AT&T Defends T-Mobile Merger: It’s a Good Thing, Really!

In case you hadn’t heard, AT&T and T-Mobile could soon become one. But what does that mean for the rest of us?

All good news for AT&T customers, says AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson, so, you know, take the following comments with a grain of salt.

Stephenson says that if the merger is approved, the network will improve up to 30 percent in some of the biggest U.S. cities, including New York City where wireless service is sometimes so bad you might as well jump on the subway and wait to chat in person. Those exorbitant charges for overseas roaming will come down, too, thanks to the much larger combined worldwide network. And in an appeal to your charitable side, AT&T’s merger will help with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission goal of making broadband widely available to everyone by offering the company’s Long-Term Evolution or LTE Technology to 46.5 million additional customers.

Better service is great, but the real concern for most AT&T customers (and frankly anyone who uses a cell phone) is how the merger would affect contract prices. Some parties are worried that by narrowing the competition floor to three companies, your monthly bill could skyrocket. Let’s give that a number: 80 percent of wireless cellular service would fall under AT&T-Mobile (see what we did there?) and Verizon.

No surprise then that Sprint’s been especially vocal in opposing the merger, saying “The transaction…would reverse nearly three decades of actions by the U.S. government and the courts that modernized and opened U.S. communications markets to competition. The wireless industry…could be undone by this transaction.”

In response, AT&T’s Stephenson argues that higher-bill phobia isn’t justified. When asked if there needed to be price restrictions in place for the merger to be approved by both the FCC and the Justice Department, Stephenson said “This is an intensely competitive industry… It is intense before we do this transaction, it will be intense after we do this transaction.” He also claims that over the last decade, prices fell on average 50 percent, despite five wireless provider mergers.

He has a point. An increased AT&T market presence would force Verizon to step up its LTE network game. And then there’s Verizon’s iPhone: AT&T had a monopoly on iPhone sales for years, but wound up introducing tethering plans and cheaper data options in response to Verizon’s iPhone 4 launch in February.

All of which means you’ll find reasonable arguments from both sides, and that we’ll just have to see which ones the FCC finds the most persuasive rolling forward.

wizworks

For the past 4 years, I have been a customer of AT&T Wireless until just recently Acct#:641487130. The reason I switched is because out of 4 lines on a family share plan (2 of which are smartphones we own outright – and not subsidized) we were spending $183 monthly on our wireless bill. This amount was for voice and text service on all 4 lines plus mobile data on 2 of the lines which were smartphones. To save my family some money, I elected to discontinue the text messaging service and data on our account (a difference of $80) and our final monthly amount would have been around $100 monthly, which is a number we felt was acceptable and viable for our family. For our data needs, we elected to use the WiFi function on our smartphones (which we paid more than $500 outright for) in liu of AT&T’s expensive mobile data plans.

After dealing with 5 AT&T reps, we were sternly told that AT&T’s new “policy” was that ALL smartphones were now required to have a mobile data plan and could no longer opt out. They told me our only option was to put our SIM cards into a “dumb phone” to escape the data tariffs. I don’t find this an acceptable or ethical practice, especially since we use these devices on WiFi and are happy with that, with the added fact that they also function as media players for us when we go to the gym (like iPods). We’ve invested a lot of money on these devices which we worked very hard for and are now being told essentially that we don’t have the right to own them in order to escape these “mandatory fees”, which clearly are technically not required.

Further more, AT&T now performs an extortion practice whereby they scan their network for the IMEI (a phone’s unique identifier) to detect if you are using a smartphone, so even if you “downgrade” to a dumbphone, remove the data tariff, then insert a SIM back into a smartphone (which you own outright) their system identifies the change and AUTOMATICALLY adds, without your permission, the mandatory data tariff – even if you disable it on your phone and use WiFi instead! The equivalent analogy to apply here is a cable company detecting that you are using an HD TV and automatically upgrading you to a mandatory HD Cable package – why should they? They certainly aren’t allowed to do this, so why is AT&T & Verizon allowed to? This should be illegal practice and the consumer should have the right to opt out of data if they own a smartphone outright and without carrier subsidy!

As a result of this issue, I went to a T-mobile store and brought my family share plan to them – porting all 4 lines over and because T-mobile does not require us to buy a data plan, we happily use these devices on their network and pay only for the services we desire (voice and text). Since our smartphone handsets are GSM, we are able to make this move easily by just inserting the new T-mobile SIM cards into our existing devices. Since we are bringing our own equipment, we also receive a $10/month discount on the family service plan which effectively services all 4 lines at a $103/month savings. We now pay $80/month for the services we want and are happy T-mobile exists to be able to do this for us.

If the merger goes through, we are sure that we will once again be subject to the extorted fees the new firm will likely implement under the control of AT&T. I emplore you to do what is necessary to block this merger as it would effectively create a GSM monopoly in the US. As a GSM consumer, I will not be able to find a service provider to migrate to if the new AT&T firm does buy their only GSM competitor. In addition to my concerns about the merger, the practice of wireless companies (AT&T & Verizon et al requiring data on smartphones that are acquired unsubsidized MUST be stopped – it is not right!
pks29733steel

Was a ‘T-Mobile’ subscriber til thier network became too full to handle the traffic. Went to a service in New York that offers 250 free minutes and a free phone. Get another 250 minutes for $5 bucks and 1000 minutes for $20! Who needs AT&T or T-Mobile!!