[General Topics] JVH3:
I have been with AT&T since Novemeber 3, 1995 when I bought my first phone at Best Buy. I still have the receipt. I was still in college at the time. Back then customer service was very good. You could switch your plan any month with no contract extensions. You could get a discount on a phone every year. And your contract was only 1 year with each phone purchase.

Then cingular came. I had heard of rollover minutes and was excited to have them. Then, after accumulating about 8000 rollover minutes I wanted to lower my plan, since I obvously was paying for more than I needed. Cingular wanted me to extend my contract for 2 years, and lose almost all of my rollover minutes. Instead, I kept my existing plan and filed a complaint at bbb.org. Then cingular contacted me. They ended up letting me lower my plan and keep all the rollover minutes and I did not need to extend my contract. But, I should not have needed to do this. Cingular support was horrible.

I had stuck with them, because I like my phone number. Now there is number portability, so this is not an issue.

Since then Cingular became AT&T again. AT&T coverage used to always be the best in some areas that I would vacation and was great where I lived. I have been considering switching to T-Mobile for a long time, but I get bored with my phone and ugrade after 18 months, which extends my contact for 2 years. Now the fees to break the contract early are $350, minus $10 for every month you are with them, with a sudden drop to $0 after 2 full years. This is alot more than it used to be.

I am locked with AT&T for a little more than a year. They no longer have an unlimited data plan, unless you are grandfathered in. There is now only a $10 text message plan or pay as you go. Not sure why they can't just count a text as 1 minute, or even 2 minutes. Not that any carrier does that, but effectively the prepaid plans give you that.

I had not cared much about my bill for the last 3 years, because I have been able to expense it to work and get reimbursed. That is potentially changing. If not for the pending merger, I would consider paying to prematurely cancel and switch to AT&T. I never understood why carriers didn't offer to pay the cancellation fee to get new users and bill something monthly or tack it onto the new cancelation fee or require more time based on the amount paid.

Not having competition is only going to give AT&T no reason to lower their prices or work harder for the consumers.

But this merger will not stimulate or hurt the economy. No one will not have a cell phone as a result of this. Paying 2 people to do the same thing makes no sense. Employing someone simply for the sake of giving someone a job does not help the economy or anyone in the long term. It just creates complacency. The stimulating factor is that if the person let go has talent, then that talent will eventually be consumed by another company in potentially a whole new industry that does not exist. It really sucks to be that person initially though. If call centers were already operating at full capacity, then they will still need the full amount of staff. In malls, there will be just 1 store instead of 2. Landlords will be collecting less rent. Total tower usage is not going to go down. So, the same number of workers to maintain them will be needed. I suspect towers will be outfitted to handle all frequencies of AT&T and T-Mobile, so this will require additional workers. It is really going to just be a shifting around of who has a job and who doesn't, but the net will be virtually no change.

In the end though consumer choice is really being hurt. I am normally all about the free market taking care of itself, but we know this does not work in monopoly or near monopoly situations.

Because this will hurt consumers and it effectively becomes a monopoly, I am against this merger.