T-Mobile Stores Could Be Casualties Of AT&T Merger ( well over 10,000 jobs potentially lost)

While the AT&T-T-Mobile merger has yet to be approved by federal regulators, some people are already starting to feel reverberations from the deal.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some T-Mobile dealers are cutting down on plans for expansion or selling their stores, leaving T-Mobile to grapple with even more difficulties as its subscribers drain away.

T-Mobile and AT&T have 9,200 stores in the U.S. combined. T-Mobile has 2,000 company-run stores and 1,100 branded stores. While it hasn't been announced how many stores would be cut if the deal goes through, it is expected that stores will consolidate, especially when stores are located near each other. According to analysis conducted for the WSJ by real-estate research firm CoStar Group, 41 percent of AT&T's stores have at least a single T-Mobile store within a mile.

Some dealers have decided against opening new stores in light of the merger, especially since they cannot talk with AT&T about such matters while the deal is still being discussed by the government. T-Mobile has said that it will add 200 independent stores by the end of the year, and that it will sign on the leases for these new stores to help promote expansion.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/tmobile-usa-posts-record-_n_858731.html

T-Mobile USA Posts Record Subscriber Losses


NEW YORK — T-Mobile USA lost a record number of subscribers in the first three months of the year, posing a conundrum for regulators as they look at whether to let AT&T Inc. buy the smaller carrier for $39 billion.

The argument against the deal is that it would eliminate one competitor in the wireless industry. But judging by results reported Friday, T-Mobile isn't competing successfully.

T-Mobile, the smallest of the four national carriers, lost a net 471,000 subscribers on contract-based plans. It was able to add subscribers through wholesalers, who pay much less than contract-signing customers, but it still lost 99,000 overall. Both figures are record losses for T-Mobile, the Bellevue, Wash.-based subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG of Germany.

"There's no bright spot in these numbers," said Roger Entner, a telecommunications analyst at Recon Analytics.

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Checking this weekend!

phone companies to be absorbed by the giants, at&t and verizon

which make it very difficult for competitors

Price fixing is a very real possibility. Remember the unlimited data planes? These are slowly being destroyed, and this merger will only accelerate that

Look at the xm sirius radio merger. It did not make it better for consumers of satellite radio, but more expensive

Nevertheless I suspect they will let the deal proceed

Cingular flipped the USA mobile industry (and saved T-mobile indirectly via scales of economy for phone selection and network build-out) on it's head by selecting GSM as its main network technology instead of CDMA 9 years ago (and then AT&T choose GSM too, and they eventually merged w/ Cingular).

Now, Apple's exclusive contract with the merged Cingular/AT&T for the GSM iPhone has decimated T-Mobile.

What the oligarchs giveth, they eventually taketh away.

T-mobile is the only GSM to compete against telephone

They are now selling an unlocked iphone, though that won't help T-mobile at this stage

I just really think this would be very bad for consumers.

Of course the question is if the deal doesn't happen, could T-mobile even survive?

Which if it didn't, we make AT&T the winner anyway, and the consumer on the short end

T-Mobile used to have a large number of people with jailbroken iPhones who wanted an iPhone, but didn't want to deal with AT&T. I'd imagine that a good chunk of their lost subscribers are those iPhone owners, as they can now do the same thing legitimately though Verizon.

The 3 of the 4 main regional GSM carriers (VoiceStream, Omnipoint, and Aerial) were merged into VoiceStream in 2000, then in 2001, Deutsche Telekom (a true global giant in telecom) bought the 4th regional (Powertel), then bought Voicestream and brought all 4 together under the T-Mobile USA banner by 2002.

The biggest prize left for merger is the Sprint/Nextel firm. This will be the last chance to stop a dual-pronged monopoly from coming to form an unstoppable cartel in the USA wireless market.

The only trans-regional traditional carrier of any size left is US Celluar, and I fully expect Verizon to swallow them up by 2013.

The 2 main 'all-you-can-eat' unlimited carriers (Metro PCS and Cricket 'aka Leap') are in final merger talks (on and off since 2007 Metro PCS has been rebuffed by Leap in a takeover bid, but the offer is being raised). This will leave only 1 national company in the unlimited call realm.

In terms of prepaid, you already have only one, TracPhone.

Of the remaining small regional carriers ,Cellular South, Movida, Appalachian Wireless, whats left of Alltel (already was 90% bought by Verizon a couple years back), Alaska Wireless, nTelos, Qwest Wireless, and Bluegrass Wireless will be all be gobbled up by Verizon, as these are all CDMA.

The other 3, (Cincinnati Bell Wireless, GCI Wireless and Simple Mobile - Simple is a virtual network reseller within T-Mobile) are GSM, and will be bought by AT&T.

Lastly, SouthenLINC, which is the last regional carrier left, is also the only one who uses the Sprint/Nextel iDEN technology, so who ever gobbles up Sprint/Nextel will take them out.

So, at the end of the day,(I would say 2014 or 2015) you will have 2 choices for regular national cellphone carriers (Verizon or AT&T) with Sprint/Nextel probably going to Verizon, IMHO.
Then one choice for national 'all you can eat' (Metro PCS/Cricket), and one choice for national prepay, TracPhone. So much for 'choice'.

This list, btw includes every single wireless phone carrier over 100,000 subs in the entire USA. And yes, I have worked in the global mobile phone industry for years.

When VoiceStream bought up Aerial and Omnipoint, there was another regional GSM carrier besides Powertel, that being PacBell Wireless, which was then folded into Cingular (and thus into ATT&T).

Also on my list I left out the 2.2 million sub Cox Wireless as they just announced http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/17/cox-wireless-network-att-tmobile/ that they are shutting it down and will simply be a virtual network operator within Sprint/Nextel whilst selling off the subs to the big 3.

I also did not include the major carrier-owned virtual network pre pay operators Boost (Sprint/Nextel), Virgin (Sprint/Nextel), GoPhone(AT&T), T-Mobile To Go, and INPulse (Verizon), as they are already in the fold of ownership.

T-Mobile is the largest contract-free cellphone provider in the country, and the only one that allows subscribers to convert from a contract to a non-contract plan without penalty. Since the AT&T merger was proposed, I don't know a single person who has renewed a term contract with them. People have either already started jumping ship to Sprint or MetroPCS, or they have simply rolled over into a contract-free plan and stayed with T-Mobile with a "wait and see" attitude. I personally don't have a term contract with them anymore, and wouldn't even think about signing one until the merger with AT&T is over. If they obliterate T-Mobile and the existing rate and support structure for its users, I'm outta here. If they allow it to operate as a subsidiary, I might stick around...though I'd probably STILL avoid signing a contract.

In all probability, I'd only sign a contract with them again if the regulators reject the merger an T-Mobile remains an independent company. I left AT&T after being a subscriber for many years because I was tired of their predatory fees, their lying and obnoxious customer disservice department, and their signal quality which never quite lives up to their promises. T-Mobile offers better prices, honest coverage maps, and I've had their customer service reps bend over backwards for me when I had problems (they waived a $1600 bill without even challenging it when my teenage sons phone was stolen).

it ends up hurting tmobile if they wanted to stay independent because of at&t. i think instead of allowing these companies to eat their competitors like they are doing they should be breaking them up at this point and making them fucking compete. they aren't rally competing right now. we have verizon, at&t and sprint and then a few small guys fighting for their lives. We currrently have verizon but have been thinking of ditching them when our contract is up. Reliability is paramount though. What can be done to ensure this supposed competition we hear so much about but never really see. I know one thing for sure... I don't want to be stuck in any contracts anymore... I want to be able to leave if I want. I am afraid tmobile will probably end up lost to at&t and in the end we will all end up losing to the megalopolies.

..they have been brilliant to deal with, their customer service has alwyas been top-notch, and the plans that I have now are golden...Once my contract expires, and assuming that AT&TNSA takes over I will be gone so fast...If I wanted over-priced, crappy service, with dropped calls and a shit data plan, I would have chosen them in the first place...

What was the reason for breaking up the phone company again? Oh yeah, lack of competition...:eyes:

putting people out of work.

Simple!

But wrong and un-American.

in your parking lot run!

The rump remains of Alltel have about 760,000 subs, and I have a feeling these will eventually be allowed to be subsumed into Verizon.

US Cellular is the only multi-region large traditional carrier left(outside of the soon to be big 3 of Verizon, Sprint/Nextel and AT&T) with 6.1 million subs. See my post above for full details http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1355869&mesg_id=1356199

cheers

purchase and BEFORE the FCC ruled; how many subscriber left Alltel?

Q2 2008 http://seekingalpha.com/article/91350-alltel-corporation-q2-2008-earnings-call-transcript

Q3 2008 http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2008/11/06/alltel-q3-results/

Alltel losses and saying they were partially offset by Verizon gains. However, this may have been after the FCC approval and before any conversion.

It gets a little dicey trying to do the math for Q4 2008, as not all the Alltel markets were able to be picked up by Verizon, due to FCC and SEC mandates of divestiture. Also, there was no separate Alltel Q4 earnings call, as the VZ deal closed on January 9, 2009, well before the call would have taken place.

You would have to get internal VZ docs that broke down the markets into non VZ and VZ acquired segments, and then also go back to historical trends in this time period (Q4 is always the biggest gain for all wireless firms). You furthermore would have to also analyze the Verizon and Alltel communiques to their customers as the closing of the deal approached, and do a survey of attitudes in significant numbers of both customers who stayed with Alltel, left Alltel, and also signed with Alltel (and to what extent these decisions were based upon Verizon buying them up).

Suffice it to say that Alltel absolutely did not have a flood of subs leaving as T-Mobile now does, they definitely gained substantial amounts during this time. Was it as much gained as if they had never done the deal? I do not know this, only an internal Verizon employee who worked with Alltel and studied deeply the sub add metrices would be able to answer this. I think finding that person and getting them to talk would be an arduous task, but, hey, if you have a burning need to know, go for it!

:sarcasm:

McDonalds is the nations leading hirer right now, right?

pile up,and then filled a couple months of hiring in advance.

Plus, those jobs, will on average, be for 12 to 16 hours a week. Pure shite all around, pay, work type, and hours.

what will happen to prepaids like mine..

http://www.mysimplemobile.com/Simple-Mobile-About-Us.aspx

They basically buy up huge bulks of minutes from T-Mobile, and have their own support system. They have prepay plans, and the plus is that you will not have to deal with AT&T directly. Simple Mobile is the fastest growing MVNO in US history, so they must be doing something right.

And no, I do not work for them, I live in Sweden.

cheers