AT&T Inc. (T) said it entered a definitive agreement with Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) to acquire T- Mobile USA in a cash-and-stock transaction currently valued at approximately $39 billion.
….
If completed, the deal would allow AT&T, now the second- largest U.S. wireless operator, to add 34 million customers and surpass Verizon Wireless as the largest in the country. The acquisition may face regulatory scrutiny because it combines the second- and fourth-largest wireless providers.

T-Mobile—after having suffered under AT&T, Verizon (including back when it was called Bell Atlantic) and Cingular, was the best of the terrible wireless providers in the United States. Of course, it would be bought out, and shut down by one of the worst providers I’ve had to deal with.

And, so far as that ‘regulatory scrutiny’, I’d like to remind you that AT&T has consistently been one of the country’s biggest spenders on lobbying in Washington DC—to bought-out Democrats at Republicans alike. Still, I’d suggest you take the time to complain to your representative and senators.

This move effectively consolidates the US wireless market into two providers—AT&T and Verizon (with Sprint now definitively too small to compete). This also eliminates an entire form of competition from the US wireless market; T-mobile was the only provider to offer contract-free pricing discounts.

And, finally, this is most likely bad news for the Eastside economy. T-Mobile USA is (er… was) a major employer in Factoria. How many of those jobs will be heading over to the dusty paradise of Dallas Texas remains to be known.

Jonathan Golob is an actual doctor.

45 replies on “AT&T Buys T-Mobile”

  2. I have been a Sprint customer for six years with absolutely no problems, why are they such a small part of the cell phone market? Am I the exception, and they suck for everyone else?

  4. We have no competition left in so many industries – airlines, cell phones, etc. The concentration of power effectively means consumers have no choice, except in some cases “opting out” altogether, which given the structure of modern life, is nearly impossible.

    I’m sure the free hand of the market is just waiting to trickle down its riches on us.

    At least maybe they’ll keep a lot of employees here. AT&T still has a huge presence (from when it was McCaw Cellular) on the east side. Sure there will be “redundancies” but maybe they won’t just pull a JP Morgan and basically shut down the entire other company.

  5. I thought I also heard/read somewhere this morning that some other telcom was buying Qwest – so much for Capitalism being all about “competition” instead of being about greedy acquisition…

  6. Given how much more corporations must now spend on elections after the Citizens United decision, it only makes sense that they’d need to consolidate in order to have the kind of cash on hand it takes to fully exploit the new opportunity.

    This is great news if you are a market. If you’re a human being, it’s a travesty, but the markets are going to love it.

  7. Fuck! I was on AT&T when Cingular bought them and turned them to shit (they then took the AT&T name back). They fucked me on a replacement phone that was covered by insurance, and so I switched to T-Mobile. I currently have unlimited text and data. AT&T doesn’t allow unlimited data. They’re more expensive for worse products and service. I’ve never heard anyone say anything good about Sprint. I’m basically fucked, and there’s no way regulators will stop this. The East Coast has about a billion tiny, insignificant “competitors” (Cricket isn’t exactly rocking the market) that can always be used as the fig leaf for approving this monstrosity.

  8. I can’t see how anyone can still be competing with Virgin Mobile’s $40 a month, 1200 anytime minutes plus UNLIMITED text and data. I got my Android at Radio Shack for $150.

    No plans, no contracts, month to month. For small talkers they have a $25 a month plan that still has unlimited text, web, data…

    How can anything else be a better deal unless people are brainwashed into thinking that spending $70 a month for less than unlimited is better than $40 or $25 for unlimited?!

  9. @Supreme: You know Virgin Mobile is 100% owned by Sprint? So kiss VM’s deals goodbye when Sprint is purchased by Verizon.

  10. Comte: Yes, that deal actually came down quite a while ago. What you just read was that they got regulatory approval for it.

  11. let’s close WA tax loop holes, or just give the tax system a nice once over and then offer a local break for those places offering free wifi. I have a prepaid dumb-phone now, but can still use my smart phone wherever there is wifi. internet utopia yay

  12. Kurt Vonnegut had it right.

    (This message has been brought to you by the Ramjac Corporation, which owns everything.)

  13. This is so f-d up. I ‘ve been with T-Mobile for over 10 years and absolutely loathe AT&T. All of our neighbors who have AT&T have their calls dropped constantly, or don’t get signals at all. Something about the quirks of our street. ARgh!

  14. @2

    I’ve been on Sprint for going on 9 years. I pay $50/month for unlimited EVERYTHING on a Blackberry. I have friends who pay upwards of $100/month so they can have unlimited data on an iPhone. It’s not worth it.

  16. @13 – Coverage issues like that should improve, since AT&T is buying T-Mobile’s network. The good T-Mobile signal you get on your street will now be a good AT&T signal. Not saying this is a good thing overall, but it’s not like they’re going to dismantle T-Mobile’s cell network.

  17. So I use Credo (Working Assets), which uses the Sprint network, so I’m going to suggest people who don’t want AT&T to switch over to Credo. Credo offers up to $200 buy out credit on your old contract to help you break your contract with your previous provider.

    BUT! I think, if this merger goes through, that you can break your contract without penalty, because T-Mobile has changed the terms of YOUR contract with them unilaterally, which means they can’t penalize you for quitting. From what I’ve heard, though, if you call them and say “You changed my contract, I’m out” they will, under duress, allow you to cancel w/o penalty *but* will also cut your plan then and there – so you could be w/o a phone while getting a new provider set up AND I don’t know if you’ll be able to keep your old number.

    Proceed with caution, but I really don’t understand why regular Stranger/Slog readers aren’t all on Credo already anyway.

  18. God. Damn. It. I moved to TMobile to get away from the ratfuckers at ATT. Looks like I’ll be moving to Verizon when my contract is up. Damn damn damn.

  19. @16 – I don’t understand the technical stuff, but I hear that T-Mobile’s cell tower network is incompatible with ATT’s. This deal has been rumored for years, but a lot of people said it would never happen because they wouldn’t be able to use the towers.

    That said, I switched from T-Mobile to ATT years ago, and I think my coverage has generally improved, no real problems. Similar in the city, and better in the country I’d say/

  20. Bugger. Apart from being cheaper and generally less crappier, T-Mobile is the only other GSM network. And unlike ATT, the data component of their network actually runs on the same freq as the rest of the world. Fuuuck.

  21. Add another to the “this is horseshit” chorus. I’ve been with T-Mobile since I’ve had a cell phone and have been totally satisfied. Hell, I even upgraded to the smart phone lifestyle last September or so. T-Mobile’s pricing, unlimited internet/text, and no-contract option sold me. Looks like all of this is on the wane, and I own a smart phone that is incompatible with their principal competitors network.

    So ya, I wanted the iPhone but the extra cost and shit service of AT&T was too much to bear. But really, so much for what the customer wants.

  22. One reason I’m not on Credo is because Working Assets tried to screw me out of a couple of hundred bucks of calls not made by me and not made on my actual phone until I filed a complaint with the AGO (don’t remember if it was Gregoire or McKenna who was AG when this happened).

  23. So what’s going to happen to that girl in the pink dress who’s a ripoff of the guy on the “I’m an Apple, I’m a PC” commercials?

  24. Virgin Mobile isn’t great, and the phones they have are mediocre, but I’m still far happier with them that I was with Verizon, even without the huge savings. Paying 40% as much for more features is just gravy.

    The best part is that I don’t feel like I am being abused with every transaction. Before switching, I didn’t comprehend how much I would value that.
    It does require a change in mentality though.

  25. I had Sprint for eight years, and other than their crap online payment system forva few years, they were fine. Then I switched to AT&T for an iPhone, and other than minimal coverage during one trip to the sticks in Idaho, they’ve been fine.

  26. I had Credo (formerly Working Assets) and the Sprint network was the biggest piece of shit network I have ever had to deal with. I could NEVER get a signal in NE Seattle that was I could use and had to still keep my land line at home so I could make phone calls.

  29. God I hope the Obama administration grows a pair and blocks this, since it consolidates into one giant GSM provider for the U.S. Allegedly T-Mobile has been suffering badly

    Note that T-Mobile’s zippy 3G/4G HSPA data network runs on an obscure 1700 frequency band (remember those giant FCC frequency-auctions a few years back?), which is not used anywhere else on the planet for this purpose. AT&T data runs on 850/1900 which means that devices are cross-compatible for data only on slow “2G” EDGE speeds. Devices such as the iPhone/iPad 3G include global support for a third 2100 band used for data by most of the rest of the world outside of North America.

    AT&T to acquire T-Mobile for $39 billion

    T-Mobile gets the iPhone, Apple gets fas…

    T-Mobile blames its poor performance on …

  30. #2: The main reason we moved from Sprint to T-Mobile was that the former uses CDMA while the latter uses GSM. GSM was the universal standard in Europe, where we were going.

    Sprint wasn’t bad for service. And T-Mobile was vastly better than AT&T, which we also tried. This really sucks.

  33. I used to work for Wave Broadband and when we sold off a territory to COX cable, we did EVERYTHING we could to keep customers (who were about to be COX customers) from leaving to DirectTV or Dish. Free cable modem rental for 6 months? Sure! Digital Cable 30$ a month for 12 months? Not a problem! Free cable card rentals for 12 months? Here ya go!

    If you are a T-Mobile employee, call them up, ask for a new SIM card, free upgrade, whatever you think they’ll give you to keep you as a T-Mobile subscribe who will soon be ATT.

  34. Kinison, that’s not a bad idea – but now probably isn’t the right time to do it. It’ll probably take a year or so to get regulatory approval of this. Once that happens, though, hell yes, start threatening to leave and see what they’ll give you.

  35. I”m with #8 and #24, #18 should look into Virgin….yah, they’ll probably get eaten at some point but for now, I’m happy with my Samsung Intercept and the service has actually been better than what I had with Verizon, and $75/month less. So they’re paying my electric and Netflix bills 🙂

  37. Complaints to Congress complete. What a fucking war crime! We all might want to continue keeping our plans…we’ll never get a deal as good again so maybe we should just stay legacies until we die.

  38. @34

    Gets worse as I now find out that 3G on T-Mobile isnt compatible with 3G on ATT, so existing T-Mobile users who have 3G phones will have to upgrade. So threatening to leave T-Mobile wont exactly be an empty threat because if i have to spend 150-200$ on a new phone, I can easily do that with Sprint or Virgin Mobile (same network).

  42. Why do I get this mental image of they young guy from the T-mobile commercials, cross-dressing in the pretty girl’s dress and heels?

    Must. Stop. Thinking.

  43. I ran from AT&T to T-Mobile, and have never been happier…till I got this news. I spent all morning looking for a way to contact the FTC and make my displeasure known. I found it! Here’s the info:

    How you can help

    If you have an antitrust problem or complaint, or if you wish to provide information that may be helpful in an investigation, contact the Federal Trade Commission.

    E-mail

    Antitrust@ftc.gov

    If you wish to submit confidential information, send it by mail and mark it “Confidential.”

    Federal Trade Commission
    Bureau of Competition-H374,
    Washington, D.C. 20580

    Telephone
    (1–877–382–4357)
    1–877–FTC–HELP

    Speak your mind. I plan to.

  44. @17: Donna wrote, “I really don’t understand why regular Stranger/Slog readers aren’t all on Credo already anyway.”

    I can only speak for myself, but I use Sprint instead of Credo because every time I’ve checked (which is about once or twice per year), Credo don’t offer data plans like Sprint’s. I’m under contract for another year or so. After that, I’ll likely switch to Virgin Mobile’s prepaid service. It’s Sprint’s network (with which I’ve been satisfied for nearly a decade), there’s no contract, and you can purchase and pay anonymously if you’d like (buy used SIM card or modem, pay cash for recharge cards).

    I wish more people were concerned about personal privacy on mobile networks. I really look forward to the day that we have end-to-end encryption by default and route our calls through something like the Tor network. In the meantime, Android users can look to http://www.whispersys.com/ and https://guardianproject.info/ for work heading in that direction.

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