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Originally Posted by Feeshie
This is really disappointing as TMO has great service in my area and has the best plans out of the 4 major carriers. TMO has the best android devices in my opinion. I really hope they get things back on track and don't go forward with the deal with ATT.
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+1
However, it is important to note that the net loss was only 99,000 customers, not half a million. More interesting is that the loss was mostly contract customers, and most of the replacement customers were prepaid customers.
The bigger problem is that Deutsche Telekom is strapped for cash. T-Mobile USA has the spectrum, but DT does not have the funds to build it out to full LTE. AT&T is cash-rich, but lacks spectrum. The buyout makes excellent financial and business sense.
The problem is what happens to us customers? T-Mobile has the best customer service, the best plans, the best phones and excellent prices. AT&T has pretty good phones, overpriced plans, and the world's worst customer service. Ideally we customers would get the best of both. In reality what if we get the worst of both?
I was a Cingular customer before they bought AT&T. I still have an AT&T account for which I use a Razr V3 that says "Cingular" on the back. The new merged AT&T grandfathered all the Cingular plans and prices. Customer service went down, but I never had to contact them for years.
Now that I am living in an Android world I have a prepaid T-Mobile phone as well, that I bought used on Craig's List. I want to move to T-Mobile permanently in the hopes that if the merger goes through my T-Mobile plan will be grandfathered. If it doesn't go through then I hope DT finds a way to get the cash it needs to finish the build-out. If neither happens then I sell the T-Mobile phone on Craig's List and go to Verizon or Sprint. I won't want to stay with AT&T with their current overpriced plans and rotten service.
Note that having overpriced plans and rotten service apparently makes you cash-rich.
T-Mobile Lost Almost Half a Million Customers in Q1 2011
