Poor ATT. A beleaguered wireless carrier that’s been duking it out with Verizon Wireless (my carrier of choice, BTW) for the past few years, looks like they’re about to lose some serious punching power.
If you’ve followed the match, both heavyweights (Verizon #1 in terms of most subscribers with ATT at a not so distant #2) have been putting on some serious moves.
Verizon’s got a better network (not the fastest, but you get the widest 3G coverage) in terms of consistency. While Verizon has lacked a smartphone with mass consume appeal like the iPhone, VZW’s been coming strong with Android devices this past year.
Most of the sexy cool Android phones have all been on Verizon first, some exclusive, some not. But these have all been nothing but rabbit punches compared to ATT’s haymaker of iPhone exclusivity. And that alone, has been keeping ATT in the ring and still punching.
The weird thing is, everyone knows that without the iPhone, ATT’s poor network service would’ve lost a ton of subscribers already. Probably dropping T-Mobile with the lowest priced plans available into the #2 spot by default.
Of course, you could take ATT’s side and say data hungry iPhone users are to blame for ATT’s network issues. But, keep in mind that Verizon users consume more data than ATT users and yet, Verizon seems to be working just fine.
So what happens to ATT once it loses exclusivity on the iPhone? Will it be a landslide of subscribers jumping to Verizon or T-Mobile for their iPhone fix?
My guess is that ATT will do just fine. Initially, I expect there will be a ton of folks who jump and suck down the ETF from ATT. Those GSM devices will mostly be previous gen (with a few 4G’s) ending up on EBay. And maybe T-Mobile will seen a nice pick-up, but expect Verizon (duhhh) to big huge winners out of this.
I’m a free-market kind guy though, so hopefully competition will kick in and everyone will see lower priced plans and better service. Wishful thinking, I know…but I’ll keep a little hope to myself.
abc
Without iPhone Exclusive, Who’s Left For ATT?
Poor ATT. A beleaguered wireless carrier that’s been duking it out with Verizon Wireless (my carrier of choice, BTW) for the past few years, looks like they’re about to lose some serious punching power.
If you’ve followed the match, both heavyweights (Verizon #1 in terms of most subscribers with ATT at a not so distant #2) have been putting on some serious moves.
Verizon’s got a better network (not the fastest, but you get the widest 3G coverage) in terms of consistency. While Verizon has lacked a smartphone with mass consume appeal like the iPhone, VZW’s been coming strong with Android devices this past year.
Most of the sexy cool Android phones have all been on Verizon first, some exclusive, some not. But these have all been nothing but rabbit punches compared to ATT’s haymaker of iPhone exclusivity. And that alone, has been keeping ATT in the ring and still punching.
The weird thing is, everyone knows that without the iPhone, ATT’s poor network service would’ve lost a ton of subscribers already. Probably dropping T-Mobile with the lowest priced plans available into the #2 spot by default.
Of course, you could take ATT’s side and say data hungry iPhone users are to blame for ATT’s network issues. But, keep in mind that Verizon users consume more data than ATT users and yet, Verizon seems to be working just fine.
So what happens to ATT once it loses exclusivity on the iPhone? Will it be a landslide of subscribers jumping to Verizon or T-Mobile for their iPhone fix?
My guess is that ATT will do just fine. Initially, I expect there will be a ton of folks who jump and suck down the ETF from ATT. Those GSM devices will mostly be previous gen (with a few 4G’s) ending up on EBay. And maybe T-Mobile will seen a nice pick-up, but expect Verizon (duhhh) to big huge winners out of this.
I’m a free-market kind guy though, so hopefully competition will kick in and everyone will see lower priced plans and better service. Wishful thinking, I know…but I’ll keep a little hope to myself.
The biggest winner of all? Surprise…it’s Apple.