused by the relatively low entry barriers. As a market matures and changes the entry barriers rise. This is caused by all sort of things such as the cost for more sophisticated equipment or government regulations. Coupled with the increasing demands of the consumers (lower prices, faster service... sound familiar) it forces consolidation and merging. Essentially the consolidation in the mobile industry is inevitable.

 

[3282868]

Exactly. In the real world there is a lot of competition in an emerging market. This is usually caused by the relatively low entry barriers. As a market matures and changes the entry barriers rise. This is caused by all sort of things such as the cost for more sophisticated equipment or government regulations. Coupled with the increasing demands of the consumers (lower prices, faster service... sound familiar) it forces consolidation and merging. Essentially the consolidation in the mobile industry is inevitable.

Exactly. Yet the government intervened with MaBell, why aren't measures taken to ensure this doesn't happen again? History repeats itself, and here we are again. Economics only explains so much, yet when our Supreme Court has ruled that companies can back politicians of their choosing with unlimited finances and companies such as Walmart and Bestbuy have eliminated competitors such as CompUSA, CircuitCity, and soon OfficeMax, small businesses don't have a chance and corporations will soon have more control in our government by funding politicians with their divested interests at heart. Further, our government has already used AT&T for illegal purposes, what will stop them from further misuse if AT&T becomes more powerful? This isn't about simple acquisition, this is about the true intentions behind these "acquisitions". Information is easily accessible, manipulated and controlled. It's a goldmine, and we've already seen our governments interests in having a stake in this game.

Look at cable news, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC all seem to report different takes on international and domestic news based on the company which funds them. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is a highly conservative company that owns Fox News, NBC and Microsoft - obviously - own MSNBC, and a conglomerate of other businesses own CNN. Every news outlet has a different spin, and that spin relates back to the company that owns them. Information is taken at face value, it's a commodity, and getting into mobile information/communication is the next step.

It frightens me, not just having less choice and paying higher premiums for the same service, but also for the fact that large corporations are dominating an industry and allowing our government access to that information. It's already happened, and it seems will continue to happen.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

Exactly. Yet the government intervened with MaBell, why aren't measures taken to ensure this doesn't happen again?

I'm saying the opposite that is is "destined" to happen because of the market's nature.

Look at cable news, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC all seem to report different takes on international and domestic news based on the company which funds them. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is a highly conservative company that owns Fox News, NBC and Microsoft - obviously - own MSNBC, and a conglomerate of other businesses own CNN. Every news outlet has a different spin, and that spin relates back to the company that owns them. Information is taken at face value, it's a commodity, and getting into mobile information/communication is the next step.

Whats to look at? You get a messed up POV from Fox News, you get a messed up POV from CNN , you put them together and you get a different but still equally messed up POV.

 

[3282868]

I'm saying the opposite that is is "destined" to happen because of the market's nature.


Whats to look at? You get a messed up POV from Fox News, you get a messed up POV from CNN , you put them together and you get a different but still equally messed up POV.

AMEN lol

Just don't want fewer larger companies controlling what information is fed and by whom, while providing less opportunity for consumers. Somedays I just want to unplug from it all. Too much information. If only I could buy an island like Richard Branson... le sigh..

 

[beany boy]

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)

Fox news. Fair and balanced Ha ha ha. If you believe that you probably believe Verizon is a good cell co.

 

[otterpop]

i just feel bad for everyone on t-mo. at&t screwed me over back in 1999 and i would't take them back if it cured cancer. t-mo's coverage is fairly spotty in my area but at least they offer a much better price than at&t.

 

[EiriasEmrys]

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) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Right, but I think that might be seen as a monopolistic move. The gov. Broke up the hollywood studios back in the golden years because the controlled content creation, distribution, and exhibition. In an analogous way, apple controls "content creation," and "distribution," whereas carriers are sort of the exhibition end of the industry.

 

[santybm]

Not that bad

After reading most of the comments I think that AT&T will keep the T-Mobile bands and upgrade them throughout the next couple years. What I think sounds like a good plan:
• Keep all the bands. This will expand the bandwidth/usage more evenly.
• Most phones support EDGE so that would mean that when current AT&T users leave a covered area by AT&T 3G & EDGE and happen to be on a T-Mobile covered area they can still get service. The same applies for T-Mobile users. This means more coverage!!!
• Eventually (hopefully sooner than later) require that phone manufactures support all the bands or at least EDGE. AT&T can upgrade each cell later to support faster speeds.

Your prices won't go up, AT&T still has to compete with Verizon so just because they are basically the only carrier to have SIM cards they can't pull prices up. Also your current plan won't go up. I have been with AT&T for about 7 years but, at first we where with Cingular; our rate plan no longer exists but we still pay the same thing, you've seen it with Data Grandfathering on the iPhone the same applies to your rate plan.

In my opinion this will be a boost to customers coverage area and your plan won't change either. The only bad thing I see is the job losses from people working at T-Mobile especially at corporate where you'll see that there will no longer be a need for most jobs as AT&T already has people employed to handle then.

 

[gikku]

How is it that the USA only has 3 or 4 nationwide mobile networks?
Most countries have 3-4 with less than half or a quarter of the population of the USA.
IMHO, the US deserves to have 8-10 nationwide networks each covering 95+% of the population, the FCC has a lot to answer for.

By any international measure, by world standards of best practice, the US is poorly served by their mobile networks and their regulator, poor coverage, poor service, limited services, limited options, unresponsive, expensive, uncompetitive.

 

[pistolero]

That's about right. Att's 3g and T-mo's 3g are on different bands, but they share edge data band, so anyone willing to go edge only and JB can use an iphone on T-mo.

I'm betting that Att will start broadcasting their signal on t-mo's towers to improve Att signal. Then they will either phase out t-mo's bands or use all of them... whichever gets the most bang for their buck. I'd put my money on phasing out the t-mo bands. It seems like it would require less change over all--change is expensive.

Sorry but that makes no sense. Those frequencies are worth billions and are very hard to get. The value of tmobile lies on its frequencies and tower infrastructure, not on its small customer base. Plus I believe they they cannot simply phase them out that easily. If they don't use the spectrum, the FCC will take it back and re allocate it. The frequencies are a public resource that is licensed for private profit as long as it serves the public interest and the use of the such frequencies is efficient.

 

[SilvorX]

How is it that the USA only has 3 or 4 nationwide mobile networks?
Most countries have 3-4 with less than half or a quarter of the population of the USA.
IMHO, the USA should have 8-10 nationwide networks, the FCC has a lot to answer for.

By any international measure, by world standards of best practice, the US is poorly served by their mobile networks and their regulator, poor coverage, limited services, limited options, poor service, unresponsive, expensive, uncompetitive.

Even in Canada we have 3 national carriers, all 3 carry the iPhone (as two of them were CDMA but moved to HSPA a year and half back), they all own one or more subsidies, and there's countless regional carriers. Oh and now we have new carriers popping up offering unlimited everything plans (on AWS) in the largest cities in Canada for cheap. More competition, the better! Even regionally..

 

[d0minick]

Now, something to think about, at least in the Miami market, ATT does NOT beat Tmobile.

Nice to see another south floridian! Miami Gardens!

Seriously though, i'd have to back up golden's claim. T-mobile, here in South Florida is great. I had them before I had to go to Talla-Nasty. Then I had to get verizon because they just did not support that area. But in Miami, I'd say ATT is at the end of the stick but still, I have had no serious problem with my service.

 

[princealfie]

So this merger will leave:

AT&T
Verizon
Sprint
U.S. Cellular

Do the subcontracting cellular companies count as competitors?
Like Boost and Clear, etc.?

Since I use Sprint, I would obviously prefer they buy T-Mobile.

Don't forget Cricket and MetroPCS too.

 

[Rot'nApple]

**I'm sorry Dave, you can't do that**

LOL!

Hal

 

[CraigEvander]

And with this news there goes the competition. Hope we won't turn out like once Microsoft ruled the computer market.

 

[AFPoster]

If I were you I'd stop saying that, because if it's true and the wrong person reads it, you might find yourself in jail, or your father's girlfriend will lose her job. Dummy.

It wouldn't matter now it's out now.