Cingular-AT&T Wireless Merger Complete 331
bigmase521 writes "PRNNewsWire, Phonescoop.com, and this thread on Howardforums.com, are reporting that the Cingular/AT&T Wireless Merger is now complete. Cingular bought out AT&T Wireless for ~$41B to become the nations largest cellular provider. Details of the merger, and full press coverage, including the audio of this afternoon's conference call can be found here, and Cingular and AT&T customers can see what is/isn't changing for them at newcingular.com."
Gains (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct20
"The Atlanta-based carrier has landed exclusive rights to the new Motorola Razr V3 and the Sony Ericsson se710a. Both are high-end multimedia phones expected to lure sophisticated buyers. The Motorola Razr is a design triumph. It's just a half-inch thick when closed. Open, it's as thin as a Q-Tip. Yet it manages to pack in a VGA camera with 4x zoom, 3D graphics capability, and 22 kilohertz polyphonic speaker technology."
Its merger with AT&T Wireless will give Cingular 47.6 million subscribers, catapulting it past the 41 million customers that current market leader Verizon Wireless has. But that status might not last long unless Cingular can keep subscribers from bolting to Verizon and others. Cingular is plagued by above-average customer defections. [...] its churn rate edged up from 2.7% in the second quarter to 2.8% in the third, while Verizon's is hovering around a more wholesome 1.5%.
Mergers are dangerous : you gain benefits (in this case, exclusive handhelds and a big subscriber base), but can go wrong. Only time will tell if the benefits outweighted the disadvantages in this case.
Re:Can you say.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say.... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are economic reasons for this. Mainly that being a telecom company is expensive. You must have lines, switching systems, employees, et cetera. Competition is often a good thing, and it's often a bad thing. Some things, like telecos, power/water/propane supply on a local scale, cable companies on a local scale... why? Because every competitor requires a duplication of effort to achieve the same goal, and split the profit. After a certain point, boom. NOBODY is profitable and they ALL go tits-up.
Ma-bell wasn't broken up because it was big, it was broken up because there was no way others could get into the market otherwise. It's not always compitition which keeps the market efficient, it's the THREAT of competition or elimination which does it. Utility companies generally try to keep rates low despite their monopolies because the state/county/city can kick them out if they don't. Cable companies try to keep rates competitive with satellite, and offer benefits over broadcast TV. Telecom companies, so long as there is at least a threat of being broken up to restore competition, will do the same (in theory).
As long as there are at least two companies (preferably three), the only thing we have to fear is collusion. As it is now, they're playing "Who can undercut the others on the wireless service"... POTS is more expensive still, but that's to be expected since wires costs money... Blah, I'm turning into an economics professor. You can make up the rest, turn your homework into my inbox.
Couldn't happen soon enough! (Score:3, Insightful)
My advice to Cingular on this buyout (if they'd have it?) Completely stomp all AT&T customer-facing EVERYTHING into irretrievable dust, and replace it with Cingular everything. Every drop of software, to the point of formatting any hard drive infested with any AT&T software or marketing. Drop every stupid, confusing plan, and replace it with an equivalent Cingular plan. Burn every marketing brochure, and hang on to the resumes of any former AT&T marketing executive just to ensure they're prominently featured front and center on your blacklist. "Unwanted" posters might not be going too far.
I have had the CRAPPIEST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER from AT&T Wireless. Bar none. I have gotten more useful, helpful, timely and factual information from a WalMart greeter. I can't blame the poor salescreature who I bought my phones from. It's their process that is the most horrendous piece of crap application ever devised by a bunch of marketing VPs. I tell you if any coworker of mine were to emit an application as unfriendly as that they'd be gone in a heartbeat, maybe less. This poor lady had to spend 25 minutes PER PHONE to enter a half page of customer information. Tough stuff, like name, address AND ZIP code. To do that, she had to click through literally dozens of pages of options she couldn't explain to me; she misunderstood (and misguided me) about their confusing plethora of plans, and to top it all off, she was one of two people in the store.
As it was, I waited over an hour just to get to her, then other people had to wait over 90 minutes before my transaction was completed. The reason I don't blame her is when she called the 1-800-DUH number to answer my questions, they couldn't help her either! And she's worked in the store for well over a year. How hard can it be to sell a goddamn phone??? "Push these buttons, pay this amount." God, I'm still burning over that waste of my life.
As far as customer service on their help lines? I don't think so -- I waited over three hours on hold one night to try to get them to fix the plan the saleslady eventually misclicked. If I wasn't locked in an old contract, I'd have dropped them for T-Mobile in a heartbeat. As it was, after all the headaches were added up it seriously would have been worth my time to pay the $174 they would have charged me for an early switch.
Technically, I've had very good luck with AT&T. I'd had steadily improving coverage with my PCS phone for the last three years, so I've no complaints with their network. That is, until I got sucked into their GSM plan ("mMode"). My coverage is now a tiny, tiny area immediately surrounding Minneapolis/St. Paul, although even that's been improving over the last four months. Now, if Cingular just has a decent GPRS plan ... well, a fellow can dream, can't he?
Anyway, when this AT&T contract is up it's "Hello T-Mobile!" and "good riddance to bad rubbish, AT&T Wireless." That is, if Cingular doesn't improve the situation considerably.
Re:Please finish changeover by Oct 31! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please finish changeover by Oct 31! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cingular already out to make $$$ (Score:2, Insightful)
If I go GSM, I'm definitely going unlocked.
Re:I know reading the article is bad form... (Score:5, Insightful)
It most certainly is. Sure the costs are real. WalMart doesn't have $6.65 on the box, only to charge you storage fees, parking fees, retail overhead, "government regulation fees" (they pay money directly to Social Security and other fees directly to governemnts). They figure out the cost, advertise $9.88, charge $9.88 (plus tax, if you are in a taxed location) and pay all the fees without bugging you.
If I were in charge of the FCC (too bad I'm not a general's son), I'd order that all telecom companies include all static (either in $ or %) fees in the advertised price. They shouldn't be allowed to tell you service is $20, then charge you $40 because of all the fees they add in that they blame on the government. It is their cost of business, and the only reason they are separating them out is to be able to advertise or quote lower rates that they are not able to deliver.
Re:Gains (Score:1, Insightful)
2.) 1900MHz spectrum = 2 billion for 10 MHz in NYC alone.
3.) Pre existing Network at 100K per cell site
4.) 20 million plus customers.
for 41 billion.....thats actualy not that bad.