AT&T Threatening To Raise Rates After Merger Failure 247
An anonymous reader writes "In the quarterly earnings call following the defeat of his attempted acquisition of T-Mobile, AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson was quick to lash out at the FCC, claiming that because his company was unable to acquire more spectrum to handle the explosion of mobile data users, AT&T would be forced to raise prices and take additional action against the highest data users. PCMag looked into the other side of the story, finding that 'The FCC spokesman ... pointed out that the FCC has approved more than 150 commercial mobile transaction applications in the past year and more than 300 in the past two years, "facts [that] were completely ignored in the [AT&T] conference call," he said.'"
Ah, nothing like corporate greed (Score:5, Informative)
In the public's defense, At&t's 4g is a joke that's lost all humor, & they drop calls like it's going out of style. Sounds more like they're saying "we can't compete without this merger". My advice = fix your customer service then your revenue margins.
Prima Donna (Score:2, Informative)
If higher prices were more profitable (i.e. could be used to increase revenue and offset losses), then they would've raised the prices either way. Claims that they need to raise prices now are just posturing.
Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
Is this a case of a government agency actually turning down big business when it is supposed to, or was there an even bigger backroom deal with another company?
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In all reality, I had a cheap AT&T prepay phone, and it was terrible. I know little about how GSM networks handle voice calls, but it seemed obvious that I was getting extra compression on my calls. The sound quality was so bad as to be almost unusable. I have since switched to a secondary reseller that operates on Sprint, and the quality is good, I have yet to have a dropped call, and there are no surprises. Of course, I use a different phone as well, so the phone could have had something to do with the sound quality, but it sure sounded like excessive digital compression to me, which screams network function, not phone function.
Re:You already mess with regular data users w/ cap (Score:5, Informative)
Have you seen how slow is Sprint's network? Who cares if it's unlimited when your download speed is below 1k/sec!
Where are you at? BFE?
I'm a Sprint user and I have exactly ZERO issues with their service. Downloads aren't a problem (and throughput is MUCH better than 1k/sec). I can even game while tethered to my phone.
Maybe if you come out from inside that faraday cage.
Re:att and the baby bells (Score:5, Informative)
Reagan happened. Him and all the corporatist looters to follow in his footsteps. These days, corporations aren't just people, they're better than people.
You remind me of working on my Economics studies with Financial News Network rattling away on the telly. Myron Kandel covering the buy-out and merger mania which ultimately looted treasuries of companies, which were then spun off with a whole new debt. And Wall Street loved it. Big news of the day was KKR and RJ Reynolds bidding insane amounts for Nabisco. Mr. Kandel was effective in detailing KKR's strategy, should they win - they'd split up the various bits of Nabisco and spin them off, while keeping all the money in the company bank accounts. Sounds evil, doesn't it? It happened time and again during the Reagan and Bush Sr. eras. Did nothing for the people of the country, company customers, but made a bunch of weasels rich, while sacking a lot of people and robbing ledgers.
Re:Time to call their bluff... (Score:5, Informative)
Those customers will have to wait for their very one sided contracts (in ATT's favor) to come to an end.
To the best of my knowledge, AT&T can't raise the rates on their existing contracts. If they change the contract, the customer can walk away.