Here’s a classic corporate bullshit memo from T-Mobile’s president to his wage slaves (via), reacting to the news that the DOJ is going to try to block the T-Mobile/AT&T merger:
DT [T-Mobile] and AT&T believe the DOJ has failed to acknowledge the significant consumer benefits of this deal. DT remains convinced that bringing together these two world-class businesses would create significant benefits for customers and the country.
Translation: a sore asshole and an empty wallet are “consumer benefits”.
While this action is addressed in Federal court, the best thing you can do is continue to focus on strengthening our business and offering world class customer service.
So, stop what you were doing — polishing your resumes in preparation for the inevitable layoffs — and start trying to entice customers into making a two-year commitment to a company that won’t be around in a couple of months.
Customers have many reasons to choose T-Mobile—from the great value we offer, to compelling devices running on America’s largest 4G network and our leadership in customer service and satisfaction.
Those were the newest stats I could find — I doubt they’ve changed much.
Napoleon
Just one tag?
mpbruss
Fan of the lyrical references so far today. Hopefully it doesn’t come to: “This world is crazy, give me the gun.”
woodrowfan
but Ed Schultz says it will create jobs!!!
Matt
Check out “Let England Shake,” great anti-war album from miss Polly Jean.
mistermix
@mpbruss: You have something against going to a different land?
geg6
I know this won’t be popular, but I have had ATT Mobile for years and years. I like it. I never have dropped calls. I never have trouble getting a signal (unless in a place with lots and lots of steel interfering with the signal). Took a 2-week, thousand or so mile boat trip a few years ago down the Ohio to Cincinnati and back to the ‘Burgh, and my phone was the only one that could get a signal most of the way. My ex’s Verizon and the other couple’s T-Mobile were unusable for pretty much the entire trip.
Now, this is completely OT from the topic of whether or not I support this merger, but I’m not giving up my ATT.
Dennis SGMM
Yes, work hard while we go to court. That way you’ll feel much better about yourselves when you come to work post-merger and find a note saying “Report to HR” where your time card used to be.
mistermix
@geg6: Apparently, the issue with AT&T dropped calls is mostly in densely populated urban areas. If we had some real regulation around here, we’d have a monthly dropped call report from all of these companies.
singfoom
Yeah, consolidation has worked out so well for consumers so far, why not a little more?
“Less choice means better capitalism and you better like it, rubes!”
I’m glad they’ve stopped the merger and I hope it doesn’t go through, but the funniest part is all the people that are yelling about the jobs the government is killing by preventing the merger.
Because mergers never have any layoffs, right?
Patrick
I have t-mobile. The signal strength and coverage has always been garbage when I lived in Northern Virginia, and now in Sarasota Florida. When I had a blackberry, I used their “hot-spot calling” feature aka UMA. So for $10, I could make unlimited calls over the internet and this was my predominant use. It worked well for me and was extremely low cost based on my special circumstances (high degree of wifi access).
… But I wasn’t relying on t-mobiles signal.
I’ve switched to an Android G2x which also has wifi calling. But it sucks. Even with strong wifi signal, the calls drop, and I am now exposed to t-mobile’s terrible signal.
I might as well have bought a palm pilot.
I had some small sliver of hope that maybe, maybe when they merged my signal might get better (“small sliver” != expectation).
So now I have Ooma and an Ooma wifi calling app. I am wondering if I drop t-mobile, will the phone still connect to wifi and my Ooma wifi calling app work? Can I have a true no mobile carrier (other than wifi cost) smart phone? Will the phone still sync with e-mail, etc?
I don’t think I’d be giving up too much…
Lolis
This is why I have Cricket.
Mojotron
T-Mobile’s customer service is better than the other carriers. FAR better. Seriously, if you’ve ever had to deal with the customer service for all four carriers it’s a non-contest. T-Mobile also has lousy coverage and a problem with not getting the latest phones quickly (or the iPhone at all), which is a large chunk of their customers’ dissatisfaction.
arguingwithsignposts
@geg6: this is a case of YMMV. I live in an area where, until recently, AT&T coverage was non-existent. It was Verizon or you were screwed.
debit
@geg6: I had a phone with Cingular, then they were eaten by At&t. I was going to switch to T-Mobile, then the iphone came out and…
I’m in the last year of my most recent two year contract. I do sometimes have issues with the data access, and their fees for texting are outrageous (so I use textfree) but on the whole I’ve been pretty happy with their service.
dpCap
I just love how stupid investors are. The DOJ steps into the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and then investors dump all their semiconductor stocks.
R. Porrofatto
2004: Cingular gobbles up AT&T Wireless for a mere $41 billion, paying practically double what the stock price was worth a few months prior. Morgan Stanley and a bunch of other banks, brokers, law firms and consultants make hundreds of millions of dollars in fees. The CEOs and upper-level executives of both companies reap millions. Thousands of employees lose their jobs. Consumers have even fewer choices. Prices rise to pay off the huge debt. Wall Streeters exult. Bonuses shower upon them.
A few years later, Cingular “becomes” AT&T Mobility.
2011: AT&T seeks to acquire T-Mobile for $39 billion. If the deal is not successfully blocked, JPMorgan Chase/Morgan Stanley and a bunch of other banks, brokers, law firms and and consultants will make hundreds of millions of dollars in fees – including the Blackstone Group, a major stockholder in T-Mobile. The CEOs and upper-level executives of both companies will reap millions. Thousands of employees will lose their jobs. Consumers will have only a couple of wireless choices. Prices will rise to pay off the huge debt. Wall Streeters exult. Bonuses will shower upon them.
It’s great that Wall St. owns and runs everything, ain’t it?
(BTW, in case anyone might wonder why the principals want such awful mergers to occur, look to the acquisition of Compaq by HP. The CEOs of the two companies, Carly Fiorina and Michael Capellas, shared $120 million in bonuses just for doing the deal, so they naturally lobbied for it to happen. The collateral damage to their enrichment: 40,000 jobs lost in just the first couple of years. (After which HP said “fuck off” to Carly with a $55 million parting gift.) For all the spew about efficiencies and “consumer benefits”, it’s the skim and looting that matters most in merger/acquisition land, and is why, perhaps more than the banksters, private equity vultures are destroying us. For some people, the slow dismemberment of America is deliberate, just because it’s so damned lucrative.
[forgive the length]
RossInDetroit
I have Verizon and I get solid signal everywhere. Even places you’d never expect to make a call. Like a sub-basement under an industrial boiler. And I’ve had zero dropped calls in 4 years with the same handset.
That said, it’s absurdly expensive. $60 net/month for voice and 1000 TXT. No data. My wife switched to Virgin for the cheap unlimited data. She gets to spend a few hours/week on the line with Tech Support ironing out dumb issues. And she’s on her 3rd fancy smartphone handset in 3 months.
ATT can go pound sand. I had them before Verizon and their service blew pretty much all the time.
Our work cell phones are Nextel and those suck even worse. There are several worksites where you can’t get a signal inside the building. Try stepping outside when it’s 10 degrees to check voicemail from angry people trying to reach you and see how well you like the service.
Lysana
I’m another content AT&T customer who hated the merger on its face. Very glad to see the DoJ stepping in like this.
gene108
Two things.
(1) This just proves to the business community hands down that President Obama, no matter what he says, cannot shake his Kenyan-Indonesian-Muslim-Socialist-Communist-Isolated Academia Anti-Business-view of America; and
(2) We little people don’t realize how much better AT&T’s profits would’ve been after the merger. AT&T and T-Mobile would’ve saved themselves millions of dollars by this merger. AT&T would get more 4G access for its customers, without having to put up one single new tower, while T-Mobile customers would’ve gotten a broader network, without any additional money being spent.
As things stand, blocking this merger will force both these companies to spend millions to stay competitive, by putting up new towers and thus lowering profits and share prices.
gene108
Have these points in moderation. This will only make business loathe Obama more for interfering.
Also, too this will cost AT&T and T-Mobile millions in having to put up new towers, rather than merging the networks they already have, which will lower profits and theoretically lower share prices.
I’m sure the CEO’s would never let share prices drop, so I doubt you’d see massive loss making investments that would improve service.
KXB
I’ve got US Cellular. Been a customer for five years – no complaints. I bitch more about the taxes on my cellphone bill, which makes up almost 15% of what I pay per month.
zmulls
Wow, I have AT&T and had two dropped calls yesterday. The stats above Verizon vs. AT&T are pretty stark. We have been talking about switching and this sort of seals the deal.
My wife is the primary account holder, though, and her contract isn’t up till December 2012. Our two sons and I are the “additional” lines, and two of us are contract-free. Second son has contract until April 2012.
So I was thinking of switching next April, three of us, and letting my wife come over at the end of the year (otherwise it’s an $80 prorated penalty).
But…..I’m reading that you can’t port your number over unless you’re the primary account holder. Is that true? If I and my sons want to jump ship early, will we not be able to take our numbers?
gene108
@gene108: Thanks mistermix for getting this post out of moderation so quickly.
JGabriel
As someone with experience with both companies, I see nothing but trouble and frustration for T-Mobile customers from this merger, and price increases for everyone.
Seriously, I like T-Mobile mostly as it is (though I hear rumors that they aren’t very labor friendly). They have great customer service. All they need to do is expand their coverage.
ATT, on the other hand, is in a suck contest with Verizon quite likely to result in the two of them colliding and creating between them an evil black of hole of suckitude that devours the universe and populates it with hell’s merciless minions.
In some theories, this has already occurred and explains the existence of the modern GOP.
.
Violet
The person I called most frequently had T-Mobile and we never had any problems with dropped calls from any kind of phone. Then they switched to AT&T and I’d say about 30% of our calls include problems with a dropped call. I have another friend who has AT&T and the same thing happens with her. Plus there will be a lot of call fade and fuzziness if we talk while she’s in the car (safely, with an earpiece, of course).
Based on those observations, I think AT&T cell service is subpar.
geg6
@arguingwithsignposts:
Oh, yes. It’s absolutely a case of YMMV. If I had the trouble others in thread are complaining about with ATT, I’d dump them like I did Verizon all those years ago (my first cell phone was with Verizon and they sucked donkey balls, IMHO).
PurpleGirl
@singfoom: In selling a merger to the stockholders, the savings from getting rid of duplicative job positions is pressed quietly but firmly. I followed several of the bank mergers for the non-profit I worked for and somewhere they would always talk about redundancy and the savings that follow reducing it. Also the money that could be saved by cutting corporate charitable contributions from two to one. The only people who make money are the upper management types pushing the merger.
PurpleGirl
@R. Porrofatto: The lawyers and all the other consultants still make their millions in fees for working on the deal to begin with. They always get paid — they do their billing on a monthly basis from the beginning.
ETA: And your last paragraph is so right. Remember, boys and girls, that’s how the Mittster made his fortune. Destroying American jobs, company by company.
Yutsano
@JGabriel:
This may or may not mean anything, but T-Mobile has a huge campus in the Seattle area, and even after the merger was announced they were still on massive hiring binges. T-Mobile also has customer service centers actually in the US. Their employee benefit package also kicks the tar out of AT & T’s, so from a labor perspective this has bad idea written all over it.
Lee
Another happy Verizon customer here. My first phone was with Cingular. I switched from AT&T because I get a 19% discount with Verizon.
FWIW I have a Verizon Wireless store about 2 minutes away from my house. I use them for any sort of customer service that I need. I get outstanding service from them.
Just a quick edit: The only issue I had with AT&T was its weak signal (its CS was fine). I live in DFW and there were areas with zero signal.
Pococurante
So ATT and T-Mobile both have 23% cust sat ratings.
So after the merger they’ll have 46% approval!
Lizzy L
I use my T-Mobile cell for emergencies only: I use the pay as you go system and it costs me $10 for 3 months. The phone was free. I’ve never had a dropped call. I think this is a great deal and I hope T-mobile doesn’t get eaten by AtT. I used to have a cell with ATT but the service was spotty and too expensive.
RossinDetroit
A friend was an early iPhone adopter. He loved the iPhone but the only place in his house he could get a cell signal from ATT was a guest bathroom. Not very user friendly. When he called me from his miracle phone I could expect every call to drop at least once. This was in a wealthy Detroit suburb, not somewhere out in the boondocks.
efroh
I live in Northern Virginia and I like T-Mobile quite a bit actually. Much better coverage than Sprint and unlimited data for a relatively low price. And the customer service is much better than either AT&T’s or Verizon’s (in my experience).
More important, from my perspective, they offer the Android phones I’m interested in (*hearts* G2).
MikeBoyScout
As a T-Mobile user of an Android who lives in the pacnorwest, who also has an AT&T plan for buisness I am hopeful the merger will be scuttled.
I can’t say that dealing with T-Mobile when some problem arises is a good experience or meets my expectations, but I can say that the coverage I have exceeds my expectations and dealing with AT&T dropped calls is the bane of mine and my colleagues telephony.
The Spy Who Loved Me
The kids and I (all in different cities) all have T-Mobile and have been pretty happy with their reliability. We all have Blackberries, so the monthly cost (especially unlimited texting for the the kids) is pretty high. The cost is probably my only complaint. Our bill runs close to $300 a month for three lines. And yes, as said above, their customer service is great. My husband, so he could have an iphone, has AT&T. He has a problem with dropped calls, getting a signal anywhere off the beaten path, they have lousy customer service and it’s expensive too.
Even though I’d live to have an iphone, I’ll stick with what I’ve got. It seems to be better.
Michael D.
@zmulls:
You can still port out. All your wife will have to do is call Verizon (or whoever you choose) and tell them she wants to port “her” lines in. The company you’re going to takes care of the rest.
jwest
When has regulation prevented Galtian Overlords from ass fucking the poor?
You know we’re going to do anyway, no matter what. All that interference such as this does is to make the ass fucking more inefficient, time consuming and expensive – which you will end up paying for in the end.
Why not just bend over and take it?
Michael D.
We were discussing this in the office. AT&T has to pay out 6 billion to T-Mobile if the deal doesn’t go through. Which means AT&T is now heavily incentivized to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on politicians to get this to go through. They have no choice. In fact, they can spend $5,999,999,999.99 and still be ahead if it goes through.
So, do you think this was about blocking deals or was it about getting campaign donations?
Cap'n Magic
I’m currently on T-Mobile with a great rate plan. The most galling thing about the whole merger is NOWHERE do you see either AT&T or T-Mobile say it will lead to LOWER pricing. Nowhere! AT&T just in the last month eliminated the middle tier for text messaging, leaving you with two options: pay per message at (I think) .20 per message or unlimited-at $20.00/month.
This merger will prince the GSM MVNO’s out of existence and will also cause roaming rates to go higher.
The real issue is that DT screwed the operations up here thinking they could make a quick buck when they bought VoiceStream. But they were late to the 3G game. And DT has all but announced that there will be no more investment in T-Mobile US.
kc
If T-Mobile and AT&T merge, consumers will have double Teh Suck!
burnspbesq
I have no problem with DOJ actually enforcing the antitrust laws. The reality, however, is that T-Mobile is too weak to be a viable standalone competitor, and DT isn’t going to make the investment necessary to make it a viable standalone competitor. If it’s not acquired by somebody, it will simply continue its current long, slow death spiral.
Choose your poison.
Sibelius
I just switched from T-Mobile to Verizon. One reason only, coverage. When my wife was out with our little girls in places where you would need to use the phone for safety reasons she’d have no signal. She couldn’t even get a signal in her office, in Palo Alto. I had a great rate with TM and also used their pay as you go plan, it’s insanely cheap, $50 buys you 1000 minutes good FOR A YEAR, so it was a great as an emergency phone, well, except you’d have no signal in an emergency.
I would have stuck with them if I was sure the merger would have improved coverage, maintained the call quality, the good customer service, and kept the price down. But seriously, it was AT&T so none of that was going to happen.
Yeah, Verizon is expensive, but my wife is giddy she can call me from inside her office, in the heart of Silicon Valley, imagine that.
Bill H.
Well, the argument can be made that if you look at the first graph and pick up the T-Mobile bar and sit in on top of the AT&T bar, and the conbined bar is taller than either of the other two bars, so combining AT&T and T-Mobile would create something that is better than either of the other two.
You can also argue that mixing cowshit and bullshit produces baby cows, but I don’t think it will work in actual practice.
Oops: I just noticed it still wouldn’t be as tall as the Verizon bar. Oh well.
zmulls
@Michael D — Thanks for the clarification
jwest
All this talk about a simple merger, but not a word about Obama giving one of his major contributors $535 million in loan guarantees that promptly turned into a bankruptcy.
Let’s hope the people here aren’t waiting for a “green job”.
Yutsano
jwest, if you’re going to throw up unsubstantiated shit, at least warn folks first. In other words, link or GTFO.
jwest
Why do you ever doubt me?
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Solyndra-Filing-a-Disaster-for-Obama-128816968.html
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970203296004575352982133405348.html
(h/t ed driscoll)
trollhattan
I’m having this bronzed for, uh, whipping out every time I have a “free marketz are free” conversation.
as to #48: asked and answered. QED GTFO
different church-lady
KILL YOUR CELLPHONE
Yutsano
That NBC piece was terrible. I’m amazed that guy got out of journalism school. A business failed and I saw nothing about them being major Obama contributors. If anything it suggests a policy change at DOE. Conservatroll haz fail again.
jwest
Yutsano,
From the Barrons article linked to above:
“One of Solyndra’s biggest stakeholders is Argonaut Ventures I. Its majority owner is Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser, who was a “bundler”of campaign funds for the Obama-Biden campaign. This means he collected contributions and sent them en masse to the candidates.”
Kaiser was not only “a” bundler, he was one of the largest. You have to admire how Obama flaunts his criminal cronyism is such a shameless manner. You can only learn that sort of arrogance in the Chicago School of Democrat Politics.
Persia
@zmulls: Be sure that Verizon really is better in your area (though by the sounds of it it is) — check the coverage maps. Where I am Verizon is definitely the only way to go.
Yutsano
Your puzzle is still missing a few pieces there jwest. But do please continue to fornicate that poultry.
HyperIon
@R. Porrofatto wrote a substantive comment and then wrote:
Your comment was a thing of beauty.
Reasoned, contained facts, made a point, was correctly punctuated, and not consumed by snark.
I wish there were more like it.
HyperIon
@different church-lady wrote:
THIS is what i am starting to think.
different church-lady
@HyperIon: Agreed. The idea that R. Porrofatto felt the need to offer apology for a mere 330 words is a sad comment on the expectations of the internet and modern “communication”.
different church-lady
@Yutsano:
A FTFY’s work is never done…
Draylon Hogg
I worked for T-Mobile UK for a few years. In 2003 they launched a typically bollocks corporate initiative called ‘One Company’ that had the lofty ideal of standardising working practices across the European group. T-Mobile UK wouldn’t officially recognise trade unions for collective bargaining, but in the parent company’s home of Germany they didn’t do anything without consulting with them. I emailed the then CEO to ask if under the One Company initiative they would be standardizing labour relations. He wrote back accusing me of being ‘political’. Corporate wankers have now merged with Orange in the UK making the big four networks into three. To be fair they do provide a reasonably priced and reliable service, I use an Android HTC Desire HD, kick the arse out of the internet, on it and only pay £35.00 a month.
Yoodow
ATT-s takeover bid was never intended to be anything but an attempt to eliminate a competitor. With ATT-s and T-Mobile-s serving area being almost identical it is hard to see any economies of scale at play.
T-Mobile is in a very bad position. They are hemorrhaging customers. Despite of their claim of being the largest 4G operator in the US,there are areas of their network where they are just preparing to roll out 3G services.
T-Mobile does not have a clear migration path to LTE. In fact they don’t event own the spectrum necessary to build it, and certainly don’t have the capital to buy the spectrum.
Rathskeller
@Yutsano: perfect, thank you.
For what it’s worth, AT&T is absolutely terrible in the SF Bay Area. People who were formerly happy in Boston have been quite shocked at how awful it is. I’ve had 5-6 dropped calls in a five minute period, all with 3+ bars of alleged signal. It was routine for my wife and I to find messages a half-hour or hour after they had been left.
I’ve now switched to Sprint/Android, and it’s adequate. When you’re in an area with 4G lit up, it jumps into super-duper territory, but that’s not a daily occurrence. It is a giddy feeling to load a new web page, and BAM it is all there the second you want it.
RossInDetroit
This was my first cell phone. Purchased in 1995 or early ’96. The plan was something like 60 minutes/month for $60. The phone was featured in the movie Clueless because it was the smallest model widely available and actually fit in a pocket.
BruceFromOhio
Probably heard a zillion times already: was on AT&T, dropped calls everywhere, hated it. Moved to Verizon, can’t remember the last time a call was dropped.
All the corporate Blackberries are Verizon, so any calls on the company phone to mi familia are in network.
Connect Verizon with a Droid or a BB, and tell AT&T/Apple to go fuck a raft.