AT&T Officially Ends Plans To Acquire T-Mobile USA 176
An anonymous reader writes "AT&T has officially announced that it no longer plans to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom. In a press release, the company said, 'The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.'"
And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:5, Interesting)
A t-mobile subscriber.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I could care less - as long as they sell it to somebody who doesn't already operate a large mobile network in the US. They'd have every incentive to continue to improve the operation, and DT has every incentive to make TMo look good for sale.
Re: (Score:2)
Complaining about trivial things, eh? I wanna play too! Let's see..
You're not speaking to valley girls. You don't need to say things like "super-old", especially when you have all the adjectives of the English language to draw on.
HTH.
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there was some rejoicing. Deutsche Telekom still wants out of the US market, so we can sort of expect to be treated like second-class citizens for a while until the inevitable occurs and either T-Mobile sinks entirely or someone ELSE buys them out.
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:5, Insightful)
If the kind of service that I've gotten with TMobile over the last 10 years is "second-class", I'll have to say I like it. What would that make ATT customers? Fifth-class citizens?
Remember that TMobile is a PROFITABLE company. They are actively making money. If DT would just cut them lose and give them the freedom to succeed or fail, I am willing to bet that they would do pretty well.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember that TMobile is a PROFITABLE company. They are actively making money. If DT would just cut them lose and give them the freedom to succeed or fail, I am willing to bet that they would do pretty well.
Profitable is an elusive beast. Its doubtful T-Mobile alone would survive.
During the first quarter of 2011, T-Mobile saw its revenue hit $4.63 billion, putting it in line with the first quarter of 2010. However, the company's profit fell over $200 million year over year from $362 million last year to $135 million in the first quarter of 2011.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20060353-17.html [cnet.com]
They can see the writing on the wall, as their small market area makes it hard for them to compete.
In addition DT has problems elsewhere, parts of their Euro market [businessweek.com] are also tanking. In fact the German market sees to be the only place they are making a good profit margin. They were counting on the now-defunct sale as a source of income.
Re: (Score:3)
I made a bone head configuration setting on my phone in Minisotta, and the customer service in the T-Mobile store in Minisotta was just as good as that here in California.
Re: (Score:2)
Minnesota. Spell checker works for you as well as other people, and there is no penalty for using it.
HINT: You were roaming on AT&T most of the time. But happy delusion day to you.
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is that delusional? He paid T-Mobile for service. He got service. Why does he care who owns the towers?
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and it costs a third what my Verizon dumbphone did, without a data plan.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm... you must go to some obscure places in Wyoming (ok, that might be redundant...). My VZWL phone works fine, but that's mostly on I-80 corridor, Rawlins to Casper, Casper to Lusk, I-25 corridor. No roaming, or at least none that I notice. Even signal on most of US-30 between I-80 and I-15. But it does lose it north of Lusk once the terrain gets a bit rougher, but that's a terrain restriction. If I'm up high enough, it'll pick up a signal...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I live in Newark, NJ, and I used to be a T-Mobile customer. Their service was abysmal. I had to walk down the block from my home on some days to get a good enough signal to actually be able to understand people.
I'm not exactly surrounded by skyscrapers here. The biggest building for blocks around my neighborhood is about 3 stories tall.
If this were in a little podunk town it wouldn't be an issue, but Newark is the biggest city in NJ on population alone. My family stayed with them for something like 3 years
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:4, Informative)
It seems like every discussion on cell phone providers ends up with stories like this. People who've had little or no problem everywhere they go, people who had trouble with signal on one provider in some area but fine with another, etc. I had an opposite experience with Verizon and T-Mobile - Verizon sucked in my house in a suburb of Atlanta, both T-Mobile and now AT&T have been great. Verizon also sucked at my in-law's house out in the very middle of nowhere PA, while T-Mobile also sucked and AT&T is at least usable.
So, it pretty much seems like everyone needs to find the provider that works best in their area while they all need to work more on network coverage.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, there was some rejoicing. Deutsche Telekom still wants out of the US market, so we can sort of expect to be treated like second-class citizens for a while until the inevitable occurs and either T-Mobile sinks entirely or someone ELSE buys them out.
They have said they wanted out, with 4 billion may change their mind.
They are not particularly profitable in the US because they are tied to the Euro mind-set of how mobile works. It doesn't work that way in North America, and never has. The area you need to cover is vast, the technologies in place are varied, and other than a Cutey in a Pink Dress, they don't have anything that is significantly different than any one of several small-fry carriers.
They need to change their mindset, realize they are in it f
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just remember why Deutsche Telekom wanted to get rid of T-Mobile: it's a bad business for them, they want out. They tried to sell before (to Orange). T-Mobile will still get bought, or will go under. Why did Sprint oppose the deal? They don't care who owns their competitors: they knew T-Mobile was in a death march, and knew they'd get customers when they flatlined. The AT&T deal kept them from getting that plunder. (To say nothing of the assets that will come available when T-Mobile declares bankruptcy)
Of course, T-Mobile gets a couple of billion dollars from AT&T due to the failed merger, which should hold off failure for a couple of years. Nonetheless, if you're a T-Mobile customer, you need to keep your eyes open and determine who your next carrier will be.
T-Mobile USA is not sliding towards bankruptcy.... (Score:5, Informative)
T-Mobile will still get bought, or will go under.
To say nothing of the assets that will come available when T-Mobile declares bankruptcy
T-Mobile USA makes money. It just doesn't make enough money for the corporate overlords at DT. They don't view the United States as a growth market without billions of dollars in capital investment they've thus far been unwilling to make. Absent that investment T-Mobile USA will remain what it has always been: an urban focused value carrier.
T-Mobile will still get bought, or will go under.
Vodaphone is a possibility if they divest their 45% share of Verizon Wireless. Verizon would love to buy them out; the question is would they be willing to sell to jump into the US market with both feet or does it make more sense for them to keep cashing VZW dividend checks?
Re:T-Mobile USA is not sliding towards bankruptcy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
T-Mobile USA makes money. It just doesn't make enough money for the corporate overlords at DT. They don't view the United States as a growth market without billions of dollars in capital investment they've thus far been unwilling to make. Absent that investment T-Mobile USA will remain what it has always been: an urban focused value carrier.
I live in an urban/suburban area and have great coverage. When I travel to a more rural area, which I do frequently, my T-Mobile phone roams on the AT&T network if T-Mo isn't available. The collapse of this deal will only help since not only does T-Mo get $3 billion cash, they get a transfer of radio spectrum to T-Mobile and a more favorable network-sharing agreement. DT valued the breakup package at as much as $7 billion.
I travel to Europe enough that I need a GSM phone. T-Mo provides great service
Re: (Score:3)
This is what is wrong with the business world as a whole worldwide. It isn't 'good enough' to make a quality product that provides something useful to you customers and pays all the employees while turning a smallish profit. it must GROW GROW GROW , which sooner or later always messes over the customer and creates unstable markets, because guess what , resources and capital aren't infinite.
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:5, Informative)
T-Mobile is very profitable. Deutsche only wants out because it's no longer in growth mode. It certainly won't grow any without spectrum and LTE, and it can't afford either one. So yeah it will be sold or merged one way or another, but it's not a bad business. They can ride their faux-G network for a while but not forever.
Re: (Score:2)
"Faux-G?" I get legit 3.5Mbps downloads at work on this "faux" G network. I'm pretty happy with that.
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:5, Insightful)
T-Mobile is doing fine, it's just that DK wants to go in a different direction. They're not going to crash and burn a valuable asset just to exit the U.S. wireless market though. They'll try to sell it off somewhere instead (being careful to maintain it's value in the mean while), or perhaps spin it out and sell it one share at a time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:And there was much rejoicing !! (Score:5, Interesting)
From Sprint subscribers, too. T-Mobile's our lifeboat and sanctuary if Sprint becomes evil someday.
Re: (Score:2)
if Sprint becomes evil someday
Didn't you get the memo?
What says they won't try another way? (Score:5, Interesting)
It just seems odd that AT&T would let a leak stop them from acquiring T-Mobile.
As a very satisfied T-Mobile customer with flat-rate 3G, I'm not going to put it beyond AT&T to try some less-visible route to get rid of the only national carrier that doesn't try to meter data.
Re: (Score:2)
The deal is dead, dead, dead as a doornail, done. AT&T would not be paying four billion dollars to one of its biggest competitors if it thought there was a snowball's chance in hell it could avoid doing so.
Re: (Score:3)
Sprint has been known to send nastygrams to subscribers who *egregiously* go over 5gb, month after month after month, and occasionally fires customers who are out of contract and do it... but it's pretty rare. You have to abuse Sprint and data pretty badly and be a total pain to get dumped as a customer, especially if you're on a full-priced individual Android plan. The people who really end up on Sprint's hit list are the ones who somehow managed to stack discounts over the years and now pay something ridi
Why link to a story which only rehashes the press (Score:4, Informative)
The story just rehashes the press release by AT&T.
And by the time the story got to Slashdot, others have already written decent stories about it - those would have made much better links.
The business perspective [bloomberg.com].
The regular news [nytimes.com]
And the tech perspective [arstechnica.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd agree. That, and if you had a good plan, you got to keep your good plan - even if you did things that would cause AT&T to switch your plan to a worse one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Do they still use DPI to intercept "media" downloads that might be used to egregiously abuse their network by getting ringtones and wallpapers without jumping through their stupid "locker" hoops or buying it from them?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Best news for a while (Score:5, Interesting)
AT&T would shit themselves if some of the plans you can get in Canada were made available in the US, let alone a European or a Japanese plan.
To put things in perspective for our American friends, from a carrier like Mobilicity (one of the newer startups, only available in big cities at the moment), you can get unlimited Canada/US talk, global texting, call display, voicemail, 3-way calling, and unlimited data (including tethering) for $55/mo. If you pre-pay the year in advance it comes to about $35/mo (and that's not a special offer... the holiday special offer that's on right now is $27.50/mo for the first 6 months, or 12 months if you put it on automatic preauthorized payments). You can bring your own phone if you like, or you can buy an Android phone from them for as little as $169, and that's without a term contract. Their coverage is good as long as you don't leave the big city, and if you do leave the city, you'll roam on one of the national networks.
And if you'd rather have a plan on the national network, I am paying $40/mo for my smartphone plan... it's not unlimited data (it's a flex plan, $5/mo is the minimum data level, which I'm usually on, but it goes up to $30/mo for 3GB, tethering included even at the $5/mo level), and it's only 150 anytime minutes, but I have unlimited evenings/weekends @ 5pm-8am (which is basically unlimited talk when you're at work M-F 9-5), and unlimited long distance, as well as global texting, call display, voicemail, 3-way calling, etc. That's with Koodo, which is a fight brand wholly owned by Telus, which is one of the big 3 carriers.
And at this point, the Americans are probably saying "holy shit, you can get a plan like those in Canada?". And the Europeans and Japanese are saying "holy shit, people actually pay that much?"
Re: (Score:2)
Most *users* are on a contract, because they would rather get an iPhone for $0.99 rather than actually paying what it's worth. That said, there is legislation in the works to change the way cell carriers can handle early termination of the contract, and that's likely to change the contract situation.
All *carriers* offer no-contract options on their plans, and none of them require you to be on a contract to get a good plan. For just about all of the ones that subsidize phones at all, your choice is let them
Re: (Score:2)
HA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bite me, AT&T. Auto repair is competitive.
* Cell phones in the US have a small pool of providers, especially the nation-wide crowd.
* They primarily operate with 2 year contracts, and it's hard to get a phone without one.
* There's a financial disincentive for buying a phone without a contract.
* Text message rates (for which there is very little data usage, being measured in bytes) have been increasing.
* Data plans have been increasing in price and providing tighter bandwidth restrictions at the same time.
I loathe AT&T, and I'm stuck with them. Competitive? I'd get out in a heartbeat if I felt I had somewhere to go. T-Mobile has been the closest saving grace to AT&T, so I really don't want to see that absorbed.
Thanks to the Fed did -- they did one right there.
Re: (Score:2)
"Stuck with" AT&T huh? I feel your pain; I was stuck on a family plan for ten years with that God-awful mess that is AT&T, because everyone in the family kept renewing their two-year contracts at different times, and everyone was afraid to take the early termination fee hit.
Finally I just did the math and legwork myself and forced the rest of the family to take the plunge with me; turns out that even with ETFs and having to buy our handsets outright we're going to save hundreds of dollars over the n
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe it's just me being picky and not a competition issue...but I rarely get close to 400min/mo. That's the smallest plan offered (unless I'm a senior) and I pay $39. I have a smart phone, but don't have a data plan (use wifi only)--but would love to have one. I think a data plan would cost another $20-30 (about $70 total before taxes).
None of those plans would really fit my needs. What I would prefer is similar to what I saw in London; a pay-as-you-go talk and data system. Nobody in the US has pay-as
Re: (Score:2)
Did you read the post you replied to? According to it, for $1-$6 more per month, you could have enough minutes and also unlimited data via either Virgin Mobile or Simple Mobile. Additionally, what the grandparent post didn't mention is that Virgin has a $35/month ($4 less) plan with 300 minutes and still unlimited data, which sounds like it would fit you perfectly (since Virgin is prepaid, if you happen to run out of minutes then you just reload your account and effectively start the next month early -- the
Re: (Score:2)
*embarrassed* I read them over but missed the data options mixed with the voice plans. About 6months ago I went over all of the options I knew about and was frustratingly disappointed.
Thanks for reading more carefully than I did. I'm looking to sign up with one of these guys after work today.
Re: (Score:3)
I recently canceled with AT&T and converted to TracFone. I bought a Motorola phone outright for $90, which came with a "triple minutes for the life of the phone" deal. The triple minutes thing brings my per-minute cost down to $0.047 per minute. Text messages cost me 0.3 minutes of time, and browsing the web charges minutes during usage.
Over the three months I've had it, I've been paying a little less than $17 per month on average. Compared to what AT&T
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There are some dual-mode phones that use CDMA on Verizon or Sprint (in the US) but have n unlocked GSM SIM slot as well (for use overseas). I'd be willing to do business with Sprint (not a fan of Verizon) with one of those phones, but so long as a tolerably non-evil pure GSM provider exists, why bother?
Re: (Score:2)
Why not just buy a pre-paid phone in the other country when you get there? Having a phone for each state in the US would be annoying, especially in the north-east, but how often do cross planet-spanning bodies of water? Is it really so frequent that it matters?
Re: (Score:2)
Why not just buy a pre-paid phone in the other country when you get there? Having a phone for each state in the US would be annoying, especially in the north-east, but how often do cross planet-spanning bodies of water? Is it really so frequent that it matters?
For some people, yes.
I won't even pretend that I'm a typical use case, but I am a person who, after three years of living abroad is staring down having to return to the states for a year or two (protip: The only way to pay off first-world student loans is to have a first world paycheck), however I have absolutely no intention of spending more than three years in the states before I move away again, and if I can possibly wrangle it, it'll only be 1 year.
Unfortunately, my fancy-shmancy smartphone was st
Opposite for iPhone, Verizon/Sprint best overseas (Score:3)
Verizon and Sprint areâ"or should beâ"no-gos for anybody even thinking about ever visiting outside North America.
For the iPhone the opposite is true.
If you have an AT&T iPhone you can pay a large amount of money for international data and voice plans - but AT&T will not unlock the phone.
But if you get an iPhone 4s on Verizon or Sprint, they will unlock the phone for you - they don't care because it will not help you in the US where they are CDMA services, the GSM portion they unlock is onl
Re: (Score:2)
aside from the pre-paid plans, where are these magical plans where you don't pay the price of a phone subsidy whether your phone is subsidized or not?
Re: (Score:2)
Europe.
It still hurt T-Mobile bad (Score:2)
Re:It still hurt T-Mobile bad (Score:5, Informative)
That is why AT&T is going to pay them around 3 Billion in compensation.
Re:It still hurt T-Mobile bad (Score:4, Interesting)
I know a lot of people who's contracts were up and jumped ship on the news that AT&T was going to buy them. I don't know the percentage but every T-Mobile subscriber I know all moved to other carriers when they heard the initial announcement
That is why AT&T is going to pay them around 3 Billion in compensation.
So, T-Mobile is undersubscribed, (Wee, bandwidth!) and gets 3 billion to build up their network with... Invest 85/15% in infrastructure / the advertising campaign they're gonna need, and they might well become a significant player on the US market again, wouldn't you say?
And full speed LTE on a carrier with a solid network is a beautiful thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I jumped the other way, actually. I wanted to have a grandfathered T-mobile plan on AT&T's network. :D
But now that I made the switch I am so happy. I have had a couple of coverage issues since making the switch, like not being able to get a signal when I was in Yosemite, but I'm saving so much on my bill, and the customer service is so much better, it's just not a big deal to me.
Re: (Score:2)
every T-Mobile subscriber I know all moved to other carriers when they heard the initial announcement.
Now that's just stupid. Why jump just because they COULD be bought? It's not like AT&T can prevent them from leaving once they take over, and porting a number takes about 24-48 hours these days.
Hooray! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, subscribing customers that the others won't touch, or have already done business with and won't do business with again. Have you seen the pricing on US Cellular or MetroPCS? Hilarity.
AT&T Attitude Problem Hasn't Changed (Score:3, Informative)
"We own our customers." has been the attitude for decades.
Has anybody forgotten their CEO's "my pipes" speech with the subtext of "That's a nice internet connection you have. Be a shame if anything happened to it."?
Re-Title This Accordingly (Score:5, Interesting)
Because that's who really made the final decision.
Guess the job offers (Score:2)
Didn't have a big enough paycheck attached.
Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Too bad the current AT&T isn't the AT&T from the 1970's.
True. But they seem to be trying to make the old AT&T look like... uhh... some less evil, cutthroat bunch of bastards (wish I could think of any that weren't small game studios... )
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad the current AT&T isn't the AT&T from the 1970's. It is SBC, which was one of the baby-bell spinoffs from when AT&T was broken up. [...] So, the current AT&T is actually one of the spin offs that AT&T that you hated was broken up into....
So you're saying that the current AT&T actually is the old AT&T, since it's made up of one of the splinters of the old AT&T which has bought most of the other pieces of the old AT&T? Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything you said is of course true, but I think you're both missing the point. Any company given the power of the original AT&T would be just as bad. There are no such things as "good companies" or "bad companies" - just good and bad people. About the only time you'll see a big company run by the former is if they are the founder, or their hand-picked replacement.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with what you say, but what I find particularly chilling about this is that the phone company was broken up and we learned nothing. It's a bit sad when you see the same mistakes repeated. If we ever learn the lesson that government is about infrastructure and that boundless profit doesn't work in a system with bounds we can go back to living in paradise.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Verizon is to Bell as AT&T is to Bell. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure why you're not getting modded up. Verizon is as much "Ma Bell" as AT&T is.
http://www.freepress.net/files/att_history.jpg [freepress.net]
Not sure about dishonest (Score:2)
Back then you pretty much knew what you were dealing with when you signed up to AT&T. I remember their bills detailing line fees, equipment fees, long distance charges, etc. You knew they were going to rape you and and rape you good anytime you did business with them. They really didn't become dishonest and try to disguise their raping ways until they had to deal with honest competition.
Short v. Long Term (Score:2)
The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution
Boy, howdy, AT&T, you can say that again. It is unexpectedly honest of you to recognized that this could only be considered a good thing in the interim. Surely would have been a loss to our information infrastructure in the long run, but you are right that it may have smoothed out the short run a bit. How an honest person managed to slip a hint of truth into your deceptioneering is beyond me.
Whoever wrote that bit, well done
Holy Crap.... (Score:2)
The FCC and DOJ actually stopped a merger that would be bad for the consumer?
This has got to be a trick or I am dreaming.
Next thing you know the FCC will make Cable companies offer channels alacart and not charge extra for local HD channels over SD channels.
Re: (Score:2)
But you're still going to subsidize the ESPN subscribers, whether or not you want to.
Thus sayeth AT&T (Score:2)
"If we cannot reassemble our monopoly, it's bad for everyone!" We're dominating you, enshrining ourselves in legal scripture, raising your prices and smashing your service quality FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"
Think of the poor customers. (Score:4, Insightful)
The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.
And I bet the grapes were sour too.
Verizon Found a Better Way (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually it says it had to go through the same hurdles, but it was less likely to be turned down because they aren't gobbling up a competitor.
As an AT&T customer I really get sick of how poorly the service works at my work. Oh if I go outside its a bit different but if I'm inside the usable spectrum drops drastically and when you get... I don't know, 4 thousand subscribers in a single cell, you don't really get any throughput. Adding spectrum wouldn't certainly help, especially if its on the lower frequ
Re: (Score:2)
They don't need more spectrum. They need smaller cells and to parter with your workplace to install them inside the building. It's a cell phone, not an HF rig. You deal with density by increasing the number of cells in the area.
A likely outcome... (Score:2)
Sprint will renew their offer to buy T-Mobile, and possibly sell some spectrum to AT&T and/or Verizon in markets where Sprint + T-Mobile has more spectrum than they need. That would make almost everyone happy (maybe not some T-Mobile customers). AT&T will complain, but that's just because they don't want anything that might make Sprint a stronger competitor. Verizon probably won't object. Just my $0.02 of speculation.
Spectrum shortage.. (Score:2)
Let me repeat my ideas. Essentially put a couple short range cell towers on every block. Put it on top of peoples homes. They pay the electricity but get free internet. Very simple.You get the option as part of your internet connection.
Normal cell towers then become backups for cities.
The block towers would only transmit up to a few blocks with radio bands being interleaved. So long as each of the local cell towers could handle a few hundred users then everything would work out.
Re: (Score:2)
Decentralization is anathema to any sort of big business interest in the US, unfortunately. It would also require a complete re-work of how the FCC operates that spectrum band, from nationally-licensed to being licensed more like FM radio spectrum is. Too many post-FCC brib^H^H^H^Hemployment opportunities at stake to do something like that.
As someone who used to work at T-Mobile... (Score:3)
As a person who used to work at T-Mobile, and was privy to some insider information about the economic and technological aspects of the deal, I believe this is going to be a bad thing for T-Mobile and its customers. The problem T-Mobile is facing is that its parent company, Deutsche Telecom, is not investing in T-Mobile in the amount that it needs to catch up to the bigger customers. All of the 4 billion dollars that AT&T is required to pay T-Mobile is going to DT, and not likely* to be used for T-Mobile infrastructure. T-Mobile simply cannot catch up in terms of capital to compete with Verizon and AT&T.
* I can't say how much of the 4 billion dollars will or will not be, but the idea when we were discussing the deal was that 1. we didn't think we had to worry about it, and 2. if the deal did actually fail, the money went straight to DT and would not affect their investments in T-Mobile USA.
There was lots of talk about how the merger would have stifled innovation and created monopolistic problems. Well, those who said it don't understand the technological problems of the wireless utility industry. There is not enough spectrum for either AT&T or T-Mobile to compete separately while providing the best service for their customers. There is not enough capital for T-Mobile to build wireless infrastructure across the country. If there were, you may have a case about a monopoly. But there isn't, so you don't. There isn't enough spectrum for AT&T, and there isn't enough money for T-Mobile. T-Mobile isn't going to be able to provide the best customer service in the business and the coolest phones (only one of the four without iPhone) and the capital infrastructure for 4G and future wireless technologies.
Both companies, and the American consumer, has lost because of this deal's breakdown. I no longer work at T-Mobile, and I think they will continue to be a successful company, but I believe they will be drowned out by Verizon and AT&T due to their size, regardless of T-Mobile's continued nimbleness and "scrappiness".
$4B = 4.3xEarnings (Score:2)
Deutsch Telekom desperately wants to unload them. With 4 years profits in the bag they should just firesale them off at this point and declare victory.
The alternative is to make massive investments to try and end the hemmoraging of subscribers and turn the company around. The odds of their management making that happen successfully are somewhere between slim and unlikely.
No one else in the cellular market is going to want to buy them
Aww (Score:2)
Thank goodness. (Score:2)
Carly Foulkes is safe.
subject (Score:2)
"blah blah blah customers will be harmed"
Suck my dick, AT&T.
Re: (Score:2)
But you get to deal with NSAT&T.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but verizon won't display less than two or three bars....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If only our third party choices weren't so limited! I faithfully voted Ralph Nader for nearly two decades and still we are barreling head long towards a society that is destined to value the dollar above the individual. Seriously, even Obamacare is designed to line corporate pockets. What in the world do we have to do to establish a society that both protects those that can't and rewards those that can? Seriously, this can't be that hard!
Re: (Score:2)
Notice how some people will try to make everything an example for/against their preferred/other political party, despite the fact that the POTUS wasn't involved.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not the presidents fault he and his party doesn't have a backbone. But it's also good McCain never became president because he doesn't have one either. The republicans are completely controlled by the fat cats.
The best thing any president could do is let this country and the world go bankrupt as soon as possible. The sooner it goes bankrupt the sooner it can all start over. Bust everyone back to $0. And severely cripple the banks and the investment community (which we will still need). If this country
Re: (Score:2)
This hasn't been "innovation" since the '50s - it's the entire rationale behind a cell network. Everybody knows with more cells you can squeeze more bandwidth out of the network. The problem is cells cost far more money to site than most people realize. A single site can run in the millions depending on where you want to put it, and in many cases you have to pay monthly rents.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)