This is gonna be great for me...I live in a very rural area, am currently on AT&T, with sparse coverage, but there are many TMobile towers out here. This should really increase AT&T's coverage.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I get excellent AT&T service. I've never had a dropped call and my speeds are in the 3Mb range. I doubt much can change for me, besides faster data (perhaps).
The article says: "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."
More towers in more places means more coverage. More circuits for the network so more towers are sharing the pressure of the bandwidth instead of existing few.
Rats!
I fled from AT&T (Cingular) when they degraded their signal so that I could no longer use them at home or at work without signing a new contract at a higher rate. (The rep claimed that a new Cingular sim card would improve service over my old AT&T sim card but that I had to sign a new contract before he could give me one to prove it.) I had cell service less than 30% of the time when it had been adequate before Cingular took over. Went to T-Mobile and I had max bars all the time and as good a customer service experience as you can get with this industry. The chance to finally get an iPhone doesn't seem worth the aggravation of dealing again with a company with an inclination to abuse their customers- especially the ones they get by merger. They'll spend their time trying to squeeze more money out of us.
I fled from AT&T (Cingular) when they degraded their signal so that I could no longer use them at home or at work without signing a new contract at a higher rate. (The rep claimed that a new Cingular sim card would improve service over my old AT&T sim card but that I had to sign a new contract before he could give me one to prove it.) I had cell service less than 30% of the time when it had been adequate before Cingular took over. Went to T-Mobile and I had max bars all the time and as good a customer service experience as you can get with this industry. The chance to finally get an iPhone doesn't seem worth the aggravation of dealing again with a company with an inclination to abuse their customers- especially the ones they get by merger. They'll spend their time trying to squeeze more money out of us.
Last edited:
And this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You have to determine the relevant market before you can decide what practices are anticompetitive.
I don't think GSM is the relevant market, but whether the relevant market is GSM, wireless service, telephone service more generally, or even telecommunications generally, in AT&T and T-Mobile's business, it's always about what the technology is.
Sure, monopoly is ultimately about a company's ability to control price, but you have to ask: control the price of what?
You mean AT&T had $39 billion sitting around and they WERENT BUILDING MORE ****** CELL TOWERS?!?!
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)
I'm on AT&T and have had great service in Boston/Cambridge for the past 3 years. I can't remember the last time I dropped a call, I have service everywhere, and the network is fast except at peak times.
andiwm2003 said:
I'm on AT&T and have had great service in Boston/Cambridge for the past 3 years. I can't remember the last time I dropped a call, I have service everywhere, and the network is fast except at peak times.
The U.S. has a different pricing model, with high fees but lots of minutes. Personally, I don't talk on the phone all that much, so I'd prefer the European model, which is more pay-per-use, but "at the end of 2009, the average revenue per minute in the U.S. was $ 0.04. Across Europes developed countries, the average revenue per minute was $0.16. As a result, the average wireless consumer in Europe used just 160 minutes a month compared to over 824 minutes a month for the U.S."
For many users, the U.S. model is much better, for light users, the Europe model is better. Given the strange cost structure of the wireless industry (huge upfront costs, close to zero marginal cost), it will always have strange user contracts given that no-contract competition would force price to marginal cost (zero), and no mobile carrier could meet their debt obligations.
All and all, it is the cost structure that drives what plans look like. Neither the European model of pay per use, or the American model of a high-priced you can eat buffet is very efficient for different reasons.
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)
I'm on AT&T and have had great service in Boston/Cambridge for the past 3 years. I can't remember the last time I dropped a call, I have service everywhere, and the network is fast except at peak times.
andiwm2003 said:
I'm on AT&T and have had great service in Boston/Cambridge for the past 3 years. I can't remember the last time I dropped a call, I have service everywhere, and the network is fast except at peak times.
No, they did the numbers and figured that buying t-mobile's towers were cheaper than building new ones
The bankers behind the deal must be jumping up and down with excitement.
Thats a lotta fees for them, regardless of whether its a smart move for ATT or not... LoL
Thats a lotta fees for them, regardless of whether its a smart move for ATT or not... LoL
Win-Win situation for AT&T and T-Mobile. T-Mobile customers are already using jailbroken AT&T iPhones on their system; so it shouldn't be too difficult to get everyone on 4G in a few months or weeks. Verizon still doesn't have the ability to talk and retrieve data on their iPhone...lol
My questions are
1. When will this take place?
2. How much are my T-Mobile rates increasing?
3. When will the other shoe drop (concerning everything AT&T)?
4. Will the FCC actually approve this deal?
1. When will this take place?
2. How much are my T-Mobile rates increasing?
3. When will the other shoe drop (concerning everything AT&T)?
4. Will the FCC actually approve this deal?
They didn't buy them, they just merged operations and created a new company called Everything Everywhere. They still have Orange and T-Mobile stores. They just allow people to share 2G/Edge Network.
Considering all the red tape and time that any company has to go through putting up a tower in any jurisdiction, this was a brilliant move by AT&T.
I get annoyed with the "put up more towers" comments all the time. It just goes to show how ignorant people are to the entire process. It has much less to do with capital and far more to do with regulations why towers can't just pop up over night.
So $39 billion buys us what, like 42 new customers? There goes next years raise.
T-Mobile has more than you think / wish to believe
Last edited by a moderator:
hot or not, she's now out of a job
i think they should bring back catherine zeta jones, calling up michael douglas and reminding him its their anniversary while he books a restaurant at the same time as telling her that 'of course he hasn't forgotten'.