Consumer Reports has an interesting breakdown of how the AT&T purchase of T-Mobile USA will affect subscribers of both wireless services. In the breakdown, they list five areas which, for good or bad, will be of interest to customers including overall service, price rates, how it will affect Sprint, network coverage and if the deal with be approved by the FCC or not. The consensus is, that T-Mobile customers will see a price hike, being that the Get More network has one of the lowest pricing schemes amount the major wireless providers. But the downside is that customer satisfaction for T-Mobile customers may take a huge dip since Consumer Reports considers AT&T to be amongst the worst companies in that rating. By contrast, we reported that JD Power found the opposite to be true. So depending on who you’re with, you’ll be disappointed or elated. What are the other factors at play?

Coverage is likely to improve since both networks will combine, with rural customers seeing a benefit. Data wise, however, AT&T has already said many of T-Mobile’s towers will be converted to 4G over the next several years since T-Mobile’s bandwidth is on a different wave length. Analysts think the big loser is Sprint, as it’s not likely it’ll survive in it’s present form. Will that force the Now Network to look for a buyer like Verizon or maybe merge with a smaller network just to keep pace?

But the big question is … will the merger be approved by Uncle Sam? Stories are going around that AT&T is preparing for a protracted long battle that will end in victory, but with conditions to ensure competition remains industry wide. Losing a player in a shrinking field can affect pricing, innovation, and customer satisfaction, so if AT&T gets the deal approved, and many think it ultimately will, it won’t be a rubber stamp.

[via Consumer Reports]

20 COMMENTS

  7. This sounds terrible!!! T-Mobiles customer service is the best, with AT&T taking over it will go to crap the day they take the reins. If Congress lets the deal go through it’s said that AT&T may give up almost half the customers, which would most likely go to Sprint and that sucks even worse (at least in the part of the country I’m in). The real losers will be T-Mobile customers if this deal goes through, we will be the children in this messy divorce, who’s the judge going to make us live with? If I had to choose what parent to stay with I would have to choose AT&T, they may have bad customer service but at least you can get reception with them! I hope it doesn’t go through, I love my T-Mobile and it took forever to find a provider with great customer service AND reception.

    VIVA T-Mobile!!

    • I agree with you Janson. I have Tmobile and have had them for 8 years. I love their customer service. I have one of the head quarter shops down the street from my house and they are awsome and I talk to them about this and they said our contracts are going to be called god father we will still have everything we currently have but when contract is up the price will also go up.

    • Nort sure how long it’s been since you dealt with customer service via AT&T but it has improved 110%. The use if virtual help desk started and you get your call answered within 1 minute. Employees are being hired to work from home in every state. Also visit a store and monitor how you are treated. It has greatly improved as well.

    • T-Mobile has great customer service? Seriously? Any time I’ve had to make a change to my plan, somehow it magically never makes in on my contract. And when I call customer service, they are absolutely powerless to do anything to fix it. They simply parrot the same old crap, “I’m sorry sir, but you’ll have to take that up with the store.” They are completely useless and cause more frustration simply because you actually expect them to, oh, I don’t know, SERVICE the CUSTOMERS, which they either can’t or won’t. Pretty much anything short of no one answering the phone would be an improvement.

  8. at&t had to have paid jd power off if they claim at&t is good and tmobile is the worst in the U.S. It goes against just about every survey done in the last 5 years or more on the cellular market.

  9. I hope the merger does not succeed. People need to write their Attorneys Generals, FCC, and FTC and in HIGH NUMBERS express their concerns about this merger and the blatent fact that it will create a GSM MONOPOLY controlled by AT&T! I just switched to TMo because for 4 lines (2 with data, which we weren’t allowed to cancel the data on) was costing us $183/month. We brought our 4 lines over, no data and with the “Even more plus 750” plan, we pay only 80 bucks! That’s a steep $100 drop in our monthly wireless bill. Oh and AT&T now scans their network and determines phone types by an IMEI scan! When they see you are using a smartphone, they AUTOMATICALLY add data to ALL smartphones without your permission! YOU CAN NOT OPT OUT OF DATA ON AT&T! Do not let them create a GSM MONOPOLY! We should petition Google to BUY TMo if DT doesn’t want them!

  15. I’ve considered bailing from T-mobile several times, and the one thing that keeps me with them is the prohibitive cost of leaving.  The only thing that made AT&T attractive to me was the iphone, but in the end, that was not enough to sweeten the deal for me.  I stayed with T-mobile, and now I’m going to be stuck with AT&T anyway. And pay more.  This lack of choice makes me mad.  I hope they are kind to T-mobile customers and waive the expensive penalty for ending the contract early.

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