Cingular Won't Ditch AT&T Wireless
Business Week is taking a look at the news that AT&T customers are bailing at rapid rates and explains why it's unlikely the defections will impact the deal in any way pointing out that it's not so much the subscribers that they're looking at as it is the spectrum they gain - making them one of the first mainstream publications to point out the importance of the spectrum (which, prior to this deal and their recent purchase of spectrum from NextWave, they were well short of). Besides, it's likely that the worst of the defections are over at this point - though it's likely there still will be a fair amount of bailouts until the deal is closed. If anything, because of this, there may be incentive for Cingular to speed up the close as much as possible. The article also discusses the likelihood that AT&T will quickly launch their own wireless service under the AT&T Wireless brand once the Cingular deal closes and AT&T gets the rights to the name back. I had wondered if this was really that smart of a move for AT&T to do so immediately, as the bad reputation of the existing AT&T Wireless is likely to automatically pass on to the new entity. However, Business Week suggests that if AT&T immediately launches the service, in the mass confusion, it may actually spell trouble for Cingular as more old AT&T Wireless customers jump to... well, AT&T Wireless.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
