When Sprint acquired Nextel Communications in 2005, the Overland Park, Kan.-based telecommunications provider converted its billing system to the Nextel platform.
The new platform was a better billing system, said Chris Ragland, principal with Order Experts LLC, an Austin, Texas-based mobility logistics provider that sells solutions on behalf of Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, among others.
Whether AT&T’s pending $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA will produce similar beneficial results for the wireless carriers’ outside sales partners remains to be seen.
Ragland said AT&T and T-Mobile USA structure their pricing plans differently. AT&T, he said, will strive to honor T-Mobile’s pricing plans “and when they do that it becomes fairly complex."
He also cited a challenge that AT&T could face to maintain customer satisfaction if the company eventually moves T-Mobile customers to AT&T’s billing platform and service agreements.
But Ragland thinks the real story is whether regulators will allow AT&T – the second-largest U.S. wireless operator behind Verizon Wireless – to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom.
AT&T must obtain approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission under a megamerger that would allow AT&T to overtake Verizon Wireless as the No. 1 U.S. mobile operator and further distance itself from its smaller rival, Sprint Nextel.
Regulators could move to block the merger or require divestitures of assets and operations. The Justice Department and FCC also may impose other conditions as it has done in other large telecom mergers.
“As AT&T and T-Mobile merge, about four in five cellular subscribers will be either AT&T/T-Mobile or Verizon Wireless customers," In-Stat analyst Chris Kissel wrote in a report. “The term ‘Oligopoly’ comes to mind."
The three companies serve roughly a combined 223 million customers, according to their fourth-quarter earnings statements. AT&T (95.5 million customers) and T-Mobile (33.7 million customers) served more than 129 million wireless customers at the end of 2010. Verizon Wireless listed 94.1 million customers at the end of the year.
It’s no wonder that AT&T’s smaller rival, Sprint (49.9 million customers), has formally opposed AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile USA and vowed to fight to prevent the companies from merging.
Sprint has asserted the marriage of AT&T and T-Mobile USA would create a company that is nearly three times the size of itself based on wireless revenues.
