AT&T To Re-Enter Wireless Market After Cingular/AT&T Deal Closes

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040518/tc_nm/telecoms_sprint_att_dc' target='_blank'>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040518/tc_nm/telecoms_sprint_att_dc</a><br /><br /></div>"AT&T Corp., the leading U.S. long distance telephone company, will offer mobile phone service later this year using Sprint Corp.'s network, AT&T said on Tuesday. Cingular Wireless , part-owned by SBC, agreed to buy AT&T Wireless Services Inc. in February. AT&T was testing the possibility of re-entering the mobile industry in a few markets through a partnership with AT&T Wireless when the Cingular deal raised the prospect that it could instead reclaim its old brand. ...AT&T will be able to sell mobile services under its own brand again after the close of the Cingular/AT&T Wireless deal, expected to happen in the fourth quarter. AT&T could begin offering mobile service before then as long as it does not use the AT&T Wireless brand. "<br /><br />If this doesn't confuse the customer, I don't know what will. :roll:

[randalllewis]

I am not surprised by this development. The ATT brand has significant value and wireless was a large gap in the company's offerings. It is fascinating that they are partnering with Sprint and this wholesale income may be just the boost debt-burdened Sprint needs to continue to invest and survive.

While the ATT brand does have value, the ATT Wireless brand is clearly damaged goods (losing customers, poor service, poor coverage). I suspect ATT is happy to have the name ATT Wireless it go away. I will be willing to bet ATT's new service will NOT be called ATT Wireless.

Maybe a poll is in order to help them with a new name?

[ShivShanks]

If this doesn't confuse the customer, I don't know what will. :roll:

Actually if you think about it in the right context then its not that confusing. Firstly AT&T Wireless is a seperate company from the main AT&T from which it was spun off a long while ago. They don't have much in common at all now and on top of that A&T Wireless having been grossly mismanaged into a pathetic state. Now that AT&T Wireless has caused so much damage to the AT&T brand name, its but natural that AT&T would take back its name and try to resurrect it. In fact I was saying exactly this on these forums when the whole AT&T Wireless mess started. AT&T (the main company) is going to be an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) which means that they don't own any infrastructure but rather use someone else's and instead have thier own branded phones, content, customer service etc. The astute reader will note that AT&T has made a choice to use the superior CDMA technology. With this announcement Sprint will have 3 MVNO's on its network: Virgin Mobile, Quest and AT&T. Guess why all these operators are choosing the CDMA alternative? Quite simply its the better technology overall. If AT&T Wireless had chosen CDMA in the first place it wouldn't have been in this mess.

Expect AT&T Wireless' troubles to increase fruther. Once AT&T Wireless becomes Cingular and starts pulling customers over ton Cingular I would expect a lot of customers to move over to the new AT&T Wireless on Sprint's network. Quite a few people are with AT&T Wireless for its AT&T brand name and will seriously think of switching to the superior alternative when the time comes.

[possmann]

Any1 have any luck with Sprint either - LOL!

To the average user/casual observer this is confusing... It's all about the brand name and frankly AT&T hasn't been a great brand name in the wireless world as of late.

They have a lot of catching up to do in customer service and price/offerings and I'm not thinking it's gonna be that easy running on the Sprint network. Seems like AT&T is the red-headed step child of the wireless world - LOL

[ShivShanks]

Any1 have any luck with Sprint either - LOL!
I'm not thinking it's gonna be that easy running on the Sprint network.

I've had a prettty good experience with Sprint. They give you CDMA 1xRTT coverage over most of urban US and backup Analog roaming over 95% of the *whole US*. For a $10 extra half of my minutes can be on the roaming analog and digital network. Heck with that my coverage can be even better than Verizon since most of Verizon's new phones come with Analog capability disabled! Even though Verizon's network is good, they are still a while away from the near ubiquitous analog network coverage in the US. Plus Sprint gives you pretty good data service and rates. What exactly do you think will be the problem for AT&T being an MVNO on Sprint?

[Kris Kumar]

I was a Sprint customer before I switched over couple of years ago, and I have had good experience with them.

- They are developer friendly. And early adopters of technologies, and don't ask the customers to pay an arm and a leg for it.
- Good rates and plans.
- Surprised that they haven't launched Smartphone :-) yet. (My guess is that somebody in the Sprint camp is banking on Treos.)

[snap]

With this announcement Sprint will have 3 MVNO's on its network: Virgin Mobile, Quest and AT&T. Guess why all these operators are choosing the CDMA alternative? Quite simply its the better technology overall. If AT&T Wireless had chosen CDMA in the first place it wouldn't have been in this mess.

I suspect that the technology choice had little to do with the decision AT&T made to go with Sprint. Sprint probably gave them the best financial deal. Probably was hard for them to choose between a competitor in Long Distance and networking vs. a competitor in Local and networking (BellSouth/SBC aka Cingular or Verizon) or an overseas based carrier (T-mobile). Wonder who they negotiated with?

On a sidenote, I would argue that GSM is the superior technololgy choice at the moment (faster data rates with EDGE than 1x, worldwide roaming support). I'm sure Qualcomm would argue this though :wink:

[Janak Parekh]

On a sidenote, I would argue that GSM is the superior technololgy choice at the moment (faster data rates with EDGE than 1x, worldwide roaming support). I'm sure Qualcomm would argue this though :wink:
Actually, I'd argue too. ;) While EDGE has higher theoretical throughput than 1xRTT, 1xRTT is proving to be competitive in practice. Both, in the US, are netting around 100kbps. 1xEV-DO (and 1xEV-DV) will trounce EDGE, and both Verizon & Sprint are rolling them out. On the note of roaming, though, I agree with you.

Anyway, back on topic: AT&T is essentially dooming the Wireless brand name. I can't count how many people badmouth AT&T as it is nowadays...

--janak

[ShivShanks]

On a sidenote, I would argue that GSM is the superior technololgy choice at the moment (faster data rates with EDGE than 1x, worldwide roaming support). I'm sure Qualcomm would argue this though :wink:

Actually independent testing by Deutsche Bank Securities showed that EDGE in practice wasn't as great as claimed and had only marginally higher rates than 1xRTT. This alongwith the disadvantages of a very miniscule selection of EDGE capable phones, lesser coverage than 1xRTT and lower spectral efficiencies compared to 1xRTT. There are tons of phones and many smartphones for 1xRTT. Plus CDMA starts moving to 2 Mbps 1xRTT EV-DO this summer (without the complete infrastructure rip and replace that 3GSM requires) so CDMA is definitely the superior technology in the US. Once CDMA moves to the EV-XX standards GSM will be left in the dust since Cingular will no way deploy 3GSM just having upgraded its whole infrastructure to GSM. There isn't a snowflakes chance in hell that they will replace all that for W-CDMA. Sure they might have some token deployments in some cities for W-CDMA but that is hardly anything. CDMA on the other hand allows one to upgrade existing infrastructure to 3G with backwards compatbility. If you think about it seriously thats a huge plus.

[swbuehler]

If this doesn't confuse the customer, I don't know what will. :roll:
Not really. Virgin Mobile in the U.S. does the same thing (they resell Sprint service on a prepaid basis).

[Kris Kumar]

With this announcement Sprint will have 3 MVNO's on its network: Virgin Mobile, Quest and AT&T. Guess why all these operators are choosing the CDMA alternative? Quite simply its the better technology overall. If AT&T Wireless had chosen CDMA in the first place it wouldn't have been in this mess.

I suspect that the technology choice had little to do with the decision AT&T made to go with Sprint. Sprint probably gave them the best financial deal. Probably was hard for them to choose between a competitor in Long Distance and networking vs. a competitor in Local and networking (BellSouth/SBC aka Cingular or Verizon) or an overseas based carrier (T-mobile). Wonder who they negotiated with?


According to the following CNet article, AT&T is negotiating with other US GSM carriers also. They want to have a multi-carrier offering.
http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-5215483.html?tag=nefd.top

So it is not a question of CDMA vs GSM. Sprint deal is probably the first deal and more are going to follow.

[rbrome]

Maybe a poll is in order to help them with a new name?

AT&T Mobile! Seriously, what else is there? Well, then again... AWS did manage to come up with the disasterous "mlife" brand :roll:, so I guess there's never any guarantee a company will do the intelligent thing.

[randalllewis]

AT&T Mobile! Seriously, what else is there? Well, then again... AWS did manage to come up with the disasterous "mlife" brand , so I guess there's never any guarantee a company will do the intelligent thing.
Yeah, what the heck was the "mlife" thing anyway? But who knows what to expect, afterall the thrust of AT&T's current advertising is focusing on the "&" which has struck me as a little weird too. "yeah, I use AT&T for long distance because they have an ampersand in their name"

[possmann]

LOL - yup I have to agree that their commercials/advertising sucks - Sprint has them on that end... The best, by far, is Budweiser (although the beer sucks) their advertising was great for a long time - starting with the frogs... Bud...wei..ser - LOL!

Why can't a phone company get good advertisers like that?

[aristoBrat]

LOL - yup I have to agree that their commercials/advertising sucks - Sprint has them on that end... The best, by far, is Budweiser (although the beer sucks) their advertising was great for a long time - starting with the frogs... Bud...wei..ser - LOL!

Why can't a phone company get good advertisers like that?
I'm kinda digging Sprint's new "Fair and Flexible" commercials: http://www.sprinttvads.com/flashcheck.html?movieID=001 :D