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

[HitchHykr]

American cell/mobile/handy service is already horrible on a global level. I can't imagine that reducing the competition will help at all.

I weep even more for the digital consumer in the US 🙁

Don'r cry for me Argentina, ahem, I mean Germany?

 

[URFloorMatt]

How does not scream higher prices for all?
Who can think this is possibly good? AT&T will now have the only GSM spectrum (basically) and can raise the prices, lower the caps, and constrict users even more.

Yeah. Given what they're doing to U-Verse customers regarding bandwidth caps, anyone who thinks this is good news can't see the forest for the trees.

 

[theturtle]

The main reason to buy another carrier is to get more frequencies.

So I suspect that all past at&t phones and all past t-mobile phones will continue to work on this new at&t network the same as always.

What they WON'T do is gain much new coverage. But going forward most at&t phones will probably be tuned for more frequencies, meaning that future at&t phones will get wider coverage than current ones do.

But that's just a guess. The other thing they could do is turn all T-Mobile frequencies to LTE 4G and, yes, tell you all to get new 3G phones (for the old at&t 3G network). That's another option.

So do you think that att will adopt 1700 or just drop it completely?

I mean, the only benefit I see in this would be that att customers would have larger coverage (EDGE and GPRS wise).

If ATT DOES decide to keep 1700, wouldn't apple and every other phone company have to make their devices pentaband now?

 

[imutter]

This. Unfortunate since t-mo is currently more affordable than AT&T.

Not for me I have kept my voice plan since years and for a family with iPhones and texting and the roll over minutes we are better and have been better off then any other carrier now for a single person it may be but a family ? No way I also love the costumer service they always have been awesome at least for me. W e do not even have a home phone havn't had one in years. I am also excited and hope when tarveling to Germany it will be easier to just swap simcards that is what we usually do with T- mobil in Germany . I doubt it will be a price increase but possible more flexible options ?

 

[cvaldes]

I gotta say, I didn't see this coming.

I'm inclined to think this will be good for current at&t iPhone users. Service will improve and as for prices...well Verizon and at&t never cared what the other 2 charged anyway. They really just watched each other. So I don't think this will change anything there.

Actually, current AT&T iPhone users probably won't see any benefits. Their handsets won't connect to T-Mobile USA's 3G data service due to different frequencies. AT&T uses UTMS bands II (PCS) and V (CLR); T-Mobile USA uses band IV (AWS).

The current iPhone hardware (iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4) doesn't support AWS. Even if AT&T and T-Mobile USA gave immediate roaming to its customers, the only thing that would work would be voice service (GSM) and 2.5G data (EDGE/GPRS).

In order for anyone to take advantage of this merger, we would need a handset that supports all bands. Maybe the iPhone 5 will have this capability, but we won't know until Apple releases it.

 

[dontwalkhand]

iPhone 5 for everyone? Good for Apple iPhone users but bad for monthly pricing.

 

[Small White Car]

. I'd put my money on phasing out the t-mo bands.

Those bands are worth billions of dollars.

They're not going to throw away the most valuable part of the company they just bought.

But yes, we don't know how they'll use them. There are a couple of different ways they could do this. But phasing them out won't be one of their options.

In order for anyone to take advantage of this merger, we would need a handset that supports all bands.

Well, yeah. Thought that was obvious so I didn't spell it out. But I guess it's good to explain it for people who didn't know.

 

[ap3604]

Holy $h*t 🙁

Reminds me of the Death Star blowing up Alderan 🙁🙁🙁

 

[hushmartin]

Come back here in a couple of years and report your new mobile GSM options. Ther is no way this is a good thing for 1.consumers. 2.competition 3.advancement

Banks will be at 5, communications at 2.

All hail collusion, fixed pricing, and monopolies.

Except...that's exactly what the chicken littles were crying when Verizon bought Alltel... and none of it came to pass. Sorry, I don't buy it. Now if something were to happen to Sprint, I think I'd be a little worried. Also, there are still plenty of regional carriers to switch to if the **** really hits the fan.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I really hope this is not approved. We need more cell carriers not fewer. Personally I almost feel that they need to be broken up some more. US is already lagging way behind in terms of price vs services. About the only country worse than us is Canada.
Sadly I see AT&T killing off T-Mobiles UMA offerings instead of expanding it. UMA is much MUCH better than the microcell crap.
On top of that it is bad things for Android because AT&T will just lock it down even more and T-Mobile has been fairly open to it. Plus increase cost all around.

This is bad and I really do not want it approved.

 

[scott523]

Wow. Definitely didn't see this coming. This brings up more questions and/or concerns. How will T-Mobile's AWS work with AT&T? What happens to T-Mobile's plans?

 

[cvaldes]

I guess there will be no T-mobile iPhone then

My question is - why did Apple not buy them and tell AT&T to pound sand?

Because Apple is not in the telecommunications service industry. That's not their business model. They make money selling high-margin hardware. If you have any doubts about this, please read their SEC filings over the past twenty years.

Apple considers mobile operators to be dumb pipes, utilities like the garbage men and the people who deliver electricity to your house.

 

[Yankee617]

Expect less even more.

...and expect more even less.

 

[TMar]

How does not scream higher prices for all?
Who can think this is possibly good? AT&T will now have the only GSM spectrum (basically) and can raise the prices, lower the caps, and constrict users even more.

Dear Department of Justice:

Don't let this happen. 100% anticompetitive; the only major GSM carrier in the USA will have full control, and would-be t-mobile customers will be stuck with AT&T prices.

This is the stupidest things I've ever heard. The technology behind the phone doesn't matter and doesn't make them anticompetitive.

 

[ethana]

Dear Department of Justice:

Don't let this happen. 100% anticompetitive; the only major GSM carrier in the USA will have full control, and would-be t-mobile customers will be stuck with AT&T prices.

Disagree. CMDA and GSM are on the way out over the next 10-15 years as 4G takes hold. Three major players in the 4G is very competitive. The USDOJ will allow this to happen.

 

[Small White Car]

So do you think that att will adopt 1700 or just drop it completely?

I mean, the only benefit I see in this would be that att customers would have larger coverage (EDGE and GPRS wise).

If ATT DOES decide to keep 1700, wouldn't apple and every other phone company have to make their devices pentaband now?

I don't know how they'll handle the transition, but the goal is probably to use all the t-mobile bands (and some of the old at&t bands) for LTE.

That's the 10-year plan, though. I can't begin to guess what will happen over the next 2 or 3 years.

 

[rsocal]

Next up: Verizon buys Sprint.

Wouldn't be surprised.😱

 

[tigres]

Except...that's exactly what the chicken littles were crying when Verizon bought Alltel... and none of it came to pass. Sorry, I don't buy it. Now if something were to happen to Sprint, I think I'd be a little worried. Also, there are still plenty of regional carriers to switch to if the **** really hits the fan.

Oh, you mean like lowes and home depot not hurting my local mom and pop shops. Got it. 🙄

 

[ERICLRICH]

Dont worry

AT&T is just buying some of T-Mobile's HSPA+ service.😡
We might see an iPhone on T-Mobile.😀
Beacuse so many iPhones are on AT&T, they can't offer unlimited data to costumers.😡 So AT&T is "stealing" (not) HSPA+ service from T-Mobile.😡

T-Mobile will still be enemys with AT&T.😀

 

[hushmartin]

Those bands are worth billions of dollars.

They're not going to throw away the most valuable part of the company they just bought.

But yes, we don't know how they'll use them. There are a couple of different ways they could do this. But phasing them out won't be one of their options.

Indeed, they ARE worth billions. That doesn't mean they want to make manufacturers re-engineer all of their phones to use those extra bands effectively. It also doesn't mean they won't SELL those bands to another company for billions of dollars in a few years, effectively wiping out their competition while increasing market share at very little net cost to the company. In fact, I'd guess that is their plan.

 

[3N16MA]

This reminds me of when Rogers bought Fido here in Canada. Obviously not as much money involved but sort of the same thing.

 

[manu chao]

AT&T and T-Mobile customers should see service improvements with improved voice quality due to increased cell tower density and broader network infrastructure. At closing, AT&T will immediately gain cell cites that would have taken 5 years to build otherwise.

I have yet to find a dictionary which contains the noun 'cite'. 🙄

 

[cvaldes]

Wow. Definitely didn't see this coming. This brings up more questions and/or concerns. How will T-Mobile's AWS work with AT&T? What happens to T-Mobile's plans?

T-Mobile USA can't clobber AWS, they already have many subscribers using those services.

Ideally, there would be handset hardware that supports AWS, CLR, and PCS, maybe in a future device, even as early as iPhone 5.

T-Mobile will probably continue its rollout of HSPA+. They didn't have any 4G plans because they didn't have any spectrum. Eventually T-Mobile users will use 4G LTE running on the 700MHz spectrum that AT&T acquired from Qualcomm. T-Mobile USA was staring at a dead end concerning 4G, which is why it was probably entertaining mergers with Sprint or AT&T (which have 4G allocated spectrum, like Verizon).

 

[Dr McKay]

I wonder if this affects T-Mobile in Europe, they seem to be doing quite well for themselves here.

 

[nateo200]

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.

T-Mobiles 3G uses 2100 and 1700. 2100 for downlink and 1700 for uplink, similar to the EU's 2100 which does the same except they use 1900 for uplink which no carrier here could do because it was already used. I say AT&T turns all those 2100/1700 HSPA cell sites to 2100/1900 cell sites. Get rid of EDGE on 1900 slowly and turn it into 3G and legacy customers can roam on AT&T's 850 and 1900 EDGE. I guess that depends on how how hard/$$ that is though...