AT&T Wireless Having Provisioning System Problems

Mike and I haven't been covering this story too closely, mostly to avoid kicking a player when it's down, but the player has simply been down too long to ignore. AT&T Wireless has been having problems with its sign-up system for new GSM customers since the beginning of November 1, over two weeks ago. The system malfunction stems from crashing computers that just won't stay up. (anyone know which vendor's computers those are?) This month, rolling into LNP isn't really a good time to be having these kinds of problems which affect the overall perception of the brand; however, existing customers of ATTWS are not affected. If the lifetime value of the average wireless subscriber to a telco is $2,500, and ATTWS has lost the chance to enroll 100,000 new subscribers, the net present cost of this snafu is $250 million. Ouch.

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