AT&T CEO says failure of TMO deal will cost consumers

[marioc21]

There article is here. Basically, just the CEO ranting about not getting his deal approved and how that will lead to a spectrum crunch. He also believes that the U.S. market can't support 4 major players in the long term. He might be right on that point. Anybody think he's got a valid argument?

 

Here's the link to the article. If you're not a WSJ online subscriber just do a google search for the title of the article. When you click the resulting link you should get to a free reading.

 

http://online.wsj.co...1659747956.html

 

I thought this was the best part:

"Since that deal got killed, our data prices have gone up 30%," he said. He also blamed the blocked T-Mobile USA deal, in part, for AT&T's decision earlier this year to impose a limit on the amount of data available to a given customer. However, he said such a move probably would have been necessary regardless of the decision, and that he regretted not imposing the cap sooner.

 

 

"I wish we had moved quicker to change the pricing model to make sure the people who were using the bandwidth were paying for the bandwidth," Mr. Stephenson said.

 

Didn't ATT impose data caps at least a year before the TMO deal was announced?

[lynyrd65]

They're just mad that they actually have to recycle their spectrum for future technologies (in other words take down the edge network).

 

With regards to data prices up by 30%. I bet they went from 10 cents a gig to 13 cents a gig.

[MacinJosh]

If at&t really thinks that they can blame the T-Mobile deal for all their problems, then Randall Stephenson is an idiot and needs to be kicked. at&t's greed prevents them from recycling their spectrum. And I have much more to rant about regarding at&stinks, but I'm going to hold my tongue.

[JeffDTD]

I love it! less competition leads to... wait for it... LOWER PRICES! Yeeeahhaaaaaaww!!!!!!!!!

 

I've always wondered... had Ma' Bell not been broken up back in the 80's, where would we be today? Would she have eaten more communication companies and made the opportunities for new players to enter the market even slimmer? Who knows. What I do know is that as a child, I can remember my grandmother having a job that required her to be tethered to her home telephone and I remember her seeing landline bills as high as $275 in one month... I also remember later on, when we were finally able to buy rate plans that included the entire state or entire regions as being in your "local" calling area, the prices dropped sharply and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Now granny has a Sprint "Home Phone Connect" that I pay for and for $19.99 + tax, she gets nationwide unlimited calling... (she doesn't quite understand -how- it works.. but she loves it)

 

You could argue... The proliferation of mobile calling brought the cost of landline down... the proliferation of text messaging brought the cost of mobile calling down... the proliferation of mobile data usage brought the cost of the prior three down even farther..... Our communication costs seem to decrease when competitiveness allows people to adopt "the next big thing".....

 

ATT was ready to pay 36 billion to buy the rights to more customers and spend a ton of money building out a new network... and because it had to keep 32 billion of that in its pocket, they have to raise prices? Consumers "will suffer"? Sprint ran some ads , if i recall, pointing the finger at ATT for "raising data rates by 30%"... I thought it was a little off because while they upped the cost, they also upped the bucket from 2GB to 3GB, meaning that a user who typically uses between 2GB and 3GB (i believe this is closer to their data centric customer average than they'll admit) gets a $5 discount. Oh well. Bring on the flames, Mr. Stevenson. Point your fingers at President Obama, the FCC, the big nasty corporate machine that regulates the public airwaves you use... because as big and nasty as you swear them to be, your company is just as bureaucratic , confused, and pig steered as you could ever argue the government to be. Didn't he recently take a pay cut? It must really cause his guts to churn every time he looks at the picture of that mazerati he was planning to buy with the pay increase he was hoping for only to find out he had to take a $2 million dorrar pay cut. It must really make his blood boil to only be bringing in 22 million a year... there was certainly a golden egg waiting for him if he had gotten the merger approved.

 

I believe ATT actually envisioned building a high speed LTE network that would be pristine but slowly and surely raising the prices on it to the point that customers would actually want to remain on lower priced 3G only alternatives, staving off galvanization of the current price points by the newer tech. I think they're more concerned with minimizing technology advancement and minimizing competition than anything else. If it weren't for sprint, they wouldn't have even had anyone asking for Anymobile Anytime.

[bgguy]

They can't shut the EDGE network down because they still have large amounts of square miles that still aren't covered with 3G. For instance look at I64 from St. Louis to Louisville, it's a fairly major interstate and half of it only has EDGE coverage. They had how many billions to pay T-Mobile because their deal fell through when they could be putting that money back into their network. Im not saying Sprint doesn't still have 2G areas, just that they aren't wastelessly spending like the government when they could be improving their network.

[ericdabbs]

I am sorry but the FCC needs to be give tough love to AT&T and Verizon for not trying their hardest to use their existing spectrum before trying to ask for more. Has Verizon and AT&T even tried deploying small cells and femtocells to relieve capacity? Verizon and AT&T both need to show evidence of a best effort to deal with supplying enough capacity. I don't buy it for a second that AT&T and Verizon are completely out of spectrum. Sorry but AT&T needs to force all customers still using 2G EDGE to migrate to at least 3G phones.

 

If you compare that with what Sprint and Tmobile are trying to do with Sprint and the Network Vision project which does include small cell and femtocell deployment and Tmobile upgrading its network with LTE and integrated radios in antennas. I get that both AT&T and Verizon have double the amount of customers that Sprint and Tmobile have but lets not forget that only 5% of Verizon's and AT&T's customers are on LTE. With only 5% of customers on LTE using 20 MHz of spectrum and crying to the FCC that they are near capacity is unbelievable to me. There has to be some major spectrum inefficiencies or some skew facts to support that argument. At this rate, there is no way the FCC can supply enough spectrum to each carrier to keep up with this demand.

[4GHoward]

T-Mobile should partner up with Clearwire. Did you know that both companies are headquartered in Bellevue, Washington?

[S4GRU]

T-Mobile should partner up with Clearwire. Did you know that both companies are headquartered in Bellevue' date=' Washington?[/quote']

 

Clearwire is in Kirkland, they are about 12 miles apart. I built a hotel just across I-90 from Tmo HQ.

 

Robert - Posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

[4GHoward]

Clearwire is in Kirkland, they are about 12 miles apart. I built a hotel just across I-90 from Tmo HQ.

 

Robert - Posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

 

Clearwire moved a few months ago to Bellevue. Clearwire new Headquarters is located at 1475 120th Ave NE; Bellevue, WA 98005.

 

Source: http://www.clear.com/about-us

[S4GRU]

Shows you how up to date I am on Clearwire...LOL.

 

Robert - Posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

[4GHoward]

Shows you how up to date I am on Clearwire...LOL.

 

Robert - Posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

 

Looks like they had to give up the Lakefront Property in Kirkland.

[bigzeto]

Shows you how up to date I am on Clearwire...LOL.

 

Robert - Posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

 

Come on Robert, you used to scour the maps and news sites to get all the new protection sites for us!!

[S4GRU]

 

Come on Robert' date=' you used to scour the maps and news sites to get all the new protection sites for us!![/quote']

 

True, true. But the days of scouring Clearwire maps for new Protection Sites are over. I can still remember the excitement of when I would find a new site. Oh, happy days.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[MacinJosh]

Come on Robert, you used to scour the maps and news sites to get all the new protection sites for us!!

 

That was until Clearwire stopped deploying WiMax and started going under. Now they are going LTE so he will have more work to do with Clearwire LTE coverage maps!

[irev210]

I bet AT&T would love to have a nice duopoly and just roll in the cash.

 

I hope AT&T crashes, burns, crashes and burns some more, and falls off the face of the earth.

 

All politics aside, blocking the AT&T/T-Mobile merger is the best thing the government has done to the telecom industry in a long time.

[JeffDTD]

I bet AT&T would love to have a nice duopoly and just roll in the cash.

 

I hope AT&T crashes' date=' burns, crashes and burns some more, and falls off the face of the earth.

 

All politics aside, blocking the AT&T/T-Mobile merger is the best thing the government has done to the telecom industry in a long time.[/quote']

 

I wish they would just stop being bitter. Its so unbecoming of a man who earned 22 million last year as the ceo of a wildly profitable telecom to be so bitterly anti consumer and anti government. Is it really so hard being att? Really?

[irev210]

I wish they would just stop being bitter. Its so unbecoming of a man who earned 22 million last year as the ceo of a wildly profitable telecom to be so bitterly anti consumer and anti government. Is it really so hard being att? Really?

 

Sadly, it is not bitter. It's the machine that is AT&T. It's just a marketing tool.

 

They are just promoting what would benefit them the most (less competition, more airwaves) in this particular marketing piece.

 

It's amazing the differences between AT&T and Verizon. While Verizon is no golden child, they operate (in my opinion) in a much more competitive manner.

 

Buying 22MHz of nationwide upper 700MHz for over $10 billion? That was too much $$ for AT&T.

Running fiber into home instead of to huge neighborhood nodes? That was too much $$ for AT&T.

 

When they have offerings that are inferior to the competition, what do they do? Try to work on having no competition. He is paid 22 million to try to make sure nobody can compete with AT&T since AT&T is incapable of competing.

[MacinJosh]

I wish they would just stop being bitter. Its so unbecoming of a man who earned 22 million last year as the ceo of a wildly profitable telecom to be so bitterly anti consumer and anti government. Is it really so hard being att? Really?

 

Randall Stephenson is trying to fill the shoes of Ed Whitacre Jr., his predecessor and the man that made at&t (SBC) what it is today. He just can't seem to keep pace. And so his greed will be his downfall. If he knew what was good for him, he would back off the merger concept and focus on upgrading the at&t network. Buying competition out only lasts so long, and then Ma Bell will be ripped to shreds for Monopoly status again. I hate to think what would happen in the telecom industry if that were to happen again. In 2005 when SBC bought at&t, I told a friend that Bell South was next to give 'the new at&t' complete control of Cingular, and I was right. It was announced 6 months later. And when I heard it, I said this was going to be bad for competition.

 

I bet AT&T would love to have a nice duopoly and just roll in the cash.

 

I hope AT&T crashes, burns, crashes and burns some more, and falls off the face of the earth.

 

All politics aside, blocking the AT&T/T-Mobile merger is the best thing the government has done to the telecom industry in a long time.

 

The only way that at&t will crash and burn again is if they stop innovating. Blaming the government for their reason to raise prices IMO is treason and they must be punished for it.

 

Sadly, it is not bitter. It's the machine that is AT&T. It's just a marketing tool.

 

This isn't marketing. It's just pure GREED. Ed Whitacre Jr. has made a monster and now no one wants to stop it. But it must be stopped. Frankly the government needs to intervene and make at&t divest itself of it's wireless arm and make the wireless company take back on the Cingular name. That will keep the market competition healthy.

 

(Disclaimer) I have bitter feelings against at&t only. I have no bad feelings against Cingular or any other wireless brand. These are just my own opinions, most of which are from past experiences.

[S4GRU]

AT&T is just broadcasting with a mega phone to their customers that they are raising data rates, which is plain stupid! AT&T customers won't care why prices are going up (even if they believe AT&T's lies), they just will care that they are going up. And their customers will see their competition is not going up in price.

 

AT&T is speaking out of both sides of their mouth, they are quietly on the side trying to tell customers through tech media that prices aren't really going up, because they are raising data allotments, so in fact, prices are going down (per GB). But with the mega phone they are blasting the FCC for causing them to raise prices.

 

And as irev210 points out above, that is contradictory in every way. If you are spectrum constrained and have to raise prices to curb usage to stay within your spectrum allotment, why would you raise the data caps with price increase? This has nothing to do with Tmo or the FCC or spectrum. This is a move to increase revenue...period. And AT&T is hoping with a little smoke and mirrors, customers will think that the "revenue increase" that AT&T is trying to pry out of their pockets can be blamed on the FCC. But I don't think it's going to work. AT&T is stupid. It's just going to cause customers to look at the competition again.

 

Robert

[MacinJosh]

AT&T is just broadcasting with a mega phone to their customers that they are raising data rates, which is plain stupid! AT&T customers won't care why prices are going up (even if they believe AT&T's lies), they just will care that they are going up. And their customers will see their competition is not going up in price.

 

AT&T is speaking out of both sides of their mouth, they are quietly on the side trying to tell customers through tech media that prices aren't really going up, because they are raising data allotments, so in fact, prices are going down (per GB). But with the mega phone they are blasting the FCC for causing them to raise prices.

 

And as irev210 points out above, that is contradictory in every way. If you are spectrum constrained and have to raise prices to curb usage to stay within your spectrum allotment, why would you raise the data caps with price increase? This has nothing to do with Tmo or the FCC or spectrum. This is a move to increase revenue...period. And AT&T is hoping with a little smoke and mirrors, customers will think that the "revenue increase" that AT&T is trying to pry out of their pockets can be attributed to the FCC. But I don't think it's going to work. AT&T is stupid. It's just going to cause customers to look at the competition again.

 

Robert

 

Like I said: GREED

 

And it's sad too. My friend is even ready to cancel both her landlines, but the only reason we need to keep one is to be able to fax. Too bad the Sprint Phone connect doesn't do fax yet.

[gangrene]

They're just mad that they actually have to recycle their spectrum for future technologies (in other words take down the edge network).

 

With regards to data prices up by 30%. I bet they went from 10 cents a gig to 13 cents a gig.

 

ATT and Verizon don't actually like competing in a market segment, they want to turn the US wireless market into a "comfortable duopoly" where they can jack up prices on consumers and slash infrastructure spending.

[ps3ia]

Clearwire is in Kirkland, they are about 12 miles apart. I built a hotel just across I-90 from Tmo HQ.

 

Robert - Posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

You built a hotel o_0

[S4GRU]

You built a hotel o_0

 

In my previous life I worked in hotel development. Up until October 2009.

 

Robert

[irev210]

ATT and Verizon don't actually like competing in a market segment, they want to turn the US wireless market into a "comfortable duopoly" where they can jack up prices on consumers and slash infrastructure spending.

 

Exactly.

 

 

As for GREED... all corporations are greedy. Verizon is greedy too... just look at their gross margins. The difference between Verizon and AT&T? Not greed. Both are greedy.

 

It's how they decided to compete in the marketplace. Verizon said "we'll have the best technology". AT&T said "we'll have the best people working to align political figures to do things that benefit us the most".

[MacinJosh]

Exactly.

 

 

As for GREED... all corporations are greedy. Verizon is greedy too... just look at their gross margins. The difference between Verizon and AT&T? Not greed. Both are greedy.

 

It's how they decided to compete in the marketplace. Verizon said "we'll have the best technology". AT&T said "we'll have the best people working to align political figures to do things that benefit us the most".

 

True that it's not GREED that drives one or the other, but Verizon has a disadvantage to at&t. Verizon doesn't own 100% of Verizon Wireless. It makes the biggest difference between the 2. If Verizon acquires the rest of VZW, then we will have a Duopoly in the USA.