Can someone please tell me what this means for me?
"As a condition of FCC approval of the deal, Cingular has agreed to divest certain AT&T Wireless assets in Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Connecticut, Mississippi, and Missouri, as well as some excess spectrum in Dallas and Detroit." 🙄
...
jtdOct 26, 2004, 5:53 PM
What I would like to know is who will be handling the handset protection? At & T use Lockline and I believe Cingular uses Asurion.
...
Both companies use Lock/Line 🙂
...
From what I know, they use Lockline. A lot of carriers use Lockline. Verizon does as well in some markets.
...
Yes both carriers use lock\line, LLC as their insurance administrator. I can tell you that within lock\line there are many changes taking place from the Cingular/AT&T merger.
Cingular used to be store-fulfilled (meaning that the claim was filed and then an electronic authorization was sent to the store where you would then pay the deduc and there you were).
They have now transitioned to direct-fulfillment (the claim is filed and then the deduc is charged to the bill and the phone is shipped from Cingular's fulfillment Center via their ordering application).
SO the merger has definitely had an effect on the insurance program. The biggest concern for us (lock\line) is the difference in deductible amounts, premium amounts and program c...
(continues)
...
Basically, to prevent a monopoly in certain areas, Cingular has to get rid of the AT&T network in those areas. 🙄
...
That sucks. I'm in Mississippi. Where I go to school, I don't get reception with my Cingular phone, but AT&T phones do. I hope they dont get rid of the towers around here!
...
You should be good. The thing abot this is where there was no cingluar and only att, and vice versa. All customers of the new cingular will have coverage.
...
also,
The whole devesting thing is with the spectrum. In the areas where the combined att and cingular spectrum can possibly cause a monopoly, they have to divest in that extra spectrum. I would like to say that this is basically just my interpretation, and also that I really can't spell very well at times. :-)~
...
Cingular has to auction off their spectrum or something like that.
...
they dont have to auction it off they just have to release the markets where they have too much. like overlapping markets that both they and attws shared.
...
Yea, but won't the FCC auction those licenses off?
...
the fcc will but not cingular. so kind of a difference in words. cingular wont see any of the rev from those auctions
...
Too bad for Cingular. What I got from the merger is that they were willing to be the largest while losing a lot in the process! 😲
...
what do you think they are losing? not customers, not rev, not bragging rights, and they get to knock off the seconded biggest competitor in the proccess. what are they losing?
...
For one, a lot of money. They paid a lot for that merge. Verizon was bidding at the same time too. Gosh, what they are losing is in an article in USA Today. I read that yesterday. Some of it was giving up spectrum in markets and stuff like that. It was a good article. You should read it, if you haven't already cellboy 🙂
...
i have not read it but i dont think that whoever wrote it has a true grasp of what they are getting versus what they are losing. for one verizon couldnt have been bidding on a gsm only company because they dont have a gsm service and you canonly own one pcs license in any given market as a company and to own both the gsm and cdma pcs liscense wouldnt happen. two they paid 41 billion for the second largest company in the country that turned around and made them the first largest. i would tell whoever wrote that artical to do the math. and the only reason they had to give up spectrum is because you can only own 70 mghz in any given market. they doubled their coverage and it is now biger than verizons. is you could find out who wrote that artic...
(continues)
...
It was USA Today. The title of the article was "Cingular, AT&T deal gets an OK from Justice." It was written by Leslie Cauley and Paul Davidson. The article was cut out and I don't have a date. Verizon did bid on AT&T, but I don't think that they went as high on their bid due to the cost of converting an entire network to something totally different. Oh well 😕
...
they must have been doing it to drive the cost up because they would have known ahead of time that it would cost as much to win the bid as redo the entire network.
...
ddtmmOct 28, 2004, 8:33 AM
Befor you go a sharin' A little clarification is needed with all your info. First, it is allowable for a company to own both GSM and CDMA licenses in the same area-Western Wireless is the example. They mostly operate on TDMA while switching to CDMA but are overlaying their network with GSM at the same time for roaming revenue. Secondly, about a year and a half ago, the spectrum limit was lifted which means that a company is not limited to how much spectrum they can own in a market. The 70 that you used came from the merger info because the FCC limited it because of competition issues dealing with ATT and Cingular being in the same markets. That is an agreement that they made as a condition of the merger and not a normal situation. 😁
...
There is a limit actually, the limit was lifted on "roaming agreements". A company can have 70mhz and then have even more in roaming agreements.
VZW did not try to buy ATTWS.... Vodaphone did. They own 40% of VZW... funny how VZW's partner wanted to bail on VZW so they could get a "crappy GSM carrier"... there bid was 40 billion...
...
ddtmmOct 28, 2004, 1:25 PM
I did not say anything about the Vodaphone bid. Don't lump me in with anyone, please.
...
i wasn't "lumping" you... i was responding to the thread... the note before you had the VZW comment...
...
You do realize the Vodaphone is known as T-Mobile in Europe
...
No... 😕
Vodafone and T-Mobile are two totally separate, competing companies.
...
hey Rich you know a reason why verizon would bid on attws? i was talking to someone here and she swears they did, but then backed out.
...
I'm not aware of Verizon bidding on ATTWS. That wouldn't have made much sense.
Someone was probably confused about the corporate structure of Verizon Wireless. "Verizon Wireless" is a joint venture between "Verizon" and "Vodafone". But Verizon owns the majority - Vodafone owns a huge chunk, but does not have control.
Vodafone did bid on ATTWS. They lost out to Cingular at literally the very last minute. If Vodafone had won, they probably would have sold their stake in Verizon Wireless back to Verizon.
...
Sorry my error iwas thinking of voicestream.
...
also the names Rich. so you dont have to call me cellboy. whats yours and what state are you from?
...
Lysandra, live in CO, born in OH 🙂
...
you have yahoo or aim or anything? so we can keep this conversation going?
...
yes, just reluctant to post on here
...
I would love to continue our conversation. I am going home now and will sign on when I get there 🙂
...
hey im on tomorrow if you want to continue the convo, i have some new fino for you to dispute...lol
...
Will we be able to use the AT&T phones already out. I really wanted to get a Motorola V600 phone with Cingular, but since they were recalled it's not easy. What about getting one with a AT&T contract, then switching over to Cingular after Nov. 10? Would I be able to use the phone, would I have to unlock or, or what?
...
here's the deal on that ...
You will be able to use your existing phone on an EXISTING att plan. You will have the benefits of both networks, so in essence, you will not see a difference except better coverage. When you migrate over to a Cingular rate plan, you will need a new phone. Honestly, i'd wait on getting the v600... that phone has soooo many problems it's unreal. I would reccomend the v400 OR you can wait a bit for the v620 or the v551. They all offer similar features as the v600. The v400 lacks bluetooth. If you don't need a flip, I'd recommend the Nokia 6620 or the 6230... they are both AWESOME. hope that helps.
...
It's only certain small areas - no whole states are being divested.
And "divested" means sold, not shut down. Towers are too valuable for anyone to "get rid" of them. The reason they are being divested is because otherwise it would give Cingular a monopoly in those markets. So the AT&T Wireless assets are essentially being sold to create a new competitor in those markets.
...
The FCC is only requiring these markets to be sold in Mississippi:
Mississippi RSA 2, based in Benton County
Mississippi RSA 4, based in Yalobusha County
...