AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!! The future will be interesting, for both of us, Cingular and Verizon.

BetterThanJake said:

PROTEL said:
the first smart post in a week 😁

Thank you. But what'd be really interesting is if someone addressed the basic questions that truly matter:

1) Which company is going to do a better job of marketing to and attracting new customers?

2) Who's going to do a better job of holding onto old customers?

3) Who's going to have the better plans and phones?

4) Who's going to have the better customer service?

5) Who's going to have the better buying experience?

6) Who's going to have the better and more reliable network?

7) Who's going to have the better comeptitive strategy?

8 ) Who's willing to start a price war? And who's better positi

...
(continues)

I would say lets hold off and see what q4 is going to look like before gonig off into that spectrum

What do you expect? Like you said there is nothing anyone can say. Who knows? Noone can really tell you...And if they can they should buy a lotto ticket 😛...and tell me the lotto numbers too just to make sure ;)

Vox Dei said:
What do you expect? Like you said there is nothing anyone can say. Who knows? Noone can really tell you...And if they can they should buy a lotto ticket 😛...and tell me the lotto numbers too just to make sure ;)

And ironically, since I posted that, there are now some ppl in this thread making intelligent educated guesses as to what's going to happen.

I like that... its gutsy of them.

The problem with that line of questioning is they all begin with "Who's going to"...and the only true answer is..."No one knows yet".

CDGIII said:
The problem with that line of questioning is they all begin with "Who's going to"...and the only true answer is..."No one knows yet".

But surely there's some indicators. Things like churn rate, likely strategies, knowledge of the key execs' track records, what the current marketing efforts look like, coverage areas, customer add rates and add rate trends, knowledge of the technologies involved, current CS issues and challenges, etc. etc.

No one's flying blind here... an educated guess is quite possible, as well as the ever-present, "Well, what I'd do to screw the other guy over is..."

😁

One thing that's gonna bite Cingular's butt is if an ATT customer migrates over to Cingular and had previously owed Cingular money, they'll have to put down a deposit to open more lines. I think they SHOULD have to pay, since they owe them money, but it's still gonna end up hurting.

I work for ATT Wireless and according to churn present and past statistics if the new Cingular doesn't accelerate a system build up strategy to catch up to Verizon in about 3 years Verizon will continue to be #1 in customer count, system reliability, and this most likely get good customer care.

Present Verizon churn is 1.5%, Cingular is 2.5% to 3.5% and ATT is 3.5% to 4.5%. There is a huge difference of Cingular and ATT combined to Verizon's churn.

For what I know we are bleeding about 100,000 to 150,000 customers per month with 80% average going to Verizon. Is this pure marketing hype or is it proved track record? I think is the second.

I must also mentioned that I have faith with the merger and potential results but only time will...
(continues)

Well, ATT actually ADDED customers last quarter. ATTWS has cleaned up their act in anticipation of the merger and is operating rather well. All of the industry analysts have said that ATT's turnaround has been quite impressive.

CainMarko said:
Well, ATT actually ADDED customers last quarter. ATTWS has cleaned up their act in anticipation of the merger and is operating rather well. All of the industry analysts have said that ATT's turnaround has been quite impressive.

Ok... but Cain, isn't Verizon still adding customers something like 10 times faster than ATTW?

Last qtr, VZW added 1.7 million customers, ATTW was around 200K or so, weren't they?

Then again people are always reluctant to join a company when it is migrating. Stats are going to fluctuate in the next little while. Alot of people arn't going to like the new merger and are going to bail. Then again alot of people are now going to see a new #1 with a lot of new choices on phones and plans and are going to jump on board. How ever because the change hasn't been made then quoting last quarters stats arn't necessarily going to reflect what happens this quarter or first quarter of 2005.

Vox Dei said:
Then again people are always reluctant to join a company when it is migrating. Stats are going to fluctuate in the next little while. Alot of people arn't going to like the new merger and are going to bail.

I wouldn't blame AT&TW's low customer adds on the merger... they've been either low or negative for over a year now, before the general public was really aware of the merger. A lot of it I think has been due to ATTW's number porting/CS software disaster, and the bad reputation that came from that.

Going *forward* though (i.e. future quarters), I think merger uncertainty could play a part, now that the merger's finally going through.

Yes they are. However, ATT no longer exists. This changes everything.

CainMarko said:
Ok... but Cain, isn't Verizon still adding customers something like 10 times faster than ATTW?

CainMarko said:
Yes they are. However, ATT no longer exists. This changes everything.

But what ATTW was still largely exists, Cain... its still the same people/equipment/systems, just with a different logo now. The most important potential difference is that they now take orders from Cingular. That may make a big difference, it may not, and it'll be awhile before we know.

Analogies are tricky things, but a decent one here would seem to be that of a football team... a bad football team. A team so bad, in fact, that its value plummeted, it got bought out, and the...
(continues)

and we KNOW what happens when GOOD management takes over a BAD team. ie Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys... they all won the big one shortly after GOOD management showed up...

Dunno if we want to list Patriots after their game against the Steelers. 🙂

I was talking specifically about the NE Patriots that won the SuperBowl AFTER getting an excellent coach... Bill Parcells

CainMarko said:
and we KNOW what happens when GOOD management takes over a BAD team. ie Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys... they all won the big one shortly after GOOD management showed up...

That I can agree with. But is Cingular management really all that good?

The impression I get is that they know how to market (which is important), but on things like having a really low churn rate and good CS, they don't have much to show in the way of results.

Yes they ARE that good...

BetterThanJake said:
That I can agree with. But is Cingular management really all that good?

CainMarko said:
Yes they ARE that good...

Noted. Anyone else care to weigh in?

They suck...j/k Cain

tnyflrs said:

Present Verizon churn is 1.5%, Cingular is 2.5% to 3.5% and ATT is 3.5% to 4.5%. There is a huge difference of Cingular and ATT combined to Verizon's churn.

Exact figures:

Verizon Wireless also continued to outperform its larger rival on various fronts, including customer retention. Verizon lost only 1.5 percent of its cell subscribers per month during the third quarter, vs. a churn rate of 2.8 percent for Cingular and 3.7 percent for AT&T Wireless.

http://www.heraldsun.com/business/21-537846.html »

Also, not counting prepaid customers, Verizon's churn is 1.3 percent.

BetterThanJake said:

PROTEL said:
the first smart post in a week 😁

Thank you. But what'd be really interesting is if someone addressed the basic questions that truly matter:

1) Which company is going to do a better job of marketing to and attracting new customers?

2) Who's going to do a better job of holding onto old customers?

3) Who's going to have the better plans and phones?

4) Who's going to have the better customer service?

5) Who's going to have the better buying experience?

6) Who's going to have the better and more reliable network?

7) Who's going to have the better comeptitive strategy?

8 ) Who's willing to start a price war? And who's better positi

...
(continues)

1. VZW hasn't announced exactly what the Winter/Christmas promotions will be yet. How can you say Cingular will be better?

2. VZW has had to compete against both Cingular and AWE all along. How will anything change? Cingular still has alot of growing pains to go through. From network issues and leasing agreements to customer churn.

3. No arguement there on phone selection. Price plans have been changing at VZW drastically in the last year that I have seen. I would expect that will continue especially with the competition that will be going on now.

4. Cingular hasn't had any noticable changes in their ratings that I have seen. Unless they start an agressive training program to change the way their CS operates that C rating compared t...
(continues)

dakz said:
CainMarko's responses are in bold
1. VZW hasn't announced exactly what the Winter/Christmas promotions will be yet. How can you say Cingular will be better? Cingular has consistently offered the most value in regards to phone deals and rate plans. combined with the largest m2m calling area and the largest voice and data network, cingular's deals will be sweet. did you think Cingular would STOP offering freat deals?

2. VZW has had to compete against both Cingular and AWE all along. How will anything change? Cingular still has alot of growing pains to go through. From network issues and leasing agreements to customer churn.but they've never had a competitor the same saize or BIGGER than they

...
(continues)

1. Actually T-Mobile has consistently offered lower prices than any other company. Cingular's price plans aren't that big of a difference as you are making them. Checkout a few weeks ago the comparison I did on the $39.99 national plans for all the big providers. Cingular offers 50 more minutes than VZW. That isn't a huge difference.

2. Publically stated by reps, actual idustry analysts state something different last I was seeing.

3. So because VZW has taken a line BEFORE a merger you think they are going to stay with that after that merger? A company would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to do soething like that. A smart company that stands more to gain than lose(like VZW does) would wait to see what the competitor was going to do af...
(continues)

dakz said:
we'll do my responses in bold again
1. Actually T-Mobile has consistently offered lower prices than any other company. Cingular's price plans aren't that big of a difference as you are making them. Checkout a few weeks ago the comparison I did on the $39.99 national plans for all the big providers. Cingular offers 50 more minutes than VZW. That isn't a huge difference.
tmobile offers so many minutes because they have a teensy network and they rarely offer m2m for free

2. Publically stated by reps, actual idustry analysts state something different last I was seeing.you are seeing wrong then. the wall street journal stated that ATT pulled a huge turnaround. where exactly are your "industry a

...
(continues)

dakz said:
CainMarko's responses are in bold
1. VZW hasn't announced exactly what the Winter/Christmas promotions will be yet. How can you say Cingular will be better? Cingular has consistently offered the most value in regards to phone deals and rate plans. combined with the largest m2m calling area and the largest voice and data network, cingular's deals will be sweet. did you think Cingular would STOP offering freat deals?

2. VZW has had to compete against both Cingular and AWE all along. How will anything change? Cingular still has alot of growing pains to go through. From network issues and leasing agreements to customer churn. but they've never had a competitor the same saize or BIGGER than they are. Cingular has the kno ...
(continues)

I worry that you may be right about that. ☹️

Real competition will happen when a carrier is willing to pay the early termination fee of another to get the competiors' customers.

tnyflrs said:
Real competition will happen when a carrier is willing to pay the early termination fee of another to get the competiors' customers.

Whoa! 😳

That'd certainly be a brutal, bare-knuckle tactic. I wonder if its economicallly feasible for the carriers to do that?

If it was though... that'd be pretty cool. 😎