Just when we thought AT and T was going
downhill for good, it seems that the opposite is happening.
AT and T announced that it has agreed to purchase T-Mobile U.S.A. for a whopping $39 billion.
The acquisition will create the biggest mobile monopoly in the U.S. yet, with an estimated 130 million customer base. That's a lot of people.
Both companies say it will take about a year to deal with all the bureaucracy and get logistics straightened out. But we're already thinking of what this could mean for the future of mobile -- and the never-ending competition between AT and T and Verizon.
Should Verizon be worried about the merger?
Yes Verizon should worry, but for right now, until the merger goes though it should be business as usual.
Now AT&T; has acquired T-Mobile. Should be an interesting transition and those absurdly irritating commercials can stop. PC vs Mac were annoying enough, then AT&T; vs T-Mobile copied it and actually made it MORE annoying. I had more fun laughing as I pointed out the errors in the PC vs Mac commercials. These are just too easy.
Yes, Verizon should worry.
Fewer vendors in competition in a given marketplace generally means greater control of pricing in the hand of those vendors.
Not saying that they would collude to fix prices, but it would be much easier for them to develop and agree to a "gentleman's agreement" price-wise in the marketplace.
Customers that would disagree with "new pricing" would have fewer alternative service providers to migrate to.
There remains a question mark over the reception we can get at our home, and the Sprint web site does not offer much encouragement. Fortunately Sprint has a 30-day grace period to reverse everything if we're not satisfied. If that happens, we'll go with Verizon.
Since Sprint owns more spectrum than the other cell cos, their network will be less plagued by the addition of hundreds of smart phones per day that add talk/text/content to the mix. Verizon has more towers--and that counts for something--but in 10 years Sprint (or its new owner) will be the cell cos with vastly fewer dropped connections.
What is your experience with dropped connections?
My brothers and I all had Sprint (well, they had Nextel) and we would always joke that we were all screwed since we could never have a conversation on our phones without it dropping calls or even if our phones rang at all. Espcially at my parents house north of Chicago. I was so jealous of my friends that had any other service (even my Father had US Cellular) and had reception. Only us that were associated with Sprint didn't. I thought it was just at my parents, but when I moved to VA., it was also the only carrier that didn't work at my new house either.
I tried contacting customer support and they always gave me the same lines, how they are putting up more towers. Well, I waited forever and after so long of never having ANY signal in my house, I had to pay the fee to get out of contract (My sister in TN also had they same problem but somehow she fought her way out of that fee, where I couldn't get out of it) just to go to AT&T.; Once I had that service it was like lightening speed compared to Sprint. Everywhere I went, great signal. It was seriously like day and night. Like stone age, to modern era.
Not only did I drop calls with Sprint going thru PA., on my drive to DC f...&&&
&
My brothers and I all had Sprint (well, they had Nextel) and we would always joke that we were all screwed since we could never have a conversation on our phones without it dropping calls or even if our phones rang at all. Espcially at my parents house north of Chicago. I was so jealous of my friends that had any other service (even my Father had US Cellular) and had reception. Only us that were associated with Sprint didn't. I thought it was just at my parents, but when I moved to VA., it was also the only carrier that didn't work at my new house either.
I tried contacting customer support and they always gave me the same lines, how they are putting up more towers. Well, I waited forever and after so long of never having ANY signal in my house, I had to pay the fee to get out of contract (My sister in TN also had they same problem but somehow she fought her way out of that fee, where I couldn't get out of it) just to go to AT&T.; Once I had that service it was like lightening speed compared to Sprint. Everywhere I went, great signal. It was seriously like day and night. Like stone age, to modern era.
Not only did I drop calls with Sprint going thru PA., on my drive to DC from Chicago (it was everywhere, but for some reason PA was the worse), I wasn't able to make or receive calls either. Kinda scary when traveling so much, if something were to happen and I was stranded on the road and couldn't even make a call. AT&T; always had signal. However, towards the end of my contract, I did notice my iPhone dropping more calls lately. Not sure if it was my phone (which is likely since I even had a cracked screen) or the service. Yet, I have a NEW phone with Verizon, with 4G and I'm dropping more now then ever with AT&T.; So, just from my experience I'd have to say AT&T; proved to be the most reliable.
(to answer your question though... I rarely had dropped calls with AT&T; while driving. Again, just towards the end and with the iPhone. Might be an issue with the iPhones though but it was rare. With Verizon, I can't drop a call since I can hardly make them. lol)
Not including, AT&T;'s network is much much faster than Verizon's network nationwide. And despite what their maps show, AT&T; has more coverage than Verizon. With or without T-Mobile, Verizon better watch it. AT&T; is coming back, and they're pissed! :)
P.S. Do not get the iPhone 4! It's nothing like the other generation iPhones. I'm personally waiting for the iPhone 5. It's essentially the 4 without all the glitches. Not including the browser is going to be faster. I'd suggest waiting, but it's totally up to you. :)
I got a new phone over-nighted to me, and again calls were being dropped and I had two bars at the most. Texts weren't being sent and the calls that did connect were scrambled. I was told not to "worry" and that I was in "a full coverage area". Unfortunately it sounds like you have the same problem I had, and unfortunately it's the network not the phone. I terminated service with Verizon and never looked back. I'm with AT&T now, and I haven't had one single problem yet. :)
I LOVED my iPhone sending pictures by text all the time. Not only the iPhone but the service. I never had issues like this with AT&T. I thought maybe it was just at my house but I've been all around the DC/VA area and crap signal at my friends house. My friend has AT&T and her phone had signal Sat. night and mine did not while at her house. Everyone is laughing at me for switching to Verizon. Looks like the jokes on me now. :(
Doesn't matter about the iPhone 4 now anyhow since I'm stuck in this 2 year contract with my $250 paper weight with Verizon. I honestly have no idea how anyone could say positive stuff about Verizon. Ok, maybe their customer service is good (although doesn't seem that way in your experience, and I'm about to find out later today), but who cares about customer service if the service...
I LOVED my iPhone sending pictures by text all the time. Not only the iPhone but the service. I never had issues like this with AT&T. I thought maybe it was just at my house but I've been all around the DC/VA area and crap signal at my friends house. My friend has AT&T and her phone had signal Sat. night and mine did not while at her house. Everyone is laughing at me for switching to Verizon. Looks like the jokes on me now. :(
Doesn't matter about the iPhone 4 now anyhow since I'm stuck in this 2 year contract with my $250 paper weight with Verizon. I honestly have no idea how anyone could say positive stuff about Verizon. Ok, maybe their customer service is good (although doesn't seem that way in your experience, and I'm about to find out later today), but who cares about customer service if the service itself is horrible.
Another thing I miss about my iPhone compared to this Thunderbold (which I'm sure you've encountered with your boyfriend) is that you can send long text messages with the iPhone, where the Thunderbolt's limit is only 160, so if you go over it sends it up in broken messages that come out of order. I loved never having to pay attention how much I typed (look at how long my message is here, apparently I type too fast for my own good). lol You also have to actually download text pictures with the Thunderbold instead of them just popping up in the text with the iPhone. Oh, and a huge thing I miss with the iPhone is how voice messages are just a touch away where you can hit play. You actually have to call your voice message, put in the password and listen to the lady tell you how many new and old messages you have before you can listen. Soooo much easier with the iPhone! Last but not least I miss my Netflix app as well. :(
Hey, does this mean we don't have to endure those "This is why you shouldn't buy the OTHER phone" commercials??