Posts Tagged ‘LTE’
AT&T is buying T-Mobile for $39 billion
AT&T has announced a definitive agreement to buy Deutsche Telekom’s American T-Mobile subsidiary in a cash and stock deal worth about $39 billion, and giving the German carrier an 8 percent stake in AT&T…
T-Mobile and AT&T share similar GSM and UMTS/HSPA networks, and both are working to build new next generation networks using HSPA+ and LTE. However, obtaining the rights to radio spectrum and building out these networks is both expensive and complex.
AT&T’s chief executive Randall Stephenson said the deal “provides a fast, efficient and certain solution to the impending exhaustion of wireless spectrum in some markets, which limits both companies’ ability to meet the ongoing explosive demand for mobile broadband…”
T-Mobile adds 33.7 million subscribers to AT&T’s network of of about 95.5 million, creating a total of about 130 million users, and becoming the largest American carrier. The deal will also expand Apple’s iPhone to three of what were the top four US carriers, as Apple has already brought it to Verizon earlier this year.
RTFA for the details. Fascinating – and expanded choices for anyone who owns or intends to own a GSM mobile device. In our market in northern New Mexico, we had held off on buying any iPhones or 3G iPads because of the requirement of dealing with AT&T. Their service is mediocre here at best. T-Mobile has been our personal choice for cellular service for years.
OK – aside from the new availability of hardware and increased network access across the country, what will this mean for consumers? In the opinion of many, we’re more likely to be screwed by higher prices, narrower opportunities for software and app developers.
One of the best analysts in the world on the dynamic mobile market is Om Malik. Here’s a link to his analysis as the story broke. Not especially optimistic.
Nokia says WiMax is wireless Betamax
Nokia (L) chatting with AT&T (R)
Daylife/Reuters Pictures
Nokia has dismissed the prospects of the WiMax wireless mobile standard, claiming it is doomed to meet the same fate as Betamax, the video format that lost out to VHS in a war over technology standards in the 1970s and 1980s.
The world’s biggest maker of mobile phones is one of the founding members of the WiMax Forum, the industry body set up to promote the standard. The Finnish company is betting the 4G wireless standard LTE – Long Term Evolution – will dominate the mobile world by 2015 and WiMax will be the big loser.
WiMax has suffered a delayed roll-out in the US, but its main backer, the chipmaker Intel, has claimed the technology is taking hold in other parts of the world. “I don’t see that WiMax is taking hold anywhere in a big way,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s head of sales and manufacturing, at a Nokia launch event in San Francisco yesterday…
His remarks were the most dismissive by Nokia of WiMax to date.
“It’s my prediction that by 2015, we will have an LTE network that will cover most of the important places in the world and that will give us the coverage and capacity we need,” said Mr Vanjoki. He said Verizon and AT&T were “going full blast” in rolling out LTE networks in the US.
I haven’t any vested interest in either. I’m hard-pressed for any kind of personal interest because even though I live next door to the capitol city, we don’t have enough people in northern New Mexico to catch the interest of this crowd as it is.
I like the concept of RF-based communications competing with copper and fibre – just to kick everyone along in the direction of providing bandwidth capable of IPTV for example. But, I ain’t holding my breath waiting.
