AT&T, T-Mobile Merger BAD for Consumers

The proposed AT&T, T-Mobile merger simply put, is bad for consumers.

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.

The Blackberry Torch Burns Weak

I should have realized early on that if AT&T had something to do with with the development of the Blackberry Torch (9800) it was destined to be fatally flawed.-The folks at AT&T you see, could screw up a one car funeral.-I spent 28 days with the new Blackberry and although there were moments of brilliance, for the most part the phone bombs, big!

Rumor has it the Torch was in development for three years, which impacts the fact that the phone is so bad, much, much more. It's been no secret that OS 6 has been in development for several years. Since that's the case, why would RIM release it with more bugs than the first generation iPhone?!-This phone had the potential to be great, but instead it's guaranteed to frustrate you more and more with each passing day. Not fixed are the persistent tower switching issues that started with the introduction of the 3G Bold. This was the first incredibly annoying problem that caused me to switch phone loyalties in the first place. In layman's terms the phone can't make up its mind whether it wants to grab hold of a 3G cell or an EDGE cell, thus causing dropped calls for the consumer.-The iPhone at one point had this problem, but was fixed with one brief software update.-No such luck with the Torch.-Several years later and this simple problem of telling the phone which type of tower to prefer is still not fixed.-What a load of crap!

With each passing day the phone seemed to become slower and slower, with more faults being revealed. Every time I took the phone out of standby it would take as long as five seconds for me to be able to navigate to where I wanted to go. It was as if the phone locked up. I began to find myself powering the phone off and on more often, and even taking the battery out to try and fix the problem. To no avail, my hopes of once again becoming a loyal Blackberry user were not meant to be. I'm appalled and offended that RIM and AT&T would think for a second that this phone, with all it's giant flaws and imperfections, would fool anybody! Common sense would dictate that if the software your using is so archaic that it's not capable of evolving to where it needs be in the future you might consider finding a new software platform to operate your phone.-Android comes to mind.-It's not quite there yet, but in a year or so it will be.

The last issue I'm going to discuss, the one that really burns me up, is the fact that RIM, knowing they were coming out with a major software upgrade, apparently did not expeditiously enough make it available to developers. One of my favorite applications for a number of years is Viigo.-Viigo is a great, customizable app for keeping up with news. For those of you that don't know, RIM bought Viigo earlier this year and in spite of that had no Viigo app ready for their new OS.-I think that says it all! It's no secret RIM is a small company, but I think it's long overdue for them to step up hiring if they intend to be a player in the big money smart phone business.

Foe now, don't buy a Torch. If you do, I can almost guarantee, you too will be returning it.

AT&T Iphone 4 Mayhem

You might think that after three previous iPhone launches AT&T would have streamlined their online ordering system so that it could handle massive amounts of traffic. Well, guess what? The iPhone 4 pre-launch is filled with just as much mayhem and confusion as launch one was. Perhaps even More.

Within minutes of adding the iPhone 4 to its online store this morning, AT&T's website slowed to a crawl. Within an hour you could forget about pre-ordering your iPhone 4. The system load was so bad that it brought their entire system to a standstill. Within their retail stores the overload was so bad that it crippled their operating system and left them unable to assist customers. Forget ordering an iPhone 4, store representatives could not even open new accounts for non iPhone loyalists. A source told me that by noon a company wide email had bent sent out instructing stores to immediately STOP taking iPhone 4 orders. Are you kidding me?!

I've been an AT&T customer for many years, so let's cut to the chase. There is absolutely no excuse for the powers at be at AT&T to be so incredibly unprepared for the launch of the fourth iPhone. This is not their first rodeo! They have had years to reprise, revamp, upgrade, check and re-check their systems to make sure the chaos and mayhem that ensued today never happened. Today, AT&T screwed the pooch, big time! They brought business in their stores to a standstill, and the very online systems that should have been in place to ease the burden of the retail stores, failed. The result in my opinion should be considered a catastrophic failure of organization and planning and should result in numerous forced job losses at the highest levels. There is no discernible excuse for this, to say the least, system implosion. They have cost themselves many sales today and have endeared themselves no one, least of all the loyal customers that have been putting up with their repeated failures and shortcomings for years and years.

Well, long story short, they just don't get it. The boneheads in upper management at AT&T clearly do not know the first thing about customer service or the incompetency in which "WE" the customer view many of their operational decisions. They must become intimately familiar and learn what the term 'Customer Loyalty" means. The iPhone will forever not be their meal ticket. When that day comes and Apple is loyal no more, AT&T may possibly drop to the lowest customer retention rate of all U.S. wireless carriers. For that, they will have only themselves to blame.