Gigaom, Huffington Post and a slew of journalists, bloggers, and commenters have been up in arms about the announced merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. No company is going to shell out $39 billion lightly - $25 billion in cash and the rest in stocks; giving Deutsche Telekom an 8% stake and a seat on the board. Immediately the world went berserk over why this is a bad deal. Things like “Two crappy networks make one crappy network” and “the one who loses is the customer” have been flying around Twitter for 18 hours straight. There are some challenges to be overcome but some benefits as well. There are certainly some complaints that need to be straightened out. There will be better coverage and more phones for T-Mobile customers, for sure. AT&T customer may not see as big a jump in service and as for phones, they will be unaffected (unless you’ve been itching for a Sidekick). AT&T customers, will see an improvement of service to some degree but this will take a large amount of time before the networks are full merged. Some pricing plans will disappear. This is a true statement. Maybe AT&T will adopt some of T-Mobile’s plans and find a middle ground. Prices are bound to stay low though. Many people are concerned that without T-Mobile operating as the discount warehouse for rate plans, that Verizon, AT&T and Sprint will jack up the prices. The competition created amongst the three giants by smartphone and ubiquitous data will keep prices low. In the short term, will former T-Mobile customers lose their unlimited data? Probably not. There may be an option for those “Grandfathered” in, much like the way AT&T customers who had unlimited iPhone data plans got to keep them. AT&T once had unlimited data, now it’s gone. What is to say that it’ll never come back? As far as the frequency spectrum not being compatible and AT&T customers not being able to use T-Mobile towers, I’m not sure where Arianna’s minions came up with that one. 1900 Mhz is the standard for both companies using both 2G service. T-Mobile uses 1700 for 3G. As a matter of fact, most AT&T phones are Quad Band which means That is why most AT&T phones work anywhere on the globe that use GSM. AT&T iPhones that are unlocked work on T-Mobile’s 1900 Mhz 2G EDGE network. AT&T will be using the 1700 Mhz infrastructure for LTE rollout which saves money and time and rides an existing part of the spectrum. Google may lose out on the deal. There was a deep rooted relationship between the two companies, which leaves Google in the hands of Verizon and AT&T. Each of those companies has a nice relationship with Apple. Google may see some problems as a result but will not be subject to some enforcement of AT&T and applications like Om Malik was claiming. His comment about putting out an AT&T app store is no different than Verizon’s idea to do it or those of the manufacturer like Motorola and HTC. Nobody can anticipate every single maneuver and process. Latest reports have people panning the move, saying that T-Mobile customers will be left out in the cold without an iPhone. Anyone who thinks this deal will be done overnight, needs to rethink things. There are regulatory and technological issues at stake here. This will take time. AT&T is claiming a year to get it all squared away. All concerns will be addressed by both companies and service will carry on as normal after a few brief speedbumps. T-Mobile customers, can be irritated now at the shock, but the fact remains that T-Mobile needed this just as much as AT&T. The company never got into the space as large as they had wanted. Deutsche Telekom, the investors for T-Mobile did not grow them to the size of Verizon or AT&T. For those asking “what do we do?” here is a recommendation - do nothing. Wait and see how it plays out. When the merger is finished from a financial and regulatory aspect, the technology side will be implemented and then pricing plans will be published. Let it all happen because there is no way to know what it all means before then.
