AT&T Buys Tmobile

[Town Drunk]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382267,00.asp

 

[Beaver]

Not good if you are a T-Mobile customer.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Great news for VZW if it is approved by the FCC.

-Tons of T-Mo customers who will be jumping!
-Less cash to build out their LTE network. T-Mo had no real LTE plans and AT&T just dropped 40 billion on an albatross of a conversion. They will be too busy joining networks and divesting spectrum to make LTE the #1 priority.
-Horribly low revenue per customer from T-mo = Bad debt.
-AT&T gains barely any new coverage.
-Removes Deutsch Telecom from the US market. They have loads of cash.
-T-Mo's Wireless sales force will be forced to unionize. Man that sucks for them. lol
-I was there when Cingular bought AT&T Wireless. Cingular (and now AT&T) really sucks at it.
-Horrible customer service due to different billing systems, & poorly trained call centers.
-About 12 months from now, customers will have to start moving off of the T-Mo price plans if they want a new phone.

This really seems like mis-direction to me. AT&T recognizes that they are about to lose the fastest network moniker. They have no iPhone monopoly. They have never had great coverage, or customer service.

So what do they do??? They go after the "Most Customers" marketing plan.



And it gives VZW more time to allow Sprint to fall even further behind before they can just be scooped up by VZW when they are good and ready.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Oh.... And there will be a good amount of lay-offs because of this. Many redundant jobs.

Nothing funny about that. I have a ton of friends over there.

 

[Dback Jon]

Great news for VZW if it is approved by the FCC.

-Tons of T-Mo customers who will be jumping!
-Less cash to build out their LTE network. T-Mo had no real LTE plans and AT&T just dropped 40 billion on an albatross of a conversion. They will be too busy joining networks and divesting spectrum to make LTE the #1 priority.
-Horribly low revenue per customer from T-mo = Bad debt.
-AT&T gains barely any new coverage.
-Removes Deutsch Telecom from the US market. They have loads of cash.
-T-Mo's Wireless sales force will be forced to unionize. Man that sucks for them. lol
-I was there when Cingular bought AT&T Wireless. Cingular (and now AT&T) really sucks at it.
-Horrible customer service due to different billing systems, & poorly trained call centers.
-About 12 months from now, customers will have to start moving off of the T-Mo price plans if they want a new phone.

This really seems like mis-direction to me. AT&T recognizes that they are about to lose the fastest network moniker. They have no iPhone monopoly. They have never had great coverage, or customer service.

So what do they do??? They go after the "Most Customers" marketing plan.



And it gives VZW more time to allow Sprint to fall even further behind before they can just be scooped up by VZW when they are good and ready.

Disagree - great deal for At&T, and existing At&T customers

1) What makes you think tons will jump?
2) This is ALL about LTE
3) T-mobile was profitable - expands AT&T into new niche
4) T-mobile' coverage was better in a number of places that AT&T was lacking. In addition, this allows easy expansion of AT&T's service in areas where the existing network was overloaded.
5) Good for them!
6) My AT&T customer service has always been great. No reason it won't be in the future

 

[Dr. Jones]

Disagree - great deal for At&T, and existing At&T customers

1) What makes you think tons will jump?
2) This is ALL about LTE
3) T-mobile was profitable - expands AT&T into new niche
4) T-mobile' coverage was better in a number of places that AT&T was lacking. In addition, this allows easy expansion of AT&T's service in areas where the existing network was overloaded.
5) Good for them!
6) My AT&T customer service has always been great. No reason it won't be in the future

1A. T-Mo customers who cant keep their plans and leave on principal.
1B. T-Mo customers who just hate AT&T. (It happens).
1C. AT&T Customers who cant get T-Mo plans.
1D. T-Mo customers caught in the billing system and customer service foul ups that are bound to happen.
1E. Market Divestiture. The FCC wont let AT&T keep everything.

2A. 40 billion on merger. almost 30 is straight cash. T-Mo is adding thousands of cell towers with no LTE. T-Mo has different billing systems, different call centers. The amount of time, money, training, and infrastructure needed to complete this will put them ATLEAST 1 to 2 years behind the AT&T rollout plans. Mark my words.
2B. T-Mo is notorious for bad debt postpaid subscribers and low cost bad debt prepaid service. Why would Deut Telecom want out if it was a money maker???
2C. 1 FULL YEAR of merger, and integration nightmares in almost every facet of their business.

3 - http://androidcommunity.com/t-mobile-reports-4-69-billion-in-revenue-still-loosing-subscribers-20110225/

This year the carrier saw 33.73m subscribers in Q4 2010, according to some even newer figures released today, down from 33.76m in Q3 2010 and 33.79m year-on-year. T-Mobile did mention that one of the larger shifts was with On-Contract subscribers, down a massive 318,000 – over 5x greater than in the previous three month period. That is a pretty big drop. although the pre-pay customers are up from Q3, while still being way down from T-Mobiles pre-pay figures for 2009.

“High contract churn and significant contract customer losses in the fourth quarter of 2010 indicate that we still have a fair amount of work ahead of us” Philipp Humm, President and CEO of T-Mobile USA says, warning that “any turnaround will take time.”

Postpaid down + Prepaid up = BAD DEBT.

4. Coverage. They are trying to shine the pig up. The network handoff issues, combined with the LTE to HSPA+ handoff issues that this will create is nuts.
5. Ok
6. Good! Lets see if it continues when your sent to a T-mo cust service rep by mistake. When Cing and ATW merged it happend over 40% of the time.

 

[Beaver]

So you expect Verizon to buy Sprint?

Ma Bell all over again?????????????? Two company competition isn't good for the customer.

 

[Town Drunk]

Nope. Less competition is bad for consumers. Prices are already high as is. Now there won't be any incentive to offer value plans.

I was seriously thinking of switching to either Sprint or Tmobile in May. I'm wondering if AT&T will honor those existing Tmobile plans and contracts.

Also, I'm thinking the Feds may not let this deal happen.

 

[Dr. Jones]

So you expect Verizon to buy Sprint?

Ma Bell all over again?????????????? Two company competition isn't good for the customer.

According to AT&T on this mornings media call they believe most markets will still have up to 5 competitors in it. They must be using prepaid carriers and MBB companies.

Sprint
Clear
Metro PCS/Cricket/etc.
VZW
AT&T

That has to be the rationale.

And yes.... VZW is waiting for Sprint to die so it can pick it up for bargain basement pricing. That's my honest, 1-person opinion.

 

[Covert Rain]

According to AT&T on this mornings media call they believe most markets will still have up to 5 competitors in it. They must be using prepaid carriers and MBB companies.

Sprint
Clear
Metro PCS/Cricket/etc.
VZW
AT&T

That has to be the rationale.

And yes.... VZW is waiting for Sprint to die so it can pick it up for bargain basement pricing. That's my honest, 1-person opinion.

Sprint will not die if they look to merge with one of the smaller telecoms. They need too to survive. Sprint has a good corporate customer base. I work in IT and so do many of my friends and almost every one of them have corporate carrier deals with Sprint. Also, as long as Sprint continues to be the best deal in terms of pricing they will be around IMO. I am not confident that this deal means that AT&T will all of the sudden offer better pricing plans or improve their customer service. So their long term strategy is critical.

It's a great deal for AT&T though for now. I don't buy into, people will switch because of the "principle" of it. This will all hinge on how AT&T deals with the merger long term. If there is any fallout it will be over the long term and not the short.

T-Mobile has had excellent customer satisfaction ratings for some time now. If AT&T completely dumps T-Mobile's approach to service, than you could see some long terms attrition to their customer base. However, in the short term, it's a win win for AT&T. More infrastructure to work with.

I am not sure any of this is necessarily good for customers though. AT&T & Verizon continue to gouge customers. We need companies like Sprint to keep the larger ones for setting outrageous pricing practices, promote price competitiveness and show there are other ways to deal with data traffic than throttling at the customers expense.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Sprint will not die if they look to merge with one of the smaller telecoms. They need too to survive. Sprint has a good corporate customer base. I work in IT and so do many of my friends and almost every one of them have corporate carrier deals with Sprint. Also, as long as Sprint continues to be the best deal in terms of pricing they will be around IMO. I am not confident that this deal means that AT&T will all of the sudden offer better pricing plans or improve their customer service. So their long term strategy is critical.

IMO..... The longer they keep the low priced plans, the worse they will get. Rising infrastructure costs coupled with the higher subsidies on today's (and tomorrow's) technologies will mean less and less profit for a company already losing money every quarter.