The History of the Knot, AT&T Mobility

 

Many jokes and some confusion have arisen from the AT&T/Cingular/AT&T sell, merger, purchase and rebranding. Just ask Richard Childress, the driver of NASCAR car Number 31. What sticker will be on the car and is it legal? But in everyday life customers are sometimes questioning the stability of a wireless carrier which many may have had and enjoyed for years. So here is an overview:

 

1983 to 1984 - FCC deregulates Ma-bell Company AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph) and Splits it into AT&T long distance and seven local phone companies, two of which are South Western Bell Corp. (SBC) & Bell South

1994 - Purchases Craig McCaw's Cellular One and renames it AT&T Wireless

2002 – SBC & Bell South merger their wireless holdings to form Cingular

2004 – Cingular purchases AT&T Wireless from AT&T and rebrands both networks as "New Cingular Wireless Service, Inc."

2006 – AT&T Buys SBC & Bell South and rebrands everything, Long distance, Local, Yellow Pages and Cingular Wireless back to AT&T. Technically the name for AT&T cellular service is now AT&T Mobility (not AT&T Wireless). The actual wireless rebranding date is not until 2007 and occurs nationally on the same Friday the iPhone is launched in stores.

2007 – AT&T Mobility purchases Dobson Communications which is a wireless carrier operating under the Cellular One brand but more importantly is the brand owner.

 

So basically we have the entire circle of life for AT&T Started out as one company, bought Cellular One was split up or sold off almost all of its part and has slowly remerged back into it original giant. AT&T is now the largest wireless provider in the country. As a side note on the new NBC TV Show Journey Man the main character travels back through time. In the present he owns an Apple iPhone (currently this phone is under a 5 year exclusive contract with AT&T Mobility). He travels back into the early 90's and 80's. At one point he goes into his apartment and gets an old Motorola DPC 550 flip phone because his iPhone has no service. The no service situation is accurate because AT&T (McCaw/Cell One) was AMPS in the 80's early 90's. They converted to TDMA/CDPD in the latter 90's then to GSM in the 2000's; so the iPhone works off of technology not available in the states at that time. However, technically speaking a customer could have obtained service and an account number with the wireless carrier (Cellular One) in the Baltimore/DC area as early as 1989 and have continuous service with that theoretical account until the present as long as they upgraded equipment and billing systems along the way. So theoretically the oldest wireless account on a singular (no pun intended) wireless network would be 18 years. So the Journey Man could have had the same number in 1994 with "AT&T" then as he does now.

 

Cell Phone Info (An Industry in Entropy)

I would like to pass on some helpful observations and make the information as plain and to the point as I can. Over the last 15 years I have worked in various capacities in the telecommunications industry, mostly in wireless. I have seen customers go from one carrier to the next looking for an illusive level of satisfaction from wireless in the United States, only to bounce from carrier to carrier and end up where they started. I hope this will give anyone who reads it objective information to make an informed and quality decision on wireless service. This is not ubiquitous but a concise recommendation from my experience on the eve of my exit from the industry .

 

What carrier should you chose?

• Need Great Coverage, in US with Moderate travel to Europe, Asia, Africa & Mid East: Go with AT&T Mobility
  
• Wireless For business Connectivity with multiple services to fit business needs; Including Fastest and Largest Data network, National instant Walkie-Talkie, GPS, And Mobile Video and Radio; or need to talk to or go to Mexico: Go with SprintNextel
  
• Want Cool US coverage Phones with Music & Multimedia and good East Coast major City Coverage. Go with Verizon
  
• Do you want the Best Customer care with fewest billing issues and the most inexpensive rates with best minutes to dollar ration: Go with T-Mobile U.S.A.
  
• Do you live in a rural area and need good coverage locally and do not care much about national or international travel: Go with a rural regional provider like Alltel or US Cellular
  
• Live in a Medium to major city, are most likely 13 to 25, need unlimited talking and texting but call quality and coverage are not mission critical to life, neither is the ability to travel out of an approximate 55 mile range of your home town: Go with Metro PCS or Cricket
  

Now you may be saying that I want a carrier that will do all of this. Well most do, they just don't do it all well. If you go in with the understanding that you have to give up something you want to gain something you need (or really want), and get to a place of peace about that, your relationship with the carrier will be more enjoyable for you.

 

State of the Industry

    I just want to say a quick word about the wireless industry in the USA. The US and Japan deliver wireless service to the public different than most of the world. We have different frequencies and in some carriers case, different technology. Our business model is different. Rather than a true wireless operator model, we are more revenue generating models. To this end most of the big carriers are more focused on Wall-Street performance than in wireless performance and customer satisfaction. This is evident in how a consumer purchases a phone in the US. They get a free or cheep phone and sign a long (12 -36 month) contract. A Free phones actual MSRP is usually between $150 & $200. The Carrier Subsidizes that cost using the handset as a lost leader unit, then recovers the cost in revenue over the period of the contact. It is, in reality, less like a retail purchase and more like a 24 month signature loan from a financial institute that is publicly traded on the stock market. This benefits the carrier at the expense of the handset manufacture (who is selling the carrier and not the customer) and the consumer (who now is in a long term contract and has limited handset selection with most rate plans even between carriers, resembling each other).

 

 

So here is my 2 Cents

Here is my thesis on what the industry should evolve to, either voluntarily or via regulation. I would rather it come about via competition over customer care and wireless service rather than government intervention.

• Carriers should stop selling equipment
  
• Handset manufacturers and retail outlets should sell equipment directly to the public
  
• Carriers should move to a single technology. I suggest a SIM based WiMax service. On a side note European, Asian, Middle Eastern, African carries should also consider this.
  
• Open access should become a reality
  
• Specific, universal and standardized support for public sector first responders should be supported by ALL wireless carriers.
  
• Customers should be able to take there phone to any carrier
  
• No long term contracts. Nothing longer than 12 months
  
• Carriers compete on feature sets, Network coverage and call quality, Data speeds and customer care.
  
• Handset manufactures provide retail locations to sell and Repair their phones.
  
• Customers are willing to pay for the value of a handset instead of insisting on FREE or Cheap phones (you get what you pay for)
  

 

Well that is my two cents.

 

I hope you found this useful.

 

-Xion

Bee Good

Watching a spider catch, wrap and eat a Bee on the side of my house.