NOT. They issued a press release that they are NOT getting the iPhone.. They may get it if the deal closes... Classic T-Mumble arrogance... The "We don't give a crap what the customer wants" attitude needs to be burned out of these clowns...
Not quite sure how selling off a division allows any company to retain anything. Is it an actual sale? Or is it some kind of tricky joint-venture?
I just hope the deal helps to improve my AT&T reception. Really bad where I live, and not just up in the hills. It's bad down in the flats too, and that's a densely populated suburban area...
DT gets 8% of the company and a seat on the board of directors.
Nice to see the US once again playing catchup. I have a T-Mobile iPhone here in the UK and I love it. They have the best coverage, the fastest 3G and best customer service in the UK.
Having frequently visited the US, if I had to put up full time with the lousy service provided by AT&T and Verizon, i'd go mad - I can't believe what a second rate cell phone network the states has.
Have you considered the fact that the UK fits into New York state? These comparisons of the UK or other places in Europe to Canada/US are meaningless. The countries in Europe or tiny. That affects a lot of things, especially communications.
Airjay, I think you pretty much nailed it on the head here. Bravo, mate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by airjay81
I think this is great news for both AT&T and T-Mobile customers. By combing both networks, which have compatible technology, coverage should improve for both carriers. A number of articles point out that this will increase tower density in many urban areas - particularly on GSM/UMTS technology where you have hard hand-offs between cell phone towers, it seems to me that this should eventually improve call quality and improve data transmission as well. I do think the FCC is likely to impose some conditions on this acquisition. I wouldn't be surprised if some of T-Mobiles assets will have to be divested, probably to Verizon (much like Verizon had to divest Alltel assets when it acquired Alltel). With the Obama administration's push to expand mobile broadband to rural areas, the FCC may require some additional commitments from AT&T to expand mobile broadband to rural areas it does not currently service (again, an improvement for customers).
I know some people have a knee jerk reaction of less competition being bad for consumers. This is true generally, but you also have to keep in mind the particularities of the wireless industry. Unlike Europe, a national wireless carrier in the U.S. has extremely large amounts of land to cover in order to provide effective service. If you are a smaller carrier (i.e., Sprint or T-Mobile) and you can barely keep from losing customers, it just doesn't make sense to expand and improve your network in any significant way. You will just run bigger and bigger losses, and that can't be sustained. Of course, AT&T and Verizon, as the two big players (and, now, going to get even bigger) can push their weight around as they get bigger, and refuse to improve service with the rationale of where are you going to go? The other big carrier that has no better service? There certainly will be a role for the FCC to play to ensure that America has a robust, improving national wireless network. However, I think Verizon and AT&T will continue to vye (much like Coke and Pepsi) for who has the superior network. And, because they are both very large, they will actually be able to spend money to improve their network, even where it doesn't make short term financial sense. Long story short . . . the wireless industry is complex, but I think an argument can be made that consumers will benefit from the AT&T/T-Mobile consolidation.
"In February 2011, HP announced a series of new devices that will use webOS as the operating system, including the HP Pre 3 and HP Veer smartphones, which will run webOS 2.2 at launch."
The point is, when T-Mobile had NO chance of the iPhone, webOS may have had a chance of eking out a survival. And if I were in AT&T's place today webOS devices would the first thing I'd kill. Not sure of webOS's tablet prospects, but I wouldn't bet betting on HP's dream of bringing it to the mainstream desktop.
And no comments about the Death Star logo, since the Ma Bell Empire seems to be reassembling itself?
So, Will Verizon buy Sprint Now?? If so, now we would have some fair data regarding IOS vs Android. Now that Oracle is going to sue the bloody pants off of Google, will Google still be able to give Android away for free while they pay big royalties to Oracle. This will be interesting.
I think Verizon buys Sprint only if the T-Mobile sale goes through - and I'm not sure it will.
Oracle won't win squat, though HTC will win their suit and force Apple to stop all sales of the iPad and iPhone (no they won't, but most of these tech suits are ridiculous and will end up with some meaningless settlements, everybody borrows somewhat from everyone else. Apple borrowed from MS and MS borrowed from Apple in their OSes). Oracle is just trying to get in on the mobile computing action and sees that Android right now looks to take over the marketplace (and already is in reality). Everybody is going to want to sue Google over the next few years because of what Google is building. Apple sued a member of the open handset alliance for the same reason, because they're scared of what Google may do down the line. Oracle wants to control Android because they see the future and this is their potential way in. Android would give Oracle a long term foot in future markets.
Anyways, I suspect the royalties to Oracle if they come will not come off the Android OS but will instead be royalties off the apps, which would change the Android marketplace.
But to the main point, I'm still not sure that the T-Mobile sale would go through especially since it would open the door for Sprint to be bought by Verizon. If the deal does get nixed I could still see Verizon expanding. Sprint will get left on its own, but VZW could buy either US Cellular, MetroPCS, or both in smaller deals that would likely get approved. If the FCC allows the T-Mobile sale then I see Verizon buying Sprint, MetroPCS, and US Cellular. That would give VZW around 160 million subscribers.
Nice to see the US once again playing catchup. I have a T-Mobile iPhone here in the UK and I love it. They have the best coverage, the fastest 3G and best customer service in the UK.
Having frequently visited the US, if I had to put up full time with the lousy service provided by AT&T and Verizon, i'd go mad - I can't believe what a second rate cell phone network the states has.
Lucky for you over there that you can use your nice American iPhones on your wonderful networks eh?
"In February 2011, HP announced a series of new devices that will use webOS as the operating system, including the HP Pre 3 and HP Veer smartphones, which will run webOS 2.2 at launch."
The point is, when T-Mobile had NO chance of the iPhone, webOS may have had a chance of eking out a survival. And if I were in AT&T's place today webOS devices would the first thing I'd kill. Not sure of webOS's tablet prospects, but I wouldn't bet betting on HP's dream of bringing it to the mainstream desktop.
And no comments about the Death Star logo, since the Ma Bell Empire seems to be reassembling itself?
Please, I heard all this last year when the Slate was supposedly coming out "really soon"
For all intents and purposes, WebOS is a dead Smart-Phone platform. HP has neither the resources, nor a healthy ecosystem to keep it going in its current form.
Now, if they actually release a product, I'll eat my words. But until then, it's all vaporware.
If this merger closes which most likely it will, the big question is how fast can ATT change the radios in the towers and update to take advantage of the extra towers etc.
ATT is not know for being speedy at anything.
While ATT is gaining towers and spectrum, it is also gaining 33 million new customers. Hopefully they can pull this off.
FCC won't allow a straight merger of companies this large. This is going to get messy.
Dream on. The FCC, like any other Federal agency, has long ago been neutered by big business courtesy of the Republican errand boys and Democratic doormats in Congress. The only way now not to get completely screwed in this financial rape of the nation is to buy stock in these companies. Then you at least partake of the crumbs that are left after underserving CEOs award themselves obscene bonuses.
The U.S. government, with assistance from major telecommunications carriers including AT&T, has engaged in a massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001.
News reports in December 2005 first revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans? phone calls and Internet communications. Those news reports, plus a USA Today story in May 2006 and the statements of several members of Congress, revealed that the NSA is also receiving wholesale copies of their telephone and other communications records. All of these surveillance activities are in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the U.S. Constitution.
FCC won't allow a straight merger of companies this large. This is going to get messy.
That hasn't stopped them before. We used to have 6 major carriers, two previous mergers were approved without a major hiccup, SMS went from $0.10 per text to $0.20 per text since then, and I think those two are related.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Multimedia
So much for all those Anti-iPhone ads T-Mobile have been running with their fake claim to be operating a 4G network - the big lie.
So glad AT&T is pulling away from those dorks at Verizon. This is incredibly great news.
It's arguable whether anyone in the US is really running a 4G network, one guideline for calling it 4G is to support a 100Mbps data rate, that has fallen by the wayside very quickly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by djdj
The higher the frequency, the more data you can transmit.
The higher the frequency, the more quickly the signal strength drops just from air, humidity, foliage or anything in the signal path, and the more the signal requires a line of sight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SockRolid
Not quite sure how selling off a division allows any company to retain anything. Is it an actual sale? Or is it some kind of tricky joint-venture?
It isn't a full sale, some money, some shares in AT&T.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Onhka
Could you provide the link?
It's not a press release, but it only took about a minute to find this one:
Dream on. The FCC, like any other Federal agency, has long ago been neutered by big business courtesy of the Republican errand boys and Democratic doormats in Congress. The only way now not to get completely screwed in this financial rape of the nation is to buy stock in these companies. Then you at least partake of the crumbs that are left after underserving CEOs award themselves obscene bonuses.
Couldn't have said it better.
But what the hell are you gonna do? I guess I hope my service gets better, since I'll probably be paying out the ass for it when no one else is around to compete the price point down, but those that are excited about this do not share my weltanschauung, to say the least.
Dream on. The FCC, like any other Federal agency, has long ago been neutered by big business courtesy of the Republican errand boys and Democratic doormats in Congress. The only way now not to get completely screwed in this financial rape of the nation is to buy stock in these companies. Then you at least partake of the crumbs that are left after underserving CEOs award themselves obscene bonuses.
That's why I buy Apple stock and not products - don't want to get raped by a big company that has a 21.5% profit margin. At least AT&T's is only 16% and Verizon's is a measly 9.5%.
Anyways, the FCC did not just outright approve the sale of Alltel to Verizon. Verizon had to sell off assets in over 100 markets to be able to acquire Alltel.
The major problem I see with the T-Mobile merger is that AT&T and T-Mobile are the only kids in the GSM pool in the US, so who will AT&T sell assets to to make this palatable to the FCC?
The big problem is this purchase would give AT&T a monopoly in the US over GSM. Verizon had to sell off assets in the Alltel buyout, but they had people they could sell to. Even if Verizon did move to buyout Sprint, they could sell assets to US Cellular and Metro PCS to allow for competition to remain around.
Bang up job as usual, Daniel! Here I thought T-mobile said they do not offer the iPhone, but I'm glad you've corrected them! Kudos to you for accurate reporting. This should win you another Pulitzer.
Edit: I missed another detail in this post. T-mobile also sells the HTC EVO! Nice sleuthing Danny boy -- two scoops in one day (but surely that's not a record for you.) Now T-mobile has picked up the iPhone and the EVO!
I'm psyched about getting an iPhone5. I've been hanging on to my iPhone3G for a while (if 2.5 years of total use counts as a while).
My AT&T service agreement--I'm month-to-month now, out of contract--still lets me get unlimited 3G data usage without the 2GB/month cap. I've only ever used that much once when I was on vacation, but it's nice to know I don't have to worry about data usage (I thought we got rid of metered usage in the 90s...).
With AT&T moving to 4G, will they be able to cap my data usage next time I upgrade by claiming it's a different service? I hope they grandfather me in again. If not, seems like it would be easy pickings for a class-action suit.
Comments
NOT. They issued a press release that they are NOT getting the iPhone.. They may get it if the deal closes... Classic T-Mumble arrogance... The "We don't give a crap what the customer wants" attitude needs to be burned out of these clowns...
Could you provide the link?
This is the same FCC that allowed Comcast to buy NBC right?
Yep and the same FCC that allowed Cingular and AT&T to merge. Oh and Nextel with Sprint.
Not quite sure how selling off a division allows any company to retain anything. Is it an actual sale? Or is it some kind of tricky joint-venture?
I just hope the deal helps to improve my AT&T reception. Really bad where I live, and not just up in the hills. It's bad down in the flats too, and that's a densely populated suburban area...
DT gets 8% of the company and a seat on the board of directors.
Nice to see the US once again playing catchup. I have a T-Mobile iPhone here in the UK and I love it. They have the best coverage, the fastest 3G and best customer service in the UK.
Having frequently visited the US, if I had to put up full time with the lousy service provided by AT&T and Verizon, i'd go mad - I can't believe what a second rate cell phone network the states has.
Have you considered the fact that the UK fits into New York state? These comparisons of the UK or other places in Europe to Canada/US are meaningless. The countries in Europe or tiny. That affects a lot of things, especially communications.
philip
I think this is great news for both AT&T and T-Mobile customers. By combing both networks, which have compatible technology, coverage should improve for both carriers. A number of articles point out that this will increase tower density in many urban areas - particularly on GSM/UMTS technology where you have hard hand-offs between cell phone towers, it seems to me that this should eventually improve call quality and improve data transmission as well. I do think the FCC is likely to impose some conditions on this acquisition. I wouldn't be surprised if some of T-Mobiles assets will have to be divested, probably to Verizon (much like Verizon had to divest Alltel assets when it acquired Alltel). With the Obama administration's push to expand mobile broadband to rural areas, the FCC may require some additional commitments from AT&T to expand mobile broadband to rural areas it does not currently service (again, an improvement for customers).
I know some people have a knee jerk reaction of less competition being bad for consumers. This is true generally, but you also have to keep in mind the particularities of the wireless industry. Unlike Europe, a national wireless carrier in the U.S. has extremely large amounts of land to cover in order to provide effective service. If you are a smaller carrier (i.e., Sprint or T-Mobile) and you can barely keep from losing customers, it just doesn't make sense to expand and improve your network in any significant way. You will just run bigger and bigger losses, and that can't be sustained. Of course, AT&T and Verizon, as the two big players (and, now, going to get even bigger) can push their weight around as they get bigger, and refuse to improve service with the rationale of where are you going to go? The other big carrier that has no better service? There certainly will be a role for the FCC to play to ensure that America has a robust, improving national wireless network. However, I think Verizon and AT&T will continue to vye (much like Coke and Pepsi) for who has the superior network. And, because they are both very large, they will actually be able to spend money to improve their network, even where it doesn't make short term financial sense. Long story short . . . the wireless industry is complex, but I think an argument can be made that consumers will benefit from the AT&T/T-Mobile consolidation.
It doesn't. WebOS was abandoned as a SmartPhone OS last year in favor continuing its development as a tablet platform.
Oh?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS
"In February 2011, HP announced a series of new devices that will use webOS as the operating system, including the HP Pre 3 and HP Veer smartphones, which will run webOS 2.2 at launch."
Also check out http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/articl...-3-smartphones
The point is, when T-Mobile had NO chance of the iPhone, webOS may have had a chance of eking out a survival. And if I were in AT&T's place today webOS devices would the first thing I'd kill. Not sure of webOS's tablet prospects, but I wouldn't bet betting on HP's dream of bringing it to the mainstream desktop.
And no comments about the Death Star logo, since the Ma Bell Empire seems to be reassembling itself?
So, Will Verizon buy Sprint Now?? If so, now we would have some fair data regarding IOS vs Android. Now that Oracle is going to sue the bloody pants off of Google, will Google still be able to give Android away for free while they pay big royalties to Oracle. This will be interesting.
I think Verizon buys Sprint only if the T-Mobile sale goes through - and I'm not sure it will.
Oracle won't win squat, though HTC will win their suit and force Apple to stop all sales of the iPad and iPhone (no they won't, but most of these tech suits are ridiculous and will end up with some meaningless settlements, everybody borrows somewhat from everyone else. Apple borrowed from MS and MS borrowed from Apple in their OSes). Oracle is just trying to get in on the mobile computing action and sees that Android right now looks to take over the marketplace (and already is in reality). Everybody is going to want to sue Google over the next few years because of what Google is building. Apple sued a member of the open handset alliance for the same reason, because they're scared of what Google may do down the line. Oracle wants to control Android because they see the future and this is their potential way in. Android would give Oracle a long term foot in future markets.
Anyways, I suspect the royalties to Oracle if they come will not come off the Android OS but will instead be royalties off the apps, which would change the Android marketplace.
But to the main point, I'm still not sure that the T-Mobile sale would go through especially since it would open the door for Sprint to be bought by Verizon. If the deal does get nixed I could still see Verizon expanding. Sprint will get left on its own, but VZW could buy either US Cellular, MetroPCS, or both in smaller deals that would likely get approved. If the FCC allows the T-Mobile sale then I see Verizon buying Sprint, MetroPCS, and US Cellular. That would give VZW around 160 million subscribers.
Nice to see the US once again playing catchup. I have a T-Mobile iPhone here in the UK and I love it. They have the best coverage, the fastest 3G and best customer service in the UK.
Having frequently visited the US, if I had to put up full time with the lousy service provided by AT&T and Verizon, i'd go mad - I can't believe what a second rate cell phone network the states has.
Lucky for you over there that you can use your nice American iPhones on your wonderful networks eh?
Oh?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS
"In February 2011, HP announced a series of new devices that will use webOS as the operating system, including the HP Pre 3 and HP Veer smartphones, which will run webOS 2.2 at launch."
Also check out http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/articl...-3-smartphones
The point is, when T-Mobile had NO chance of the iPhone, webOS may have had a chance of eking out a survival. And if I were in AT&T's place today webOS devices would the first thing I'd kill. Not sure of webOS's tablet prospects, but I wouldn't bet betting on HP's dream of bringing it to the mainstream desktop.
And no comments about the Death Star logo, since the Ma Bell Empire seems to be reassembling itself?
Please, I heard all this last year when the Slate was supposedly coming out "really soon"
For all intents and purposes, WebOS is a dead Smart-Phone platform. HP has neither the resources, nor a healthy ecosystem to keep it going in its current form.
Now, if they actually release a product, I'll eat my words. But until then, it's all vaporware.
ATT is not know for being speedy at anything.
While ATT is gaining towers and spectrum, it is also gaining 33 million new customers. Hopefully they can pull this off.
FCC won't allow a straight merger of companies this large. This is going to get messy.
Dream on. The FCC, like any other Federal agency, has long ago been neutered by big business courtesy of the Republican errand boys and Democratic doormats in Congress. The only way now not to get completely screwed in this financial rape of the nation is to buy stock in these companies. Then you at least partake of the crumbs that are left after underserving CEOs award themselves obscene bonuses.
http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying
The U.S. government, with assistance from major telecommunications carriers including AT&T, has engaged in a massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001.
News reports in December 2005 first revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans? phone calls and Internet communications. Those news reports, plus a USA Today story in May 2006 and the statements of several members of Congress, revealed that the NSA is also receiving wholesale copies of their telephone and other communications records. All of these surveillance activities are in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the U.S. Constitution.
FCC won't allow a straight merger of companies this large. This is going to get messy.
That hasn't stopped them before. We used to have 6 major carriers, two previous mergers were approved without a major hiccup, SMS went from $0.10 per text to $0.20 per text since then, and I think those two are related.
So much for all those Anti-iPhone ads T-Mobile have been running with their fake claim to be operating a 4G network - the big lie.
So glad AT&T is pulling away from those dorks at Verizon. This is incredibly great news.
It's arguable whether anyone in the US is really running a 4G network, one guideline for calling it 4G is to support a 100Mbps data rate, that has fallen by the wayside very quickly.
The higher the frequency, the more data you can transmit.
The higher the frequency, the more quickly the signal strength drops just from air, humidity, foliage or anything in the signal path, and the more the signal requires a line of sight.
Not quite sure how selling off a division allows any company to retain anything. Is it an actual sale? Or is it some kind of tricky joint-venture?
It isn't a full sale, some money, some shares in AT&T.
Could you provide the link?
It's not a press release, but it only took about a minute to find this one:
http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/article...quires-tmobile
Dream on. The FCC, like any other Federal agency, has long ago been neutered by big business courtesy of the Republican errand boys and Democratic doormats in Congress. The only way now not to get completely screwed in this financial rape of the nation is to buy stock in these companies. Then you at least partake of the crumbs that are left after underserving CEOs award themselves obscene bonuses.
Couldn't have said it better.
But what the hell are you gonna do? I guess I hope my service gets better, since I'll probably be paying out the ass for it when no one else is around to compete the price point down, but those that are excited about this do not share my weltanschauung, to say the least.
Dream on. The FCC, like any other Federal agency, has long ago been neutered by big business courtesy of the Republican errand boys and Democratic doormats in Congress. The only way now not to get completely screwed in this financial rape of the nation is to buy stock in these companies. Then you at least partake of the crumbs that are left after underserving CEOs award themselves obscene bonuses.
That's why I buy Apple stock and not products - don't want to get raped by a big company that has a 21.5% profit margin. At least AT&T's is only 16% and Verizon's is a measly 9.5%.
Anyways, the FCC did not just outright approve the sale of Alltel to Verizon. Verizon had to sell off assets in over 100 markets to be able to acquire Alltel.
The major problem I see with the T-Mobile merger is that AT&T and T-Mobile are the only kids in the GSM pool in the US, so who will AT&T sell assets to to make this palatable to the FCC?
The big problem is this purchase would give AT&T a monopoly in the US over GSM. Verizon had to sell off assets in the Alltel buyout, but they had people they could sell to. Even if Verizon did move to buyout Sprint, they could sell assets to US Cellular and Metro PCS to allow for competition to remain around.
and then prices go up for everything. especially data. the telcos have been lusting for this chance for years. to get a bigger piece of the action.
this is going to cost us all a lot. take off the rose colored glasses.
Edit: I missed another detail in this post. T-mobile also sells the HTC EVO! Nice sleuthing Danny boy -- two scoops in one day (but surely that's not a record for you.) Now T-mobile has picked up the iPhone and the EVO!
I'm psyched about getting an iPhone5. I've been hanging on to my iPhone3G for a while (if 2.5 years of total use counts as a while).
My AT&T service agreement--I'm month-to-month now, out of contract--still lets me get unlimited 3G data usage without the 2GB/month cap. I've only ever used that much once when I was on vacation, but it's nice to know I don't have to worry about data usage (I thought we got rid of metered usage in the 90s...).
With AT&T moving to 4G, will they be able to cap my data usage next time I upgrade by claiming it's a different service? I hope they grandfather me in again. If not, seems like it would be easy pickings for a class-action suit.
Thoughts?