A major deal just went down in the United States, which seriously shakes up the mobile industry on the other side of the pond: AT&T has announced it plans to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom.
We’re talking about an absolutely massive deal – AT&T will pay Deutsche Telekom 25 billion USD in cash, and 14 billion USD in AT&T stock, which would make Deutsche Telekom an 8% stakeholder in AT&T. The US market would look at a 130 million customer mobile provider.
“This transaction represents a major commitment to strengthen and expand critical infrastructure for our nation’s future,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s CEO, “It will improve network quality, and it will bring advanced LTE capabilities to more than 294 million people. Mobile broadband networks drive economic opportunity everywhere, and they enable the expanding high-tech ecosystem that includes device makers, cloud and content providers, app developers, customers, and more.”
“After evaluating strategic options for T-Mobile USA, I am confident that AT&T is the best partner for our customers, shareholders and the mobile broadband ecosystem,” added Deutsche Telekom CEO Ren~A(c) Obermann, “Our common network technology makes this a logical combination and provides an efficient path to gaining the spectrum and network assets needed to provide T-Mobile customers with 4G LTE and the best devices.”
When I first read the news, I was a little nervous since I read it as if AT&T would buy T-Mobile, like, all over the world. I’ve been a very satisfied T-Mobile Netherlands consumer for 7 years now (been rocking the same sim card for seven years now), and the idea of the hated AT&T taking over my mobile operator made me go like this.
For now, I’m just wondering what this deal will mean for consumers in the US. You’d think AT&T’s primary concern is to fix its network, not deal with a massive bureaucratic nightmare like integrating two very large companies and customer bases. This deal also greatly reduces competition, which is also bad for consumers.
The deal has to get regulatory approval, so things might still fall through.
What I’m against is total deregulation of the market, claiming that the invisible hand will magically solve all problems by itself. I’ve nothing against more hybrid government+companies schemes, as long as they guarantee a good minimal level of service/customer care.
WORT WORT WORT???
I read this on /. when I got up earlier today. What a crappy thing to wake up to! I went to T-Mobile specifically to get away from AT&T’s crap while staying with GSM so I have a greater selection of devices. T-Mobile’s tech and billing support are much better than AT&T’s as well.
And the worst part? I just bought a Nokia N900 last month and have been loving the hell out of it. Now I fear the same thing that happened to phone compatibility when AT&T Wireless became Cingular, then became AT&T again, will happen now.
I woudln’t worry about it too much, you probably have 2-3 years before they force you off that phone and off your current plan. They don’t want to look like the devil right away, so they will take away things slowly…
AT&T loves to be the most hated wireless provider in the entire world. They like to be the Microsoft of the wireless industry. Didn’t you know they are threatening jailbroken iPhone users who are tethering, slamming them with a chenge to their data plans on March 27?… a change for the worse, mind you!
Every evil trick they can pull off on T-Mobile customers, they are not going to leave unused.
Yay, that makes you practically a buddy of mine
I’ve been wanting one since it was first announced, but I was on AT&T at that time with a BlackBerry. Due to family and financial reasons I was never able to get one until now (divorced and healthy financially).
This isn’t the first time this has happened. Back when I was on AT&T Wireless (pre-Cingular) I had a Palm Tungsten W and loved it. With the switch to Cingular it was slowly phased out and I bounced from a Palm Treo 650 to the iPhone, then to BlackBerry before leaving AT&T for greener pastures.
I will probably keep the N900 even if it loses wireless support, as the WIFI and other functions keep it useful as an entertainment device.
I’m pretty unhappy about it as well. We left AT&T to T-Mobile after having been sent to collections twice for the same paid-on-time bill. Verizon’s rates are terrible for what we want and Sprint isn’t much better.
My final straw with AT&T was a similar situation. My (now ex-) wife received a new phone via upgrade, with a cracked screen. AT&T refused to replace or refund it even though we contacted them right away, and had insurance on her old phone that was supposed to transfer over to the new one but for some reason did not. Since the upgrade renewed the contract on that line, I couldn’t drop the line without an ETF.
That was the last push I needed after years of declining quality in support and devices.
I’m not sure what will happen with my beloved N900, either. *sigh*
Ironically, I began shopping for new broadband and HDTV service 7 days ago. I went to att.com to log in and review my bill, and was greeted by a video touting their new login process to “improve customer satisfaction”.
Didn’t work.
Instead of my longstanding username, they wanted my landline phone number. Unfortunately, both their website and their telephone support bots insist the phone number printed on my AT&T bill isn’t an AT&T number.
The only human I’ve found at AT&T after a week of exploring their endless menu systems was a sorry excuse for a human somewhere in the bowels of a network repair center, who told me that they no longer have real people in real stores (except to sell you a cellphone on a 2-year lopsided contract), and that “it’s hard to get through on the customer support (sic) line”.
So, I have to find new providers, and then send AT&T a certified letter return receipt requested via the USPS (another paean to crappy monopoly service, but let’s not go THERE). SO glad I don’t do contracts.
And now I’m about to lose T-Mobile and the nice people who have been so helpful there. Do you know that when my N900 dropped off of 3G, even though they don’t “support” the N900, their phone support actually researched the problem and provided a solution? Can you imagine anyone at AT&T doing something so… useful?
***sigh***
I’m in exactly the same boat! I just picked up an N900, sweet device, everything I wanted in a smartphone. Just had to switch to T-Mobile from big V. I think AT&T uses different GSM bands than T-Mobile so I hope I’m not going to have to get a new phone anytime soon. What a fail-pail full of lose. ;_;
You (and I) will likely lose 3G/3.5g speeds when the change occurs, as (according to a friend who is high on their tech support food chain) AT&T plans to convert the T-Mobile 3G bands to LTE for their existing network. My friend said that AT&T hopes to move all T-Mobile smartphone users to AT&T 4G/LTE devices within the next two years to facilitate the changeover.
He made the point that by then I’d have a better phone anyway, and I had to explain to him that the N900 was to be my phone for at least the next three years, until this announcement anyway.
It sucks big donkey balls.
Not really sure what to think about this. I guess one thing is I am surprised, since I always assumed it was going to be sprint and not AT&T to buy Tmobile. While this does look bad it might have one posotive effect, it could force AT&T to give up quite a bit of power like locking down phones or something to make this go through(of course if they give up nothing, then this is really bad).
It is amazing that even with all that has happened carries still insist on trying to cripple phones as a business model.
DAMMIT, I was about to switch away from AT&T to T-Mobile! They seemed like the least-evil major US carrier. (Other than maybe Sprint, who I don’t recall ever making headlines for better or worse.)
Well, T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom is the most-evil major DE carrier in Germany.
It’s what used to be D1, right?
No, RRReichspost actually. They haven’t changed their behaviour since then.
This is insane. Now there are now three major carriers in the US. How is this good for consumers? T-Mobile had the best customer support, was the most friendly service if you wanted to buy an unlocked phone, and was the best network for early adopters. It might have been the only service where it is actually cheaper to pay as you go than it is to get a contract.
Has there ever been a situation where merging cellphone companies ended up making things better for the consumer? Sprint-Nextel was a textbook case of a merger gone wrong (we actually studied this in my capstone management course). Only within the past year has Sprint started to recover its reputation. More recently, the Alltel-Verizon merger introduced Alltel users to the lying scumbags known as Verizon customer service who would use any opportunity to renew your contract and sell you an ugly phone designed by the folks at jitterbug.
I hope I can get out of my T-Mobile contract without paying ETF once this thing goes through.
Just an update, I have found what may be my new cellphone provider. SimpleMobile is a GSM provider that allows you to just buy the SIM card and has $40 unlimited talk + text. Anyone here have experience with this service? I’m tempted to give it a try.
SimpleMobile appears to be an MVNO on T-Mobile’s network.
Here’s a list of MVNO’s
in the US along with which network(s) they operate on (includes Defunct operators)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_MVNO“