AT&T disclosed its plans to buy T-Mobile over the weekend in a deal that would create the country’s largest wireless carrier. Consumers have good reason to be concerned about this mega deal.
Here’s the initial reaction from our colleagues over at the Consumer Reports Electronics Blog.
And here is our statement on the proposed deal.
We will be monitoring and commenting on this unprecedented merger as it develops.
I think AT&T is doing what most companies do and that is to expand to be the biggest. Reason being, the bigger they are the more clout they have over the competition. Should we as consumers benefit from this billion dollar purchase? I don’t think we are going to benefit from this at all. Although, AT&T says we will benefit from this buyout by offering better prices to the consumer. Should I believe this? I should say, I will believe it when I see it. I think AT&T just wants to control most of the cell phone business because, they see the handwriting on the wall. The cell phone business is just going to get bigger as time go on.
I believe that the AT&T T-Moble deal will create an anti-competative environment such that serivce and recourse to poor serivce will be significantly reduced. This in light of the large network control put in the hands of AT&T.
With decreased competition, prices WILL increase, choices WILL eliminated, restrictive usage patterns WILL be imposed, “pay-per-service” WILL happen, and customers will suffer in many more ways. This a total loss for TMobile customers. They gain nothing at all. Any benefits they may potentially get will involved being moved over to AT&T. This is something they could do today. Whether they do it today or tomorrow, they will be required to pay the significantly higher prices with less usage. This is how AT&T performed other mergers. When forcing TMobile customers on to the already overcrowded AT&T network, legacy AT&T customers will see worse service as the network will not be able to handle the added demands.
It will take years for any technical benefits, if ever, and customers WILL be required to purchase new devices to realize any benefits at all. This is a Lose Situation for consumers.
Yes this is another attempt by AT&T to come back as a monopoly .They are almost there ,just swallow T- Mobile then put Sprint out of business and we can raise the rates at will .If you don’t believe that look at the cable companies or health insurance companies .There is no benefit to consumers allowing this merger only to stock holders .Example AT&T charges .25 a min on their prepaid accounts ,T-MOBILE 10c how long do you think the 10cent call will last .Also Verizon prepaid mins while also 10c a min ,but get one call even if it’s a wrong number it’s going to cost you 99c for the day .Hardly a bargain .Cell phones are a necessity today so why are we even considering pricing working people out of cell phone service?
It’s hard to believe the mentality of AT&T execs. (we buy out T Mobile, and we’ll be the largest company, with the worst service).
Most good companies, would improve their services to attract more customers, and wouldn’t have to spend their profit to buy other companies, the oppositions customers would switch on their own.
Just my opinion.
This is just as bad as Comcast and MSNBC. I always loved T-mobile and hated AT&T. What do you think this is going to be a love/hate relationship, nada. AT&T is greedy with poor Customer Relations. And now I’ll be losing one of the last great Companies. POU AT&T just like Comcast u su*k
I sure don’t want to see AT&T become a monopoly again. We need competition in the communications industry; cable, internet,hard line telephone and especially cell phones. I am afraid that if T-Mobile is merged with AT&T the mobile broadband will suffer and higher prices will result. Why would any company want to buy out their competition; yes its the bottom line; the profit motive. I am so happy with T-Mobile as a competitor with an economical pay as you go plan. I can purchase a $10, $30 card and enjoy fast internet on my laptop for a week or a month while on vacation without a monthly bill. I think that will change under ATT. They want to hook you for life with a monthly bill for just about everything they sell. I remember as a boy when ATT had the telephone monopoly. They controlled the sale of the phones, the number of phones that could be hooked up and so on. We were afraid to buy a different brand phone and hook it to the line as a second phone as they would threaten us with a disconnect if we did not buy their brand. I think they also charged an extra fee for each additional phone until the Government stopped thast practice. I sure hope this merger will not take place for the sake of the average customer.
Does the term ” Corporate Greed” ring a bell.They buy out the competition so they can change rates at their discretion , while enforcing the “contract”. If Sprint gets serious they would have to buy out the AT&T and T-mobile accounts so customers couild make the change . Generally, the smaller companies provide better service as their benefit against the Monolthic Companies.
Personally this should go through. AT&T is doing this to expand capacity. How can this hurt consumers in the long run? Instead of waiting years for them to construct the network, they bring in T-Mobile’s which is already established. This isn’t any different from Verizon buying up companies as well and how can it be a monopoly if Verizon is the competition? Things were better when AT&T owned everything anyway.
Back in 2001, I was an AT&T Wireless customer, and very happy with the service. The switch from TDMA to GSM was handled very well, and I enjoyed excellent service. When Cingular took over ATT – first the voicemail stopped being delivered, then the customer service refused to change my billing address – inspit of moving two miles away. They claimed I needed a new contract in order to change anything on my account, and all of the newer accounts were ~$20 more expensive per month. I said that was ridiculous, and switched all my bill delivery to electronic delivery. This went on for a number of years, and I left Pittsburgh PA and moved to Washington State. My old phone was starting to die, and I tried to get a new phone – again, the “new” ATT refused to sell me a phone, even off contract – so I had to go to Canada to buy an unlocked phone to get a new phone. I was completely fed up with ATT by 2009. The customer service would refuse to talk to me after I had waited on hold for 45+ minutes, and until I got a new plan they would do nothing, and the various fees started going up on my grandfathered plan. — it was now ~$15 more expensive than when I started.
In Nov 2009, I was finally upset enough with terrible and rude customer service from ATT, and I switched to Tmobile. Tmobile has worse service in my house, but the UMA/Wifi Calling works great via my home wireless network, so there is effectively no major problem with the poor service in my house.
I have no complaints and nothing but good service from Tmobile. Whenever I have had a question or problem , they have been polite and solved the problem in one phone call. I find Tmobile offers good service, excellent internet speeds (better than Sprint!) , offers a fair price. The biggest failing of Tmobile is that they lack the 850 mhz (or 700 mhz ) range which allows service inside homes, this poor interior service is what is killing T-mobile. If you don’t have a UMA/Wifi phone, or are unwilling to set it up – then Tmobile really has poor coverage.
I don’t want to go back to ATT – because of the terrible horrible service, high prices, and predatory (consumer unfriendly) contract practices.
I have a sprint cell phone for work, and I can’t even start to talk about how bad their customer support is — they are polite, but incompetent — any problem has required on average 3 calls, for the same subject to get the issue fixed. Similar to T-mobile, the 1900 mhz band that Sprint has in my area offers terrible indoor reception. Not having the Wifi Calling/UMA option, means that Sprint just doesn’t work in my house.
If I can get my cell phones unlocked — I will probably switch myself and my wife to the Simple Mobile Pre-paid option — just so that we can maintain the current cell phones, and avoid dealing with ATT. Of course — that presumes that ATT will allow the GSM MVNO to continue to operate.
I really hope that ATT is prevented from finalizing the purchase of Tmobile, even thought I know it is impossible.
AT&T&T-Mobile would be a merger designed for AT&Ts benefit over Verizon. it will massively expand their service area with GSM and 3G technology. they will have higher bandwidth in places like NY and San Francisco, meaning less dropped calls and faster more reliable data. all I hear is the bad in this deal. and really it will make things better for existing at&t and T-Mo customers. more service area better data and frequency bands to support LTE immediately. I really hope this merger goes through.
If I remember correctly when AT&T had to split up our phone prices rose tremendously. That was one of the worst things our government did at that time. Also, the service went straight down as I remember. I really think this merger will be good for everyone involved, especially T-Mobile customers.