The history of wireless service competition in the US is one of a Robin Williams-like bi-polar freak. Duopoly until the mid 90s followed by hyper-competition where you can get a service plan at the mall with your kid’s meal.
What a difference 15 years makes…
One’s natural reaction to the statistics about coverage, technology, penetration, etc is likely positive. Hyper-competition among wireless service provider has arguable driven prices down and forced carriers to step their game up and spend to stay near the front of the pack.
This hyper-competition has surely played a role in the advancement of new technologies (3G/4G) and prices that allow the US consumer to enjoy wireless service so much that more than 25% of US households no longer have a landline phone.
But not all is bright and shiny on the wireless frontier.
Ask anyone with an at&t iphone how they like their device, and they’ll swear they can’t live without it. Ask them about the call quality, and they’ll likely LOL sarcastically and tell you they drop more calls than Charlie Sheen drops 7 gram rocks in his pipe. Consumer Reports’ survey of 58,000 US cellular subscribers rates at&t as the worst carrier in the US.
First off, let’s make sure we make it clear, that at&t is not the only bad service provider out there. You could also ask any customer of any of the other guys about their experience, and odds are you’ll hear a fair share of complaints there as well.
So why is at&t so bad?
You guessed it. Hyper-competition (in a round-about way).
In 1995, the companies that are now at&t were in the middle of overlaying their first digital technology upgrade to their 1G analog cellular networks (TDMA). Some might call that first overlay 2G, but it was really a 1G analog network with some new digital tennis shoes. A few years later, that overlay got yet another overlay with the worldwide leader in 2G digital technologies of the mid 90s, GSM. This coincided with the FCC’s auctioning of PCS spectrum that tore down the duopoly wall. Now there were upwards of 8 potential carriers in any given geographical market that could build and operate networks. It was the gold rush for wireless service providers, the race to grab the most customers as quickly as possible. With that came huge capital spending to improve coverage, the rapid reduction in prices for service, and the general rule that the customer is king.
The wireless infrastructure vendor business was booming. Technology companies like Lucent, Qualcomm, Ericsson, and Motorola were experiencing rocketing stock prices and record-setting revenues. New cell sites and technology overlays were going up as fast as houses and hotels on a Monopoly board.
So what does all of this have to do with why at&t is the worst carrier in the US?
Well, they and the rest of the industry took their eye off the engineering fundamentals of their networks, at&t more than anyone else.
To exacerbate the problem, they also spun off, merged, bought, and consolidated from CellularOne, to AT&T, to Cingular, and back to to at&t with a bunch of other stops and company names in between that are too confusing to mention.
Our company, ATECS LLC, has been along for the ride throughout all of this. We’ve been like a remora attached to a great white shark. Always along for the ride, doing our busy work to try and keep the shark healthy, but powerless to influence its life impacting decisions.
So what they are left with now is a network frame of a 1988 Ford Taurus that has had a Corvette drive train upgrade, a Mercedes suspension system upgrade, and a soon to be Ferrari power plant upgrade. On their own, pretty sweet improvements. But the resulting ride, err network, is an eclectic mash-up of ideas poorly implemented that needs to be stripped back down to the frame and rebuilt. If the Ferrari motor is going to drive the car, err network, like it’s supposed to, there’s no other option.
That’s where the T-Mobile purchase comes in. While T-Mobile on its own is not exactly the star of the class either, it is a 1995 Mercedes that has had Mercedes factory upgrades over the years. They still have plenty of coverage holes, and definitely have also taken their eye off network quality just like everyone else. But if we were to part out the T-Mobile and at&t networks and put them back together, there are plenty of pieces to result and pretty high performing network.
All at&t has to do is be patient and forward thinking enough to recognize the opportunity to pick and choose the best parts of the two companies combined networks and they can seriously compete with Verizon every year as the nation’s best nationwide carrier. Slap the T-Mobile network on the back tow hitch like Sprint did with Nextel, and Verizon will be looking at them in their rear view mirror for good.
