AT&T’s potential acquisition of T-Mobile has become a hot-button issue in not the only wireless industry, but also in general technology and business. The questions that many detractors suggest are a few: (1) It will make the duopoly of AT&T and Verizon even more pronounced, which will decrease the options and benefits that consumers receive, and (2) AT&T is taking the easy way out by trying to acquire the infrastructure of T-Mobile’s as opposed to upgrading their own infrastructure to meet the current demands.
I’ll skip over the first point because that requires a more in-depth analysis that I really don’t want to give right now. I’ll try to get back to it in a future post (reminding myself to do that by making it bold.)
The second point is an interesting one. Though I have AT&T, I am by no means an apologist, because I have experienced in both New York and the Bay Area just how awful reception can be; but I am also not a full-blown opponent either. Many industry analysts have argued that instead of trying to “cheat the system” by simply acquiring another company and its relatively stable infrastructure to ease their current capacity issues, AT&T should have simply had more foresight and started building out and upgrading their current cell tower technology - as Verizon did. I don’t necessarily agree with this, mainly because it is very difficult to have that type of prescience.
Verizon (with all of its previous acquisitions and such) is the oldest cellular company in the nation, and I have read that they have been working towards upgrading their technologies for years now because their systems were just too old. That’s really just a stroke of luck that their devices’ breaking down happened just before data usage became exorbitant. While one could argue Verizon did this somewhat stealthily, it was time that helped them most. They were able to avoid the hurdles of upgrading before the data hurricane of the late 21st century came to test their infrastructure. Meanwhile, AT&T inauspiciously needed to battle time right as people started getting iPhones and Android phones. So, they needed to call an audible. This audible was to acquire T-Mobile so that they can ease the pressure off their current, relatively outdated systems, while their future LTE infrastructure gets deployed.
I wouldn’t say that AT&T is trying to beat the system by seeking external, instead of internal, help. While I personally am more of a proponent of trying to have internal improvement, asking others for help is also a viable way to go about self-improving. AT&T knew Verizon was outperforming them in key markets, so they needed help at a large scale. This came in the form of T-Mobile. However, even if the deal doesn’t through, I don’t think AT&T will be hurt too much, because while the government will be taking years to figure out all the finer points of the deal, AT&T’s new LTE infrastructure will be tested and deployed, and will be on the same level as Verizon.
I’ll try to talk about something non-wireless tomorrow (still tech though :).
