Is anyone happy about this? So far, in all the coverage, I've yet to see much positivity in this purchase.

All I can tell is that this will be a mess for T-Mobile customers like me. The latest word is that AT&T is telling T-Mobile customers that we'll all have to upgrade our phones. All they're saying is that it'll be part of the "normal upgrade process," which just says to me that they'll "let you" purchase a new AT&T phone subsidized, no matter where in your current contract you are. How nice of them to let us pay another $200. What about people who just bought a new phone? And if this isn't how they'll handle it, I feel it's irresponsible to drop this bombshell on your new customers and not reassure them with something at all concrete.

This will be particularly crummy for me, having spent $550 on my Nexus One. I'd hoped that, when I wanted to upgrade, I'd be able to sell my phone to another T-Mobile customer. Given the condition and the accessories I currently have, I'd easily get $180 currently, which would pay for almost all of a contract price, or go a ways towards a full-price handset. Now my Nexus One is worthless in resale, and I won't have a choice but to upgrade.

Unless the offer is significant, does AT&T really think they'll keep the majority of T-Mobile users when all is said and done? If they're going to force me to spend $200, why would I stay with them instead of going to Verizon?

You shouldn't have to worry about this. It's going to be at least 12 months before the deal goes through. And likely 12 months or more for tower transitions. Which will bring along LTE.

So yes, eventually your phone will be next to useless for 3G data, but that's going to happen to everyone with a current ATT phone eventually as well as they move more and more towers to LTE-only.

I'm in the same boat as you as well. I have a N1, and was planning on selling it when I got a new phone as well.

I'd go over to Verizon, but only T-Mobile has coverage where I live. Verizon has 1-2 bars, Sprint 0 bars and AT&T has 1 bar if the wind blows in the right direction.

I've got the bad feeling my service is going to really turn to suck once AT&T takes over and turns off the tower that covers my place, since it's setup with T-Mobile's 3G frequencies.

What's sad is I'd be more surprised if the regulators *don't* allow this to go through.

Mobile phone service in the US was already shitty and this is just going to make it worse, regardless of my personal issues with using my phone.

For the record, for those not in the US, AT&T and T-Mobile are the only two GSM providers. There wasn't really much competition between them before, since people in the US largely don't think about owning a phone outright, and they used different frequencies for their 3G signals, but this is going to absolutely kill any competition that did exist. There are really only two other mobile service providers at all: Sprint and Verizon.

Things will more than likely stay very similar if T-Mo and ATT didn't compete much.

This deal would buy ATT more towers and subscribers and once the infrastructure is rolled together it should be better technically. In connectivity and when LTE rolls out, in speed.

WIth the move to 4G we'll have to see how things play out in the future for handset portability in the US. It's going to be a while though.

Headline from Fark.com

AT&T and T-Mobile get married. There will be no reception afterwards.

It may be worth the time to send some public comments to the FTC. Overwhelm them, deluge them with negative comments about this proposed merger actually.

Thought from one of my grad students: now's the time to sign up for a T-Mobile unlimited data plan, which will presumably be grandfathered over to AT&T, where you can't get such a thing.

My own thought: less competition, higher prices, etc.

The problem is you're using that loaded term of "4G," which is currently completely meaningless, both for what technology is being used and what speed is being offered. At the moment, a customer can't take a "4G" phone to another "4G" carrier.

Hopefully LTE will be the standard of the future. Perhaps in the timeframe you mention, it will be.

You're right, but the time I'm ready to sell off my Nexus One, the switchover probably still won't have happened, but it's still unlikely that anyone will want to buy my phone knowing it'll only be usable for a short time.

If the merger is approved, it would be irresponsible if AT&T still allowed T-Mobile to sell ANY phones that don't work on AT&T's frequencies.

Well, I didn't intend to to mean what some of the carriers are using it for. I meant specifically LTE. I don't consider 3.5G tech to be 4G as T-Mo is currently advertising. That's why I said it would take a while.



Very true. But, how much do you think you'd get for a Nexus One in two years anyway?



I completely agree. But I'd bet against it.

Part of the "4G" confusion was started by T-Mobile, and it's frustrating as it forced AT&T to also lie about 4G, and I'm hearing it's spreading to European companies too. Just a shame the ITU didn't crack down on it, but they never did with fake 3G either.

As for the overall merger, I share the concerns over less competition, but not sure it matters much here in the US anyhow. We never have had great mobile competition, with various "standards" dividing up the market. It hasn't been really feasible to buy a phone, then buy a SIM and stay on the leading edge.

Seeing that it will probably happen, any petitioning I do to the FCC will be concentrated on holding AT&T to their agreement of spreading LTE to rural areas. Telecoms have made claims of wanting to spread broadband before, and even were allowed to collect an extra "tax" to it. The government never held the companies accountable, and that money disappeared. The FCC did have a little more success in mandating $10 DSL for a little while as a condition of the Bell South merger.

For now, AT&T and T-Mobile must continue to operate as separate companies. The announcement was only the beginning of a long regulatory process, and there remains the possibility it won't happen. Any plans on what to do with phones or existing customers can't be put into action until the merger is done. Back when the Compaq HP merger was announced, a new company was formed to hammer out all the merger details. They did so in a clean room style, where all they work they did would be destroyed if the merger fell apart. It included all the plans down to new org charts and such, but only a few people in HP and Compaq were privy to the information. Once the merger officially closed, that company was also merged in and began directing the changes.

And then after it was approved did they throw all that out and do it over again (that has been my large company merger experience)