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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do we care what the market share is for specific transmission technologies? The overall wireless market is extremely competitive.
20 cent text messages both ways is competitive?
(Wait a minute; I don't appear to be paying $0.20 for text messages either, and I'm AT&T.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it matter that they're the only GSM provider? Why aren't other technologies competition?
It matters because it increases the switching cost for anyone that wants to go to a competitor. You can't bring your phone with you, so you MUST make an upfront commitment of either buying a phone or signing a 2 year contract to get the phone without an upfront cost. When there are multiple companies that provide the network type your phone uses, you can move between them at no cost.
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…
From Friday's HN post "Confessions of an Apple Store Employee": "We usually have to tell them that if they unlock their iPhone, it won't work. That it's going to be like a $700 paperweight, and that the antenna will fry itself on T-Mobile. Of course, that's not true, but that's what we tell them." Wonder how quickly their tune on that last part will change..
The whole thing will change - because what GSM provider in the US are they going to worry about people unlocking and switching to? The release says this will "enhance [AT&T's] network capacity". That means T-Mobile isn't likely to exist as a separate thing that's just owned by AT&T. It's pretty certain to be rolled directly into AT&T. It's Cingular 2.0.
I don't know exactly what would be involved, but it's worth noting that T-Mobile 3G and AT&T 3G are not currently compatible.
This is complete bullshit, and would give AT&T an effective monopoly on GSM based wireless communications in a number of key markets. I say we collectively work to lobby against this deal, as it will be bad for all of us who are based in the US and looking to do ANYTHING in mobile. Imagine if Apple had tried to get their iPhone AppStore arrangement in a single-GSM carrier world? It's 2011, folks. We can't let oppress…
Why do we care what the market share is for specific transmission technologies? The overall wireless market is extremely competitive.
Very, very few handsets are built for both GSM and CDMA, which is a situation that won't change for quite a while (upcoming next-gen LTE handsets should work on all carriers, but we will see about that).
At the time of the iPhone deal, T-Mobile and AT&T were Apple's only two real options for deployment (Verizon was a negotiating tactic) -- they wanted to build a GSM handset they could deploy globally. The situation would not be any different today. AT&T only won that war because of their dominant position, which allowed them to throw billions at promotions and guarantees -- which, of course, only further worsened T-Mobile's ability to compete (imagine if they had gotten the iPhone instead).
In today's world, if you were Apple, AT&T would once again be able to sit back and dictate terms, as they will be the only real nationwide GSM network in town. It's 1998 all over again, and I don't like it one bit. The other players -- MetroPCS, etc -- are clearly regional / metropolitan plays and do not offer the footprint necessary for an iPhone type device.
As an aside, I would appreciate if your responses were more than one liners.
However, I can see the same thing not happening with this deal. AT&T really is the antithesis of T-Mo in terms of pricing, flexibility, and customer service.
I've got both (an iPhone and a Nexus One). While 3G coverage is not as readily available on T-Mo as it is on AT&T, there have certainly been many times when it has been more reliable in call quality and drops.
The only upside to this? It is very likely the US will end up with unified GSM frequencies. We will see.
Seriously not looking forward to this.
Awesome. Now the US will have an even more competitive wireless market, (seriously: which is exactly what is necessary). I'm sure the wireless plans will only get better. edit: /sarcasm, obviously.
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…
One can hope, but I'm not holding my breath. My guess is that FTC and FCC will make some comments, AT&T will make some small gestures, the deal gets approved and about a year later AT&T's plans increase in price by 15-20%.
Maybe I'll finally get a proper 3G signal in San Francisco now... Does anybody know the quality of T-Mobile's 3G Network in major cities?