It should come as no surprise that AT&T may have to make a few sacrifices to settle their pending T-Mobile deal, but a new report today reveals who exactly AT&T has been starting conversations with.
In order to help grease the wheels, AT&T is reportedly in talks with MetroPCS and Leap Wireless (parent company of insectoid bargain carrier Cricket) regarding the sale of spectrum access and subscribers. → Read More
“This proposed merger would stifle competition in markets that are crucial to New York’s consumers and businesses, while reducing access to low-cost options and the newest broadband-based technologies.”
So sayeth New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is joined by the attorneys general of six other states in support of the Department of Justice suit that sought to halt the pending AT&T/T-Mobile merger.
And so the the AT&T/T-Mobile craziness continues. → Read More
Fifteen members of Congress aren’t too pleased with the Department of Justice’s recent anti-trust suit, as instanced by a letter they sent to President Obama. Penned by Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC) the letter urged the president to settle the suit in favor of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger because of the benefits it could bring to the American people. → Read More
AT&T CFO John Stevens dropped a bit of a bombshell while speaking at a Bank of America/Merrill Lynch event today. According to him, AT&T will officially launch their LTE network in five markets this weekend.
Assuming they have either an LTE modem or a needlessly-expensive HTC tablet, customers in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio will be able to jump on the fledgling high-speed network on Sunday, September 18. Data plans start at $50 for 5GB of use, which puts them right on par with most other mobile broadband providers. → Read More
To celebrate the opening of their new AT&T Foundry in Palo Alto, AT&T is talking about some of the ambitious projects that they and their partner developers have been cooking up. One of the most interesting so far is AT&T Messages, which attempts to make all of your messages, voicemails, and call logs accessible from multiple devices.
Their cloud communications concept sounds quite a bit like the messaging half of Google Voice, but AT&T Messages has a few distinct advantages. One big one is the fact that it integrates with your existing AT&T phone number without any extra legwork. Any message sent to an existing AT&T number gets pushed into the cloud, where it’s viewable from any other compatible device.
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And the fun just goes on, and on, and on.
Following this morning’s news that Sprint is suing AT&T/T-Mobile in an attempt to block their proposed merger, AT&T has just returned with a response. As you might expect, it pretty much boils down to “Yeah, yeah, see you in court. Oh, and here are some reasons we’re awesome.”
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Sprint’s clearly no fan of the pending AT&T/T-mobile merger: in recent memory, they’ve pledged to complain to Congress, commissioned a study to illustrate how awful it would be, and cheered on the Department of Justice as they filed an antitrust suit to halt the proceedings.
Now, instead of just sniping from the sidelines, Sprint is taking a more active stance on situation. Their first step: filing their own lawsuit against AT&T, T-Mobile, and Deutsche Telekom. → Read More
In spite of the antitrust lawsuit recent filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, AT&T has been hard at work to make sure their pending T-Mobile acquisition doesn’t fall apart. Sources close to the situation say that AT&T is reportedly working on a “two-track plan” to address the DoJ’s concerns and make sure the merger goes through.
While Reuters can’t confirm with certainty the specifics of the plan, AT&T is said to be preparing itself to make concessions in an effort assuage federal fears that the merger will reduce competition and raise wireless costs. Among the concessions on the table are the sale of T-Mobile’s assets and the possible retention of T-Mobile’s value-oriented rate plans. → Read More
It’s no surprise whatsoever that Sprint isn’t down with the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, and with good reason. There’s no telling just how severe the effects of this deal may be on Sprint, but we know for sure that it won’t be good. So with no other option, the carrier has campaigned against the merger since day one. We’ve seen statement after statement, release after release… but this time Sprint is taking a new approach.
Today Sprint threw their weight behind a study which debunks claims made by AT&T and the Economic Policy Institute that this merger will create “tens of thousands of jobs,” and even goes so far as to say the deal will result in a reduction of American jobs. → Read More
Following today’s reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a complaint opposing the $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T, the big blue carrier has issued a response stating plans to ask for an expedited hearing “so that the enormous benefits of this merger can be fully reviewed.”
The DOJ cites antitrust issues in its complaint, saying “AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low- priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market.” But AT&T begs to differ. → Read More
It’s coming! It’s finally coming!
After months of gallivanting around the world with launches everywhere from South Korea to Canada since May (plus a one day delay thanks to Hurricane Irene) Samsung’s Galaxy S II Android superphone is finally heading to the US.
As expected, Samsung used their press gathering in New York today to announce aesthetically unique Galaxy S II variants for three major US carriers: T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T. Verizon, meanwhile, is holding out for something else. → Read More
If you’ve ever called your carrier about spotty coverage, then chances are you’ve heard the party line: “we’re working to improve the service in your area.” It’s delightfully vague — you know that your concerns are being considered, just without any concrete timeline for improvement.
Today, AT&T has announced their intention to make those mythical service improvements more transparent. They have launched eight microsites for major markets that focus on service enhancements made in the past year. → Read More
Surprise! Even a clever little gimmick like a dedicated Facebook button can’t save a bad phone from an early demise.
After just 36 days on the shelves, a trusted source close to AT&T tells us the carrier is already prepping to ditch HTC’s so-called “Facebook Phone”, the Status. The reason? The thing just isn’t selling. → Read More
The upcoming iPhone 5 will almost certainly be a single phone that supports multiple networks, namely CDMA (such as the one used by Verizon or Sprint in the United States) as well as GSM (which is used by AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.).
This has been rumored before, and even at one point half confirmed by a Verizon executive, but nothing like some good old evidence from the field to turn a rumor into a near-certainty. → Read More
January 19, 2011. It’s a day I’ll always remember. It’s the day I finally got to destroy a Horcrux that had been bringing misery into my life: AT&T.
That’s the day I finally cancelled my AT&T service after years of dropped calls, non-existant service, gross over-charges, and all around frustration. I even did it before I knew for sure that Verizon was getting the iPhone. I had had enough. That I got to cancel it by way of Google Voice, adding insult to injury, was just icing on the cake. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions, technology-wise, I’ve made in the past few years. And today it’s looking even better.
You see, after months of AT&T being out of sight, out of mind, they stormed back into my brain last night when I read on Engadget that they would be removing individual text messaging plans in a few days. In AT&T marketing parlance, this is called “streamlining”. In my parlance, this is called “bullshit”. → Read More
Tired of waiting for AT&T to launch their first LTE devices? Yeah — so is AT&T, it would seem. So much so, in fact, that they’re prepping to launch their first LTE devices early next week… before their LTE network is even officially fired up.
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AT&T’s legal team probably didn’t have too restful a weekend. On Friday afternoon, the legal firm accidentally posted a partially redacted letter to the FCC revealing the original cost of its planned LTE build-out at $3.8 billion. That’s quite a difference from the $39 billion it would cost to achieve the same goal through a T-Mo acquisition, and many found the revelation incredibly suspect, enough so to possibly derail the merger.
And if that wasn’t enough to start out the weekend, AT&T then had to file eight federal suits to keep a law firm from blocking the deal through arbitration. → Read More
A partially-redacted letter from AT&T lawyers to FCC officials was accidentally posted on the FCC website today, and it reveals quite a bit about AT&T‘s strategy for its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile. Unfortunately, the filing has come and gone on the website, but the folks over at Wireless Week took down some notes for us. → Read More
You’re all aware of the increase in “hacktivism” and malware we’ve been seeing over the past few months, and as it turns out, the carriers are aware of it, too. Just yesterday, Sprint announced the availability of its McAfee security apps for Android, and today AT&T is looping in Juniper Networks for its new mobile security platform. → Read More
The FCC has just informed good ol’ big blue that its proposed acquisitions of T-Mobile and Qualcomm’s 700MHz spectrum will be informally reviewed together, rather than as separate transactions.
This wouldn’t really be a big deal except for the fact that AT&T may be biting off more than it can chew. By reviewing the two proposed acquisitions together, the FCC is forcing AT&T to justify such massive purchases of spectrum. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
