Big union loving for AT&T's T-Mobile plan AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile USA will attract huge scrutiny, and the battle for public opinion is already underway, but if the deal is rejected, it won't be T-Mobile which suffers. AT&T is pulling out all the stops in its effort to secure regulatory approval for its acquisition of T-Mobile, pointing out that it is securing a …
The German government is stretched for cash, and is thus tired of Deutsche Telecom's foreign adventures that don't make money and require a lot of capital to stay in business. Thus they are backing out of them: first with the merger with Orange in the UK and now this deal in the US. AT&T is the obvious candidate to sell to, given they use the same network technology. We get less competition, but hope that they merged network has more coverage and capacity than either of the pre-merger networks. Hopefully the handset manufacturers are able to produce handsets that can handle all the various frequency bands used by the different networks.
There is NO benefit to the consumer in letting us go from 4 to 3 cell carriers.
Especially when the 4th place carrier (T-mobile) is the one offering all the current price deals and BRINGING DOWN PRICES OF THEIR COMPETITORS!
If AT&T buys T-mobile you can kiss any REAL competition goodbye. Once you are down to 2-3 "competitors" in a market they cease to compete. They ALWAYS seem to adopt this complacency with their market and competition. Look at Coke and Pepsi, look at MasterCard and Visa for examples of STAGNANT development and pricing competition while they rake in the money.
Too often in the cases of MC and Visa, the same bunch of elite goons have invested in both sides of the "competition". And they quietly stop competing.
I don't think there is a realistic way (short of undesirable Big Brother omniscient powers) to actually keep the large 2 or 3 companies from colluding with each other. They are going to chat at the golf club or back rooms somewhere and collude to determine the maximum rate the market with give them. THE ONLY REAL WAY TO STOP MANIPULATING GOONS LIKE THIS IS TO NOT LET THEM BUY THEIR COMPETITORS. The only reason they would pay so much to the executives and owners of T-mobile to buy them out is AT&T knows they will make more with less competition out there in the long run. That is why Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel were allowed to happen. We control the rules of our society. We have the right to set the rules at a level that is of greatest benefit to all of us, instead of the wealth of a few.
A profitable competitor should not be allowed to purchase another competitor. This should only be allowed in cases of mergers where one or both of the two parties are in risk of going out business, AND WILL BENEFIT THE CONSUMER.
...and I say fsck 'em all!
Have to keep a phone land line, satellite TV, satellite internet (w/500MB 24hr limit), and have enough cell signal for texts.... Then they hit you for a data charge for your smartphone, another for a damn tablet (which still makes me wonder), and want to charge YOU for a signal amplifier that really only changes it over to VOIP through YOUR already paid for connection if you're lucky.
Ghod I extremely dislike comms companies... grumble.... been on waiting list for five years for DSL.... bastards..... 900-1700ms sat latency..... $428+ a month for what? ....... grumble... duplicate services....argh.
:(
Monday, Monday... tra la, la, lala, la.....
Welp, that'll be the end of my $10 unlimited mobile data then, eh? Not sure it matters, since they'll be in a hurry to turn off the 1700 and 2100 mhz 3G service, to convince TMobile customers to hurry up and buy an iPhone, like they're supposed to.
Would be a good time to work at the DoJ if you're a fan of huge piles of cash delivered in the night.
Wish we could get rid of wireless contracts and get some actual competition going. Lock someone in for 24 months, device is designed to fail after ~18 months, get them to renew out of necessity. Sure everyone would lose their free phones, but the amount they could save in contract rape surely makes up for it.
The article says, "Not only that, but AT&T promises to arrange roaming with T-Mobile too, so whatever becomes of this deal it won't be bad news for T-Mobile." which I find to be interesting because I have a $30/mo T-Mobile voice-only 500 min/mo plan which transparently roams on AT&T/Cingular at no charge. It this article claiming AT&T/Cingular customers are not reciprocally treated by T-Mobile?
In Britain this has already happened, Orange has taken over T-Mobile UK. And guess what? It's really bad, T-Mobile has put up their previously competitive prices to be in line with Orange's. Thankfully we have 4 other operators to go to. In my area the Orange traffic is being channelled over T-Mobile infrastructure leading to a serious degradation in service. Yes, in the short term you do get a bit better coverage but it isn't worth it. Orange is a piece of sh*t network, an oversubscribed, sprawling and underinvested piece of crap. Now reread this post replacing 'Orange' with AT&T. Then you'll see that the same thing will happen in the USA.
And get used to being royally screwed... Unions will lose members. Management ranks will be decimated (HR are always the first to go). Jobs will be off-shored to India, Phillipines, Brazil; wherever they can get the cheapest labor (never mind that those folks never work overtime or on-call duties). Bonuses: YES, YES, and YES...the executive suite will be awash with money and raises as jobs wash away with the tide. T-Mobile customers will lose their good service and be reamed with higher rates and crappier service. Tethering; sure you can get it for a pile of extra dosh a month. High data rate: sure you can get it for a pile of extra dosh a month.
Find you jar of lube and then go buy a bigger one; you're gonna need it.
Mate I think you will find that jar of lube has diamond dust in it. Check the label,it's designed for deep penetration Do you think they will make the bending over any less painful ? Nope they will make it as painful as possible and send you pictures every so often . Then take you out for day old McDonald.
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