Unless you have been living under a rock or in a cave, you’ve heard about the pending merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. What will this mean for us, those who love AT&T’s network and those who love T-Mobile’s price point? We aren’t sure but it certainly has a lot of us worried. Why? Competition.
When AT&T absorbs T-Mobile, that will leave only one Major GSM carrier in the USA.
“The biggest losers of this deal are going to be the consumers. While AT&T and T-Mobile are going to try to spin it as a good deal to combine wireless spectrum assets, the fact is, T-Mobile USA is now out of the market.”- gigaom
“The less competition there is, the worse things will be for consumers. There will be less pressure on the remaining companies to invest in their networks and reduce prices, and they will be less restrained from tacking on new fees.”- Troy Wolverton of MercuryNews.com
Analysts are predicting that prices will become less appealing for consumers due to lack of alternatives. Sprint left as the third wheel, stands far, far behind in terms of Subscribers could potentially be forced to merge with the other wireless behemoth, Verizon.
“On behalf of our customers, our industry and our country, Sprint will fight this attempt by AT&T to undo the progress of the past 25 years and create a new Ma Bell duopoly,” said Sprint in a statement.
AT&T counters these arguments stating that there will still be plenty of healthy competition from Local Carriers in the market. Yes that is true. However…
“Even if Sprint were to go all-out and purchase the next three largest players — MetroPCS, US Cellular, and Leap Wireless (which markets under the Cricket brand) — they’d only end up with somewhere around 53.5 percent the subscriber count of AT&T.” -Chris Ziegler of Thisismynext.com
On the other hand…
Maybe it won’t be such a bad thing. Perhaps it will create a healthier environment for us.
The thing is… I can’t really see it. If we have learned anything about the way the carriers work it is they want to make money, and lots of it.
We are going to have to see what happens.
How will Android react to the Merge and will AT&T actually take some risks with their device selections?
Will side-loading apps on Android Phone continue to be a no-no?
How much Bloatware can we expect?
Most importantly, how do you feel about it?
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If (yeah, who am I kidding? *When*) the merger happens, I’m switching to Sprint. Full stop. I have already calculated what my bill will go up to when they inevitably eliminate my plan, and the closest equivalent I can find is 50% higher — and that’s with a smaller data allowance. That would be bad enough if it wasn’t also AT&T!
I like T-Mobile, even though they don’t have 3G service at my house. (Neither does AT&T.) Sprint would actually be an improvement on that front, so in a way I’m looking forward to it, even though I am in no hurry to switch until I’m forced to.
I’ve been around long enough, to remember how it use to be with (the old) MaBell. You could have any phone you wanted, as long as it was black. When they came out with the trim line, and princess phones in the 70’s, people thought it was cooler than sliced bread! When the broke up the phone company in the early 80’s, it was a pain at first, knowing you had to call at&t, sprint or other company for your long distance needs, and a local carrier, for the dial tone and initial hookup. Then, this little thing called competition kicked in. Before you knew it, everyone had a home cordless phone that they could use, pagers were everywhere. Then in the late 80’s cellular took off, and they were somewhat expensive, there was competition and the price came down, as everyone was trying to gain market share, by offering more minutes, or rollover minutes. Now, we’ve come almost full circle. At&t has gobbled up the “baby bells” and have a lot of the wire line business that is left, and have bought out most of the cellular carriers, and with the exception of some localized markets, you have Verizon, AT&T as the big boys, with Sprint & T-Mobile as the smaller players.
Verizon says they won’t, but to survive AT&T being the “largest” in the USA, they will have to make a play for Sprint by throwing a TON of money at them, in hopes they will sell. At that point, the “real” competition will be over. Walk into an at&t or verizon store to complain? They’ll tell you to go somewhere else. 2 providers is not an answer. Just as with pay tv service. You can go with cable in a city, or direct tv/dish tv. Cable tv works in the rain (usually), satellite sometimes does not. Complain to the cable company? Yeah, let me know how that works out.
More competition is needed to further innovation & to make the price come down.
I think that when/if there are two carriers, the choice of phones will go the way of the old “ma-bell”…you can any phone you like, as long as it is black.
Well said @p51d007. I agree, I think there would be a danger in Verizon buying Sprint, Sprint probably would have to sell to them. but then what happens to all the MVDO’s out there like Boost and Simple Mobile who both uses T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s Network respectively? Surely they have some say in this matter. Lets see what happens.
I’ve been using a T-Mobil card in my iPhone 3G for quite some time with no problems. Now suddenly 3 days ago it stopped working. AT&T is citing hardware & spectrum issues involved with their purchase of T-Mobile.
What BS when it worked perfectly for more than a year without any issues. I am extremely surprised that this issue haven’t been revealed as yet.
Ok I have a theory on whats going to happen and this is only a theory.
If this merger happens prices are going to go up (this is a given). Some people think that if you’re with T-mobile you’ll be grandfathered into their plan. I don’t think this is true. I’m with AT&T Uverse and granted I don’t have a plan with them when they made their level cap I wasn’t grandfathered into the unlimited broadband. I think in time everyone is going to have the higher rates.
I also think that this newest commercials (the last couple not the hole campaign of T-Mobile Vs AT&T) is a ploy started by AT&T. If you look at the last couple commercials they are still sticking it to AT&T. I think AT&T is letting them do this because they don’t want people to think about the possible merger. They know that a certain number of people are going to jump ship from T-Mobile if this merger goes through. The more 2 year contracts they get the less money they will loose in the short term and maybe try and convert them to stay with AT&T (which I think will fail).
AT&T says they’re buying T-Mobile for their towers. Unless they negotiate this as part of the deal I think the government is going to make them sell a lot of the towers. They’ll still have towers that are in areas that AT&T has no service but in areas that both have towers they’ll have to take those down. What this means is that service will get better in very few areas.
All this is just a lie that AT&T is spewing to bring back the baby bells. I hope the government sees through this and blocks it.
There Doesn’t seem to be many people happy about it and i do think that there might be a great Exodus from TMo if it goes through.
We have been off contract for years, but stayed with T-Mobile out of inertia.
Just did the switch from T-Mobile to AT&T. Can’t fight the tide. The iPhones are showing up this afternoon. We’ll see how it goes.
I’m sure you are going to love the iPhones. Its a great device.
I currently use AT&T for my business phone. It does get pretty expensive. But I also have Virgin Mobile for my personal phone and that’s only $25 per month which includes unlimited texting and internet. Have it on an android phone which acts as a hotspot too. Plus the $25 per month includes all the taxes and fees. I think Virgin Mobile is amazing with their low prices!!
I’m looking at Virgin Mobile (LG Optimus V) as well, but the $40 plan with 1200 minutes. Am also looking at Boost Mobile with the release of their Samsung Prevail Android phone tomorrow. They have a $50 Unlimited plan that goes down to $35 after 18 month (-$5 every 6-months).
I can tell you both that the LG Optimus is a much better phone than the samsung prevail. Look it up. The Samsung Prevail while having a bigger processor is laggy. And the LG Optimus has the same GPU as the Nexus One. Its snappy and you will thank yourself. Also, the Prevail only has a 2 Megapixel Camera… Seriously… Optimus.
I currently work for t-mobile, I also currently still have AT&T with my now old school iPhone 3G….. A few months back Phillip humm and the rest of the tmobile bigwigs made a trip around the country calling tmobile the contender and how the Germans don’t back down from a fight….. Yeah right!!!!
Everyday my staff is bombarded with the same question this post was created about, and we’re ordered to say we know nothing about it, but here’s the deal: deusche telekom wasn’t making what they thought was a decent profit here….. Bottom line. As crappy as AT&T has been in the past they had the dominant gsm frequencies, and a great little phone from apple and that kept them afloat.
As far as all of the speculation goes??? We’ve been told to push wifi calling twice as hard all of a sudden…. Why??? Because as much as some of you would like to think that the old ma bell might come back the truth is small companies will begin to shove out wireless hotspot devices and VoIP will eventually take over…. Of course there will be some folks who won’t go that route, heck I still get senior citizens asking for razrs, but the youth of today and tomorrows society spend more time instant messaging and texting than they do talking…. Don’t think these companies aren’t prepping for a future where consumers will laugh at them for offering an unlimited talk plan….
They should do what most of europ does. phone work on 1 kind of network (GSM I believe) and you have 3rd party companies offering deals on minutes features. It would be like if all we had in the US is say Verizon so all phones would be verizon, but these independent phone providers would sell you plans not phones. That would cause alot of competition and the carrier(s) get a royalty check like 10% of the plan price. But you could potentionally have millions of plan suppliers all giving 10% of their income as royalty to the provider.. The provider would make so much money