AT&T to acquire TMobile for S39 billion - Page 2

You probably shouldn't check out the numbers behind how well our government is currently providing value for the money we lavish on it (taken by gunpoint).

Probably not, maybe a HSPA+ iPhone?

Less competition? There has never been ANY COMPETITION. They price point the same. The competition has been AT THE SMARTPHONE, not the Carrier.

The only way there will ever be Competition is for the Government to set a fixed high standard by which all players must adhere to and then compete on price and services for the Consumer's dollar.

It's never actually happened which is why the US has a synthetic capitalist society.

You should probably keep whining while this country is collecting an all-time low in corporate taxes, but it's clearly the fault of Government and not the bribes of Corporations.

Keep digging a hole and voting in family values crack pots. They continue to erode your perceived freedoms and redirect you to the Democrats for wanting women's rights to remain as the reason you can't control your woman.

Not one Republican President has balanced a budget since Eisenhower. Only Democrats have balanced the budget, and would have done so more if it weren't Reagan, Bush, Bush2.0 talking about no more taxes while bleeding the nation into the red.

Are you seriously taking the side of corporate monopolies? That would mean you are against competition and capitalism. Remember, AT&T was broken for EXACTLY this same thing!

This sucks. I am already appalled at the texting costs. I never got a texting plan but more and more people are sending me texts and not listening when I tell them to just friggin call me, or email me, now that I have a smartphone, otherwise it costs 20¢ each message. Now this. I'm sure this merger will be bad, just not sure how though. Probably higher prices. After all, you have to pay for all the "quality" that this large merger brings you the "customer". \

I thought that the current iPhone was already HSPA+ capable?

i'm really worried about the FCC's conditions to this deal. You could see them require AT&T to divest territories to regional GSM carriers or even Sprint to keep a balance. You could see most of the Midwest being Divested to iWireless and Cincy Bell and their customers left unable to get iPhones.

Right on!!

Not yet, iPhone 4 currently support HSDPA and HSUPA.

This is a joyous day.

A company this large can only be made to be forced to split up all the quicker.

We may have actual competition again soon, boys!

this really sucks. i was perfectly content with my t-mobile service.

now that at&t is at the helm, it'll all go downhill from here.

Isn't it already in use in the Verizon iPhone 4 model, which latently supports HSPA+?

What does a supplement drink have to do with the government enforcing laws. However, personally, I like the milk chocolate flavored Ensure the best!

(I know, I'm a ass, but I can't help being an ass... It's in my DNAss genetic make-up.)

Kind of like in the movie Smokey and the Bandit where Sherrif Justice is told that an event isn't germain to the situation, and Justice says, "The GD Germans ain't got nothing to do with it!

I wonder if there will be a commercial where that T-Mobile girl and that iPhone guy get hitched?!

The bad thing about this... When I get mad and tell them I'm leaving for another carrier, my options will be one less!

But of all those Republicans President's, pretty much all had Democratics in control of Congress, which has the power of the purse... When Clinton wasn't getting his wick shined by a 24 year old intern, he had to balance the budget, Republicans were in control of Congress!

Not a bad price, per some quick, back-of-the-envelope numbers.

$39B for ~34M subscribers implies $1100/subscriber. If they can get cash flows of $90 per subscriber per year (i.e., $7.50/mo) and T-Mobile's cost of capital of 8%, the price is 'fair' (90/0.08 =$1125) even assuming those cash flows say flat.

I wouldn't be surprised if ATT's stock price were to rise tomorrow.

Think a little longer. If all we need is a data plan, how will the telecoms make up for the lost voice plan revenue? More and more of our voice traffic is moving to VoIP, and the telecoms don't want to let that happen.

For sure HSPA+ first then LTE in 2012 maybe.

So apple gets sprint. ?

How is that there are only 3 providers, Now I understand some that I will list are part of a larger conglomerate but still they operate under a different structure. Every one of the listed carriers below has an opportunity to expand and become a national provider, They just need to step up to the plate

List of US Wireless Communications Service Providers:

Some are regional, some National, I hardly think there is a monopoly!!

7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless
Airlink Mobile
Alaska Communications Systems
Alaska Digitel
Alaska Wireless
Amerilink Wireless
Appalachian Wireless
ASTAC
AT&T Mobility
BeyondMobile
Blue Wireless
Bluegrass Cellular
Boost Mobile
Broadpoint
call4care
Cap Rock Cellular
Carolina West Wireless
Cellcom
Cellular South
Chariton Valley Wireless
Cincinnati Bell Wireless
Clear and/or Clearwire
Clear Talk
CloseCall America
Commnet Wireless
Consumer Cellular
Cordova Wireless
Corr Wireless
Common Cents Mobile
Cox Wireless\t
Credo Mobile
Cricket Communications
DTC Wireless
Eclipse Mobile
Earthtones
Einstein Wireless
Element Mobile
Epic PCS
Fuzion Mobile
GCI Wireless
Golden State Cellular
GTC Wireless
i-wireless
Immix
Indigo Wireless
Jitterbug Wireless
Jolt Wireless
KTC
Leap Wireless
Liberty Wireless
Lightyear Wireless
Locus Mobile
Long Lines Wireless
Lucky Wireless
MetroPCS
Mid-Tex Cellular
Movida Wireless
NEP Wireless
Nex-Tech Wireless
nTelos
Page Plus Cellular
Pine Cellular
Pioneer Cellular
Plateau Wireless
PlatinumTel Prepaid Wireless
Pocket Communications
Pure Mobile
Pure Prepaid
Pure TalkUSA
Revol Wireless
ReadyMobile
Simmetry
Simple Mobile
Shaka Mobile
SouthernLINC
Sprint Nextel
Stelera Wireless
STI Mobile
Syringa Wireless
TerreStar\t
Thumb Cellular
T-Mobile USA
TracFone Wireless
Tru
Trumpet Mobile
Túyo Mobile
Union Wireless
U.S. Cellular
Cellular Corporation
Verizon Wireless
Viaero Wireless
Virgin Mobile USA
West Central Wireless
Westlink
CREDO Moble
XIT Communications
Xtreme Mobile

Yes, they'll need to reinvent their charging methodology. Voice traffic in GSM uses a 9.6Kbps data connection. In comparison to the amount of data phones are throwing around, voice is becoming a tiny impact on the network.

It will, at some point, make more sense to make voice calls free, but charge for data. The problem with charging for data though is people don't know how much they've used in 10 minutes, where with a call that's THEORETICALLY a much clearer answer. Of course, with some complicated phone plans and caps it can be hard to work out anything.


I disagree. Competition forces efficiency and other improvements to a system, where socialism (etc) relies on natural improvements. But for capitalism to work it has to be possible to fail. If a company is so big that it can run large parts of itself inefficiently without 'dying', then the natural pressure to improve is removed.

We probably need 10 competitors in most fields (Nokia and Motorola should never merge!). Any company in an established field shouldn't have more than 20 (or 30%?) of the market - but splitting a company isn't a punishment, just a natural evolution. But that's not the way it works... and it's a much tougher call on cable & telco companies where duplicating massive infrastructure really can be way too inefficient for the competitive gains to alleviate.

I would think that a lot of AT&T's gains from this merger could have come from renting space on T-Mobile towers. It's not just getting more towers - T-mobile works on higher frequencies which require more towers and better placement, so using the towers will be very beneficial to AT&T.

AT&T will gain further with T-Mobile's 1900Mhz frequency (currently used for 2G). With free 'roaming' between networks until the networks themselves merge, they can refarm excess 1900Mhz to expand AT&T 3G. The 1700 will be interesting to watch as it's not very common. I'm not sure whether the 1700 can be split from the 2100 in any meaningful way - probably not. And of course, being good for AT&T is totally unrelated to being good for competition!

EXACTLY???

Hardly. AT&T was a near-monopoly from BOTH a horizontal and vertical standpoint. That's a completely different situation from today. The primary action of the breakup of AT&T was to sever the vertical monopoly, separating local from long distance companies. The secondary action was to create the regional bells which were still monopolies in their region and, importantly, didn't compete with each other.

Good deal.

Actually, I didn't think about LTE - whatever AT&T plans will really be based on getting to where they want to be in 5 years, plus any easy improvements that can be easily added now. LTE supports the 1900Mhz band used by both AT&T and T-mobile (but not the 1700/2100 3G band T-mobile uses), so perhaps upgrading T-mobiles 1900Mhz 2G network directly to 1900Mhz LTE would be an interesting play for AT&T. (edit: in fact, maybe that's the reason they're announcing their LTE network under the merger would now reach much further).

The merger of Hutchison-Three and Vodafone networks in Australia has been slow. 9 months on and all we're noticing is worse performance on both networks, which still run independently. The Three network does roam to 2G Vodafone now (call drops, then you dial again on 2G). Our latest announcement is that they're going to replace a large swath of both networks with a new network vendor entirely, and in the process set up for merging the 2 networks into one and evolving with LTE options. Fixes can't come soon enough.

I hope the AT&T/T-mobile merger goes better - and that even short term improvements will be clear.

Wow, my condolences to T-Mobile subscribers, this is like finding out AOL just bought your corporation of choice...

Again, maybe I'm missing the point, but I think that's part of the natural evolution/progress of technology. To me it's similar to the people I know who don't have home phones because it's a lot easier to just have a cell phone, and that kind of changes in how people use technology happen a lot, it seems.

Saying this news ruined my day would be a minor over statement...

The US mobile market is already over consolidated and I really hope regulatory approval of the merger is denied... but based on the last 10 years I won't hold my breath for that.

I've always preferred T-Mobile's plans to ATT and VZ. They were always cheaper for me given my usage pattern... and they were friendly toward prepaid, something ATT has always poisoned.

My wishlist as conditions of merger:
#1) All handsets must be unlocked... even if there are no other US providers to move to we ouight to be able to sell our handsets freely.
#2) Overage charges per unit can't exceed the price per unit under the plan... ie. if I'm paying $0.10/minute for 500 minutes, my 501st minute can't be charged at more than $0.10... some for data if I'm paying $0.01/byte for 2GB, then each by beyond 2GB can't be charged at more than $0.01.
#3) Incoming SMS/MMS should be free... it's bad enough I get SMS spam, I shouldn't have to pay for it.

Based on the last 10 years? How about based on the last 100 years? I can't think of any significant acquisition that was turned down where the resulting combination still represented less than 50% of the market.

In Switzerland, the merger of the number two and three MNOs (out of three) was blocked by the antitrust authorities last year. Their combined market share would have been 38%.

I don't know what the prior poster is referring to with respect to Voice moving to VOIP when the back bone is owned by the Telcos.

http://www.telecomramblings.com/netw...map-resources/

They will continue to control the backbone. Unless someone manages to pour say $300 Billion in build out costs to compete VOIP providers are leasing on those backbones and thus the Telcos continue to make money.

All over the guy who plays the iPhone while the guy that plays AT&T jealously watches in disgust.

Instead of One Vertical Solution we went to 12 Regional Single Vertical Solutions and now are moving back down to Three Single Vertical Solutions.

Nothing has changed with regards to true competitive pricing and thus reducing the cost of consumption for the consumer.

Instead of overhauling MaBell and requiring a standard for which all telcos must allow cross competition in landlines and wireless we've seen an industry get subsidized by hundreds of billions in tax breaks resulting in fractured implementations that are incompatible and cost a consumer a huge fee to choose a solution they want.

Before the iPhone all telcos dictated the terms of what goes on a phone and how it will be subsidized.

Cingular was bleeding severely and they took Apple up on it's offer, but only after Apple got a 5 year deal.

Now that AT&T has a total debt to equity of 60:1 and Apple is nothing but a huge profit pool they can only do what Verizon did and that is to buy out more of the vertical solutions left on the market.

In the end, Congress will have to blow up this joke of a solution brought to the market by the Reagan Administration.

The only merger I recall being blocked in my adult lifetime was US Air/United around 2000... maybe late 90's...

It's pathetic because people embrace corporate rights at the expense of individual rights. Americans somehow support the worst laws favoring a class they will never be a part of thinking someday they will be a member of the one percent club that owns 90 percent of the wealth.

AT&T owes its existence to government regulation. It was a government created monopoly. Today it gets bigger based on government intervention. The air waves it uses are the public's airwaves. The government sold it a license practically for free and disallowed other players except a few other big money companies. This essentially has killed any meaningful competition and has stifled innovation. The government will approve the deal despite being anti-competive because AT&T is the company along with Verizon that gives all its customers information over to the government in violation of the fourth amendment without any type of court order.

AT&T really is a horrible company. In my area it was advertising $19.99 high speed internet on the radio, TV, and it's website. I signed up. After sending me the box, having a guy come out to hook up the Internet, and me canceling Comcast, AT&T cancelled the service without telling me saying it shouldn't have signed me up since the deal wasn't available in my area despite all the local advertising and its website OKing my address for the deal. Instead of doing the right thing and honoring the deal it was still advertising in my area, AT&T told me I needed to pay to have the box send back or I'd be charged.

T-Mobile has always been a pleasant company to work with. Many T-Mobile people are going to lose their jobs, many customers will be sad (myself included), all to make a soulless company get bigger.


I hope Virgin comes up with a way to use my iPhone on its network.

So if the #2 and #3 MNOs together would be 38%, then maybe you can tell us how the #1 MNO was allowed to reach something approaching 60%?

That's not true at all. The regional Bell companies were NOT allowed to offer long distance service until much later and only after the long distance providers became large.

My wife is on T-Mobile and hates their service. We were waiting for her contract to end to move to Verizon but AT&T will do nicely as their service is good where we live.

I was in Canada a few years ago and was AMAZED that I had to pay for calls RECEIVED (I had to use a PAYG tariff). It made me think twice before answering any call!

In Canada when Rogers bought Microcell (the company behind Fido) they actually opted to keep both the Rogers and Fido trademarks, so they could present different market strategies. I don't know whether this was their choice or the government's.

At that time Rogers and Fido were the only GSM providers in Canada. Now all the carriers have GSM 3G capability. Bell and Telus, two of the other competitors share their towers and often seem as if they don't wish to compete with each other, when plans are compared.

Mr. Libertarian wants financial industry-level disclosures required of the telecoms?? I'm going to have to check my encyclopedia...

That said, I don't disagree with you haha.

this will only mean higher prices and more hidden fees. There has never been a huge merger like this that has been good for consumers. The merger will definitely go through though since AT&T owns enough members of Congress and the regulatory agencies to make sure it is approved.