:iagree: Conglomeration is bad, mm'kay?!
... but it's OK for Grooby, right? :rolleyes:
~BB~
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And if you think LTE deployment will be successful under the new AT&T/T-Mobile setup you're kidding yourself
no one will ever bet Verizon in LTE, period
DT wanted to dump T-Mobile and even if the FCC goes against this buyout the company still gets split up, a win for DT
I don't know if ultimately it will be good or bad...I suppose it's where you're coming from. Stock holders from both companies seem to be elated, and AT&T is one of the most widely held stocks, so it's not just Wall Street insiders making some coin. Lots of pension and mutual funds hold that stock.
Working in the indusrty, mergers and acquisitions are a way of life. It does no good to dream of the good old monoply days where everybody was just about guaranteed a 30 year career but there was no competition.
If as Flabby suggests it will ultimately cause us to have less choices as consumers, I suppose on balance that's not a good thing.
Ok wow now i'm thinkin:
Remeber when T-Mobile use to be Voicestream? Verizon use to be Powertel, Cingular was Suncom?
Tmobile actually had pretty good prices on there rates. I can't believe this actually going down. Does the US Goverment not give a damn about monopolies anymore?
You're lost. T-Mobile had a snowballs chance in hell of competing in LTE which is why DT wanted to dump T-Mobile (they saw it too costly to follow through on any new technology even to the point of branding their fast 3G as 4G). Everyone knew that LTE for T-Mobile was cost prohibitive. So DT gets to save face, makes some nice coin and gets a stake in AT&T (not a bad deal for them). AT&T gets subscribers, subscribers, subscribers.
Barring some political grandstanding by a slimy politician ala john kerry, this deal gets quick approval. The carriers will make the same argument I have:
MVNO's
MetroPCS
Walmart Straight Talk/Family Mobile
And lets not forget, the cost of wireless has come DOWN over the last 10 years... this despite mergers and acquisition.
I don't care about the cost. AT&T has had sh*t service and support forever. T-Mobile has not. It's a loss for both customers. I'm going to Verizon if this happens.
Also, people keep on forgetting: AT&T is using the money it could have invested in more towers, better hardware, better coverage, etc - on this merger. Imagine $39 billion in better infrastructure. Remember that when you have crap coverage two years from now.
That's ridiculous. Even poor people have cell phones now. And I'll disregard a novices opinion on wireless valuation. There's a difference between something being expensive and something being overpriced.
Big 4 Carriers are now offering UNLIMITED voice for under 70 bucks, with the MVNO's coming in with UNLIMITED for about $45 bucks on the Verizon network even. What did you get for 45 bucks 10 years ago? 400 minutes?
I'm not offering testimony on AT&T's service because everyone knows it's shitty. The merging of the networks will help this to some degree but improving GSM coverage is not the aim of this merger. The aim is to save what's left of T-Mobile and AT&T gets subscibers.
Believe me, you all want this acquisition, you just don't know it. An independent T-Mobile would be bankrupt in 8 years. They don't own much 4g spectrum and they don't have the pockets to bankroll spectrum acquisition.... or at least they don't have the full participation of DT on that front. Verizon didn't want them because absorbing their technology would be too costly. Sprint couldn't afford them either.