ATT to acquire Tmobile

[AlexSno]

Don't know why but there is a side of the story i don't like. You know what happens when there is little competition on the market....

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Seriously, does anyone actually like AT&T?

I've been with AT&T for 12 years and have been very pleased with the service.

[jhempel24]

Its not going to happen. There is congressional meetings that need to happen and I cant see them approving it. If they merge fine
I'll be happy to see them bankrupt. TMobile didn't like where I lived and ATT cancelled my service because I wasnt paying enough even though I had a signed contrac. THEN THEY TRIED TO CHARGE ME FOR ERLY TERMINATION!!! I sent them a bill for having them terminate instead they didn't pay though lol.

I just moved to Verizon and pay less than $80 a month for unlimited data 900 min +friends and family and 250 txt. Never had a problem with the signal and my DroidX freaking rules.

[Hellmark]

I am on AT&T, for two reasons. Where I lived until a month ago, AT&T was the only company that had reception. Also on top of that, with the plan I am on, I am unable to go another place and get it as cheaply. That said, I am not a fan of AT&T. Their customer service sucks, and service is middling.

[kennyc]

Stock market seems to be reacting positively.

[RainingLemur]

Bleh. Never was a fan of AT&T. We had service through them at one point in time. But, getting decent service from them was more difficult than underwater basket-weaving. I feel bad for people on T-Mobile.

Should this occur, I wonder what the other carriers (Verizon and Sprint) will do. Maybe Sprint'll raise their unlimited data price, and really frost the testiclites of some of their customers.

[Penforhire]

Meh. AT&T has been okay for me. No, not as good a network as I had with Verizon but adequate. I am curious about the hardware benefit to AT&T. Even though the frequencies are different perhaps having a T-Mobile tower in place makes it faster/easier/cheaper to add capacity?

This deal will happen. Technically there's enough competition even just with Verizon. Reality is a shortage of competition. There isn't enough difference between their plans, as if it was just 'water seeking its level.'

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

Its not going to happen. There is congressional meetings that need to happen and I cant see them approving it.

If you are banking on congress to prevent it, you might as well think that Libya is going to conquer the world in 24 hours. AT&T will whip out its corporate checkbook and every Republican will be foaming at the mouth in an attempt to sit and beg. As soon as the Republicans are done collecting their graft, the Democrats will line up for the scraps.

The Republicans don't want Elizabeth Warren to succeed, don't want climate warming regulation, in fact, don't want anything that might look like it fits in the 19th century, let alone the 21st century, so why would they do anything to block a merger that would reduce competition? The last antitrust enforcer of any note who was Republican was Theodore Roosevelt. Today's Republicans believe in large at any cost, unfettered at any price -- as long as the entity seeking it has Corp. or Inc. in its name.

The Democrats who might be opposed won't oppose it because they haven't any spine. They will complain but then conveniently be absent when any vote is taken.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Stock market seems to be reacting positively.

Why wouldn't it? It sees hundreds of millions of dollars in fees coming its way and a chance to watch another economic meltdown in another few years.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by rhadin

If you are banking on congress to prevent it, you might as well think that Libya is going to conquer the world in 24 hours. AT&T will whip out its corporate checkbook and every Republican will be foaming at the mouth in an attempt to sit and beg. As soon as the Republicans are done collecting their graft, the Democrats will line up for the scraps.

The Republicans don't want Elizabeth Warren to succeed, don't want climate warming regulation, in fact, don't want anything that might look like it fits in the 19th century, let alone the 21st century, so why would they do anything to block a merger that would reduce competition? The last antitrust enforcer of any note who was Republican was Theodore Roosevelt. Today's Republicans believe in large at any cost, unfettered at any price -- as long as the entity seeking it has Corp. or Inc. in its name.

The Democrats who might be opposed won't oppose it because they haven't any spine. They will complain but then conveniently be absent when any vote is taken.

Exactly.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Why wouldn't it? It sees hundreds of millions of dollars in fees coming its way and a chance to watch another economic meltdown in another few years.

Ya never know, the market is illogical....

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Ken Stuart

PS In regards to your email address - it is not like your only choice for email is your ISP - just get a Gmail address and you can send through their servers.

I have four Gmail addresses. And I have webmail for my own server and all my plethora of email addresses from there. However, I find webmail annoying, especially because I send a lot of email with "from" addresses that don't really exist (they're aliased to real ones, so I can sort, filter, and if necessary block the replies neatly). AT&T blocks port 25 to keep people from using their own servers for POP/STMP. They don't block port 465, though, which saved me some reconfiguring.

The point is, while I'm entirely capable of dodging their blocking -- and, as I mentioned, if they got too persistent, I'd just buy proxy service -- they're trying to do it anyway. They have no real reason to do so, except for one business reason: being able to charge people $100+ a month more not to block port 25. That is not the kind of company I want to do business with.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I have four Gmail addresses. And I have webmail for my own server and all my plethora of email addresses from there. However, I find webmail annoying, especially because I send a lot of email with "from" addresses that don't really exist (they're aliased to real ones, so I can sort, filter, and if necessary block the replies neatly). AT&T blocks port 25 to keep people from using their own servers for POP/STMP. They don't block port 465, though, which saved me some reconfiguring.

The point is, while I'm entirely capable of dodging their blocking -- and, as I mentioned, if they got too persistent, I'd just buy proxy service -- they're trying to do it anyway. They have no real reason to do so, except for one business reason: being able to charge people $100+ a month more not to block port 25. That is not the kind of company I want to do business with.

Agreed!

They block port 25 here at work from workstations.....but it turns out we developers must have it for testing our apps on our workstations. So... they had to put an exception in for us.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by kjk

That would be disappointing if it goes through-what next, Verizon buys Sprint, and we are stuck with just two major telecoms?

How about Google buys everyone?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

How about Google buys everyone?

That could work out!