More Sprint Merger ‘Synergies’ As T-Mobile Raises Wireless Rates
from the history-repeats-itself dept
Just recently we discussed a new report showing how U.S. wireless price competition effectively ground to a halt immediately in the wake of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger. Consolidating the U.S. wireless sector from four to three major providers immediately muted price competition, much like every credible academic, consumer group, and deal critic predicted. It also resulted in 9,000 layoffs.
As if on cue, T-Mobile last week announced it would, again, be raising prices on many legacy wireless plans, by as much as $2 to $5 a month. Like most American companies exploiting regulatory capture and muted competition to jack up quarterly revenues, T-Mobile tried to blame “inflation”:
“Costs and inflation have risen over the past decade; even with this small increase we still offer the lowest price versus AT&T and Verizon. Customers will still retain all their benefits and perks.”
But the merger didn’t just result in higher prices. T-Mobile’s uncarrier “benefits and perks” have gotten increasingly worse over time. And the company has nickel-and-dimed users in other ways as well, including various obnoxious new fees on postpaid and prepaid customers.
Employees I’ve spoken to also say the company is a shell of its former self under trash-taking CEO John Legere, something confirmed by spending all of five minutes on Reddit.
Granted this is how telecom industry mergers always go. The two merging companies will promise the sun, sea, and sky in exchange for regulatory approval, insisting consolidation will somehow result in amazing new synergies, robust competition (?), new jobs, and various other benefits. The business-centric press, focused largely on quarterly returns, will parrot these claims fairly mindlessly.
But after a few years of pretending nothing was going to change, prices inevitably climb, layoffs arrive, and overall product quality always deteriorates. At which point everybody in the process — from the revolving door regulators keen on getting future lobbying or think tank gigs to a lazy media disincentivized to follow up on whether pre-merger promises were true — repeat the process all over again having quite intentionally learned absolutely nothing from the experience.
Filed Under: consumers, mergers, price hikes, sprint t-mobile merger, telecom
Comments on “More Sprint Merger ‘Synergies’ As T-Mobile Raises Wireless Rates”
Note this was published the same day that T-Mobile announced plans to acquire most of U.S. Cellular.
What we've got here is... failure to handle the truth.
When you masters in the government tell you to lie to them and it will all be OK, you lie. Neither Congress or the FCC care about the truth.
Re:
As proof of that: this happens all the time, and the lawmakers know it but have chosen not to make any of these bullshit “promises” legally binding.
“Costs and inflation have risen over the past decade”
I thought inflation was (supposed to be) a measure of increasing costs, is this a Freudian slip on their part?
There are increasing costs but from what I have read those increasing costs do not explain the entirety of the increases in prices. Some people are referring to this as greedflation.
Re:
Inflation is a rate of change. A rate can go up and down.
Re: Re:
Their excuse is viewed by some as double dipping.
Re: Re: Re:
The only people who don’t view it as double-dipping are those that have no idea what the topic or context of this discussion is about. They didn’t even read the headline, just showed up and posted idiocy.
They are safe to ignore.
Re: Re: Re:
It’s not, though.
The base cost is affected by inflation. They are connected but discrete.
Is price gouging occurring? Of fucking course. It’s a natural result of our economy’s elevating of quarterly profits above literally all else, combined with half a century of deregulation.
That doesn’t change the fact that this particular gripe about verbiage is quite literally nonsensical.
Re: Re: Re:2
hypothetical: A business raises their price for their product in order to cover increased cost of material, this is standard operating procedure. But then, in addition, they increase the price in accordance with the published CPI claiming this is due to inflation. How is this not double dipping, or more precisely, gouging or even fraud.
Re:
I think what they mean is “our employees and suppliers are demanding more money” and also “it’s easier for a customer to afford the rates, because their money has decreased in value”. In principle, it’s kind of sensible to mention both, because phone and internet costs are only like 5% of “inflation” but the employees want 100% wage-adjustment.
But telling customers that they shouldn’t feel so bad about the increases, because their money is losing value anyway… that’s probably not a great P.R. move. I expect people will find it more “tone-deaf” than helpful.
Re: Re:
“employees want 100% wage-adjustment”
In agreement with most of your post, that claim however is bit over the top.
AFAIK, a living wage is what is being requested. Essential employees are not seeking to purchase a super boat or a private island, they would like to be able to afford food and shelter. For some this means a 100% increase. One hundred percent of diddlysquat is still diddlysquat .
Re: Re: Re:
Sorry about being unclear. By “100% wage-adjustment”, I mean that they want an annual cost-of-living adjustment equal to at least 100% of the annual CPI increase. In other words, they want their pay to keep up with inflation, not to double (well, they may want that, but they’re not demanding it in any organized and official capacity).
Re: Re: Re:2
That makes sense.
side note, had a group lead that did not know what cola was, real management potential there.
I feel the synergy. Of course, I can’t walk normally and am unable to sit in comfort or joy, but I feel the synergy.
Re:
What I’me feeling is sin-ergy, like as in one of the Seven Mortal Sins…. That’d be Greed, of course.
Think of it in a better way. You have to help t mobile cover the cost of your data being hacked multiple times.
T-Mobile Strikes Again
T-Mobile moved most call center jobs overseas. They continue to raise prices. Overseas roaming data is so slow as to be unusable. Customer service is horrendous especially for Metro customers. Coverage maps continue to exaggerate coverage.