My first initial thoughts about AT&T acquiring T-Mobile brings back vivid monopoly memories of the 1980's. Before deregulation, for many of us AT&T (formerly Southwestern Bell) was the only residential phone service game in town. If your mind ever erred with regard to that fact, their arrogant and many times rude customer service representatives would be more than happy to remind you.
At the end of last year we were once again seeing a less friendly, less customer oriented AT&T. Not only have they dropped in recent customer surveys, but we've seen glimpses of them becoming more controlling in regards to how they deal with customers. For example, AT&T was one of the first wireless providers to decide to do away with unlimited data plans. To make things worse, for those of us that have grandfathered unlimited data plans and use too much data, well, they've got a solution for that too. If Ma Bell doesn't like the amount of data your consuming, they reserve the right to "Throttle" the speed in which your mobile device uses data. In other words, even though your paying for unlimited data, use to much and we'll force you to use less. Can you imagine how emboldened AT&T will become should they be allowed to acquire T-Mobile? I can, and there's just nothing positive about it.
Wireless providers including Verizon and Metro PCS seem to be somewhat neutral on the merger, while Sprint is firmly against it. Verizon and Metro are clearly under the assumption that should the merger be approved they will both benefit from AT&T having to divest itself of assets these two will surely want to acquire to better their own networks. The problem is that this doesn't necessarily benefit us. As far as I'm concerned the increased use of multi-band phones and roaming agreements between T-Mobile and AT&T would benefit consumers much more than a full blown merger.
AT&T has proven by their past actions that when there is less competition, they are more likely to try and put the screws to their customers. This is a commonsensical fact. In this case fewer carriers is not better. In the technological age we live in, mobile phone technology is changing at an ever increasing pace. AT&T and T-Mobile are the only GSM carries in the United States. Since GSM is the standard for worldwide mobile phone communication technology, I shudder to think what will happen if AT&T becomes the only provider here in the U.S. T-Mobile serves a great purpose in as much it helps keep both AT&T and Verizon in check when it comes to pricing structure. With the merger yet to go through, both Verizon and AT&T are already modifying their data plans to create potentially explosive costs. You can bet your last dollar that more will indeed become less bang for the buck for the consumer should this merger be approved.
You may click here to be redirected to the FCC's comment board to weigh in with your opinion. Comment numbers 11-65.
