What happens when two bad cell providers combine forces?

[-Jrabbit]

Your joke here...

AT&T to Buy T-Mobile USA in $39 Billion Deal

AT&T announced on Sunday that it has agreed to buy T-Mobile
USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion in cash and stock,
in one of the biggest mergers since the onset of the
financial crisis.

The deal will dramatically bolster AT&T's footprint in the
country, adding an additional 46.5 million customers.

Under the terms of the deal, AT&T will pay $25 billion in
cash and the rest in stock. Deutsche Telekom will in turn
gain an 8 percent stake in AT&T and a seat on the American
telecom giant's board.

Linky: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/20/att-mobile-att-buys-t-mobile-usa/?hpt=T2

[Lonestar]

You get one large provider with two networks?

[Dinner]

I used T-Mobile from 2000-2005 but their network just wasn't that good. I'd often get "all circuits are busy" because they so over sold their network, I'd be downtown where you'd think reception would be good but huge areas simply didn't get any signal, I routinely had my phone not ring at all and only know someone called when the phone beeped to let me know I'd gotten a voice message, and then there was the problem of dropped calls... I'd be in a totally flat area with no large buildings or bridges or anything else yet mysteriously calls would always get dropped at certain spots on the freeway. I have no idea why because like I said the geography was flat yet I'd go from max bars to zero bars and back to max bars all with in 100 yards or so.

[Dinner]

You get one large provider with two networks?

Or maybe less competition and higher prices?

[Lonestar]

That two...but I'm serious, the AT&T and TMobile networks don't work with each other, so if you have a T-Mobile phone a year from now you won't magically get access to the larger AT&T network once the buyout goes through.

[Darius871]

So their best minds wouldn't be able to integrate their networks, or at least recommend that users get phones that automatically switch between the settings for each depending on what's available in a given area? I'm no techie by any means but that sounds very hard to believe.

[Lonestar]

They can recommend phones to their hearts content. Not all of the will work universally on the combined network.

[Darius871]

Why is it that the towers can't be retrofitted?

[KrazyHorse]

I will note that my company had no part in this unholy union.

[Lonestar]

Why is it that the towers can't be retrofitted?

I doubt it would be worth it to AT&T to retrofit T-mobiles towers. I bet they are just planning on letting that spectrum die a slow death.

[Dinner]

So basically, AT&T's main goal here is to get a monopoly on the GSM market in the US by buying out it's main GSM competitor? If they do intend to just let T-mobile's spectrum slowly wither away then the merger clearly is designed to be anti-competitive in nature instead of trying to maximize use of the limited spectrum the Fed's have authorized for wireless devices. I really hope Obama grows a pair of balls and blocks this merge on anti-trust grounds but I doubt he will because he's just as bought off as all the other politicians plus he doesn't want to piss off his big business masters when he has an election coming next year.

[Jon Miller]

I had a couple of great deals from T-Mobile.

Mainly:
Free WiFi calling (from anywhere in the world) $10
Unlimited data (from anywhere in the world) $20

Problem was that it was a contract. Contracts suck.

And if I went over my minutes I got screwed.

JM

[Jon Miller]

I like GSM, so yeah, I have a problem with less competition.

JM

[MikeH]

Aren't AT&T basically buying a load of cell towers, which means they can significantly improve their coverage in some areas, and getting the rest of the company basically thrown in for free?

[KrazyHorse]

No, what AT&T is buying is TMobile's subscribers.