AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion • Hacker News Board

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#191

Post by count » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 5:34 AM UTC

jamesbritt wrote: post #184

count wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, Tmob is a defendant named in the EFF suit for illegal wiretapping, along with Verizon and every other major carrier except Qwest.

Well, they could be lying, but T-mobile has claimed that they did not participate in the NSA program. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12745304/ns/technology_and_scien... Meanwhile AT&T was up front about rolling over. Since any telco can legally lie about this, I'm curious why T-Mobile was later added to the initial suit while Qwest was not. I looked around the EFF site but got tired of poking through PDFs and not findin…

Joe Nacchio (former Qwest CEO) says Qwest refused to comply and spy on behalf of the NSA, and that cost them contracts: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071013/news_1n13ns...

Granted, he's been convicted of insider trading and may be a biased source, but I'd say it's a good indicator that Qwest isn't named as a defendant in the EFF suits.

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#192

Post by mrgordon » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 7:04 AM UTC

tesseract wrote: post #141

tptacek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you could simply swap your SIM card to swap providers in the US, the majority of customers would not suddenly become portable; people don't want to pay $500 up front for a phone, even though they're paying more down the line.

> people don't want to pay $500 up front for a phone, even though they're paying more down the line. As far as I can tell, T-Mobile is (was?) the only major US carrier to even offer the option of buying a phone up front and then getting a month-to-month plan that costs less than the equivalent 2-year contract. That is what I use and all told it is going to save me about $200 over two years vs. a subsidy based plan. B…

Prepaid plans don't necessarily restrict your choice of phone. I have an iPhone on T-mobile prepaid. That requires unlocking, of course, but most other smart phones wouldn't even require that (and would have 3G)

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#193

Post by mrgordon » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 7:07 AM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #138

paulschreiber wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US -> Canada carrier rough equivalency chart Bell, Telus, Rogers = AT&T Wind Mobile, Mobilicity, Videotron = T-Mobile* Public Mobile = Sprint/Verizon Bell, Telus (old network) = Sprint/Verizon * T-Mobile USA also has a legacy 2G/EDGE/GPRS network, whereas Wind et al. do not.

Wait, Canada has 7 mobile providers? And we get 3?

Yeah but Canada gets three year contracts...

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#194

Post by marques » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 7:29 AM UTC

I wonder how AT&T acquiring T-Mobile is going to affect Mobile Marketing companies in the US. Will Mobile Marketing companies be required to abide by T-Mobile's double Opt-In software policy or will AT&T keep its own Opt In policy which doesn't require a double Opt In for SMS subscribers? This should be interesting to see how this merger unfolds over the next 12 months.

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#195

Post by usertm » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 9:20 AM UTC

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #59

cletus wrote: post #30

It's a natural fit for AT&T to buy T-Mobile. They both 3G GSM (UMTS) technology. T-Mobile is probably better in some key markets than AT&T, most notably New York (City). The one issue with T-Mobile is it uses the fairly nonstandard 1870 MHz frequency. I don't know of any other carrier that does (anywhere). I assume this is because AT&T has the rights to the more common frequencies in the relevant markets? I wonder wh…

> Wireless really is a mess in the US. Europe and Australia have really benefited from choosing one technology (GSM). How are pricing plans in the US when you are roaming beyond your state? I live in Sweden, where I have a decently priced data and call plan. However, as soon as I go outside of Sweden, which is a small country (9M people), I have to pay roaming charges. I don't mind so much the call charges, but they…

The reason for this ridiculous prices is quite simple: cellular networks just weren't designed with data roaming in mind.

If you use data roaming, traffic from your device goes back to your home operator and only after that to Internet. I don't know if any significant changes were made in Rel-8 (Rel-10?), but for now that's how it works.

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#196

Post by CaptainZapp » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 9:24 AM UTC

crasshopper wrote: post #177

RK wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data roaming in Europe is truly painful. As far as covering a large geographic area, the US carriers sell plans that are convenient to use within the US. Yes, I can get another SIM, but then I have to tell everyone who may call me that I have changed number for that week, which is not really workable. Right now I'm travelling in Australia and have settled on getting a local pre-paid SIM with a few GB of data included…

Google Voice eliminates the problem of having to tell people to call you at a different number. As I understand it this was Grand Central's motivation for developing the technology in the first place.

Two issues here:

Google Voice is not available outside the US (at least last time I checked)

I don't want to entrust Google more then my searches and (very partially) my email. This rules out, for example, an Android phone or using Chrome.

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#197

Post by CaptainZapp » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 9:27 AM UTC

eli wrote: post #42

cletus wrote: post #30

It's a natural fit for AT&T to buy T-Mobile. They both 3G GSM (UMTS) technology. T-Mobile is probably better in some key markets than AT&T, most notably New York (City). The one issue with T-Mobile is it uses the fairly nonstandard 1870 MHz frequency. I don't know of any other carrier that does (anywhere). I assume this is because AT&T has the rights to the more common frequencies in the relevant markets? I wonder wh…

Not to belabor the point, but it's worth noticing that it was a lack of regulation that caused the mess in the US. The FCC should have just mandated one technology (as in most other countries).

My (completely unscientific and as an outsider) observation is that this is only part of the problem.

The other part seems to be the attitude that customers are the enemy, who should be squeezed for their last cent while being provided with minimal service and support.

Add to that very weak customer protection laws and lack of competition.

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#198

Post by dmm » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 12:36 PM UTC

whakojacko wrote: post #64

tptacek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, buy a Sprint phone with unlimited texting? (Wait a minute; I don't appear to be paying $0.20 for text messages either, and I'm AT&T.)

Sprint plans with unlimited texting are still much more expensive than similar in Europe. Their 450 Minute "Everything" plan is $50/mo with a 2 year contract. That might be good for the US, but its not good relavitely speaking. Just as an example, I looked through vodafone UK's 24 month plans and I found 600 minutes and unlimited texting for the equivalent of $32 per month.

Virgin Mobile USA (owned by Sprint) has similar plans. Unlimited texts + 300mins/month for $25 prepaid. 1200mins for $40.

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#199

Post by mgcross » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 1:10 PM UTC

dazzla wrote: post #14

plusbryan wrote: post #4

Oh crap. There goes my unlimited tethering.

I'm really going to miss T-Mobile policy's like unlimited tethering and cheaper plans with no contract. This is a real shame. Maybe its time to get a contract to be grandfarthered in? A T-Mobile contract on the larger AT&T network may not be so bad. Edit: I forgot to mention the no fee for tethering or hotspot. I use that enough for it to be very helpful but not to pay an additional fee.

Have you checked out Simple Mobile (http://www.mysimplemobile.com )? Cheap, but the CS gets horrible marks.

Re: AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

#200

Post by mgcross » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 1:10 PM UTC

dazzla wrote: post #14

plusbryan wrote: post #4

Oh crap. There goes my unlimited tethering.

I'm really going to miss T-Mobile policy's like unlimited tethering and cheaper plans with no contract. This is a real shame. Maybe its time to get a contract to be grandfarthered in? A T-Mobile contract on the larger AT&T network may not be so bad. Edit: I forgot to mention the no fee for tethering or hotspot. I use that enough for it to be very helpful but not to pay an additional fee.

Have you checked out Simple Mobile (http://www.mysimplemobile.com )? Cheap, but the CS gets horrible marks.