Tag Archives: AT&T

The Expected Meaning of AT&T Acquisition of Time Warner for Customers

AT&T, TimeWarner

 

AT&T, one of the premiere phone service providers in the United States, has agreed to acquire media powerhouse Time Warner for almost $85 billion. This is certainly one of the largest acquisitions of all time.

What is expected from this merger?

This deal is expected to help AT&T ensure a quality user experience because they access content through multiple devices like cellphones and tablets. They will be able to connect the dots as content flows across multiple devices. This deal will mainly help AT&T, one of the premiere phone service providers in US, data mine vital information about users such as location, devices as well as behaviour to deliver accurate content at the right time in the best possible manner. More importantly, it will make for a complete holistic user experience that could possibly ensure consumer friendly innovations, said Gartner Analyst, Mr. Akshay Sharma.

What This Deal Could Mean?

Increased targeted advertising plays the most important role in funding all the content consumed by users. In simple words, this deal between the two companies will make ad targeting more granular. This means that the customers accessing the same content from different devices and locations will get to see different commercials.

AT&T’s CEO Mr. Randall Stephenson Says…

This deal will be a great medium/platform for the two companies to move faster and operate better in a world where customers increasingly access all sorts of content using prepaid phone services on their mobiles. The world of distribution and content is converging. Keeping this in mind, we must move faster toward doing something totally unique, says he. He mainly stressed the concept and requirement of curating and formatting content in a totally different way for mobiles.

Benefit to AT&T

This deal will certainly add a lot of value to AT&T’s portfolio of mobile, broadband and satellite TV services through the addition of Time Warner’s content brands like HBO, CNN, and Warner Bros as the company has a huge network of almost 130 million mobile customers. In addition to that, this deal is all about AT&T attempting to get smarter instead of becoming a totally dump pipe provider. Now, all this clearly depends on content and the kind of user experience. In one way or another, it will be a kind of benefit for AT&T.

There is a Twist:

According to the critics, the deal between AT&T, a phone service provider, and Time Warner can result in less consumer choice, increase in prices and a threat to media plurality. Mr. Donald Trump, the Republican Presidential nominee, also supported critics with his opinion in this regard. As per his opinion, the deal would offer “Excessive concentration of power” to the combined company. If he wins the election next month then he will block the deal, says Mr. Donald Trump.

At Last:

AT&T will gain a lot of benefit from this deal to provide a quality user experience across multiple devices. However, considering the twists, it will not be easy for AT&T to close the deal easily. Moreover, it will be very interesting to see whether AT&T actually benefits from this deal or, if the opinion of critics proves to be right.

AT&T Plans to Bring Faster Internet Services in Georgia for Businesses

AT&T Internet Services

AT&T plans to introduce faster gigabit internet services. This is certainly a great news for businesses using the company’s local phone services in Georgia and particularly in Newnan.  This will be a great medium for businesses to upload and download at speeds almost up to one Gbps. This is almost 20 times faster than any cable based internet connection. All of the locations signaled ready for such fast internet services have been declared AT&T fiber ready designations.

With Internet Speed Increased up to One Gbps, Businesses Using AT&T Telephone Service Will Be Able to:

  • Download almost up to 8000 word processing documents in about one second.
  • Download an HD video of two hours in about 36 seconds.
  • Fully backup/restore a one terabyte hard drive within the time frame of 2.5 hours.

As for new service and designation given to locations, they will serve as an effective medium for business or property owners to determine whether or not their property/location is equipped for installing AT&T’s services.

A Move to Stay Alive in the Modern Competitive Market:

For a number of years, the company has focused on providing gigabit connections to business customers. But through AT&T business fiber, the company is speeding up the deployment process of these high-speed internet connections to its business customers.  The company is offering such fast and reliable connectivity solutions as an essential strategic move to stay competitive in the marketplace, says Mr. Bill Leahy, the president at AT&T Georgia.

The Viewpoint of Critics about Faster Internet Services:

The viewpoint of critics is very crucial in this regard. The availability of super-fast internet service is already limited to certain areas in each market. These places are perfectly connected with fiber-optic transmission cable. Critics view it as new upscale developments that are not broadly spread across cities or rural areas in Georgia.

These Are Positive Technological Advancements:

This technological advancement is a good thing. Such investments in the field of information technology are critical to the health of Georgia’s economy.   As for a reason, all sorts of small and large scale companies are heavily dependent on successful transfer and utilization of information technology. Most importantly, AT&T’s investment in Georgia and its businesses using local phone services in Georgia will undoubtedly be benefitted by it.

As a Result of It: 

The cable companies have decided to make investments required for upgrading their equipment needed in order to maximize their internet speed. Moreover, a number of businesses are planning to switch to a new service provider for seeking faster internet services to better satisfy their customers. This is where AT&T can think about providing its faster internet services to all of the business using its local phone services in Georgia for staying viable among the competition in the marketplace. Apart from this, AT&T business fiber is available at select locations in Douglasville, Columbus, LaGrange and many more cities in Georgia.

Now only time will tell about the success of this technological advancement in the market from AT&T.

AT&T Expands Coverage of GigaPower by Beginning Deployment in Louisville, Kentucky

AT&T

 

AT&T leaps another step forward in its gigabit services by initiating deployment of GigaPower in Louisville, Kentucky. Local news sources reported that AT&T confirmed installation of fibers by its technicians in the neighboring areas.

AT&T seems to be going toe-to-toe with the giant network and search engine Google Fiber, which is also planning to bring its 1 Gbps service to Louisville very soon. AT&T is moving in a pattern it established in other cities, starting from Austin, Texas and recently in California around the San Francisco metro area.

At present, the carrier’s technicians are concentrating on passing homes, rolling out fiber via pole attachments, or underground, reports WDRB. With AT&T GigaPower, users are able to experience considerably faster internet speeds over a 100% fiber optic network and play games online without any lag time for buffering. Additionally, customers can enjoy entertainment on any screen with AT&T and DIRECTV, with much faster internet speeds than ever.

As per the previous announcement made by the company, AT&T disclosed its intention to take GigaPower to Louisville back in March, after Google Fiber announced Louisville as its choice to be the next fiber recipient. But the move triggered a row over pole access. An ordinance was passed in favor of Google Fiber, approving attachment of its fiber optic cable to utility poles. As expected, AT&T reacted to the approval and filed suit against the city. As per the carrier, the city does not hold any authority to give approval to attachments to poles that are owned by the AT&T.

Hood Harris, AT&T’s Kentucky President shared with WDRB that the move is to meet consumer requirements for faster internet services.

The US carrier is planning to sail 1 Gbps services to a minimum of 56 metros in the nation this year. In this league, AT&T moves on to add GigaPower cities to its list while the Louisville project will advance in phases.

Verizon May Beat AT&T in Bidding for Yahoo

Verizon to overtake Yahoo

According to financial analysts at Barclays, AT&T does not seem to be serious about bidding for Yahoo, leaving Verizon to be the front runner buyer of the company.

A research note written by Barclays analysts says “We are hard pressed to see AT&T enter the Yahoo frenzy.” “Recent reports from Bloomberg suggest that AT&T might be interested in Yahoo’s Internet business. While it is premature to assume that AT&T is not interested, we find it hard to envision the carrier earnestly would move forward with a bid given it has its hands full integrating DTV, is participating in the broadcast spectrum auction and seems focused on asset optimization vs. augmentation.”

AT&T’s decision to buy Yahoo would depend on many aspects, such as the content included in the deal, the scalability of the deal in terms of subscribers, the additives available through transaction and the bidding amount.

Last month, AT&T emerged to be in direct competition with Verizon by submitting a bid for Yahoo. The internet company received nearly 10 offers ranging from $4 billion to $8 billion from the interested companies. AT&T was initially disinterested but later entered into the list of bidders by submitting a bid for the company’s core internet business. Other bidders include entities supported by Warren Buffett and Bain Capital.

AT&T is currently working to incorporate its $49 billion purchase of DirecTV. The company has committed to offer a refreshed DirecTV service with availability across AT&T’s networks as well as the networks of its competitors in the later part of this year.

The company seems interested in Yahoo’s advertising business, as it may help in AT&T’s strategy to increase its advertising technologies and offerings. The results of the cross-screen advertising trials for AdWorks business conducted with Opera Mediaworks, was announced by the company last month. Among the companies that participated in the trials, Walmart was also one and reported “a statistically significant lift in both brand and message favorability.” The trials pooled the advertising reach of AT&T’s 13 million TV households with 285 million mobile phones running the advertising technology of Opera.

As per Barclays analysts, the bidding for Yahoo is one of the rare major potential transactions in the telecom sector. “The combination of a presidential election year and the current broadcast spectrum auction process has diminished the prospect for larger scale M&A activity across the U.S. telecom sector, in our view,” commented analysts.

ROBOCOP Act: The Act to Stop Unwanted Calls Rises Again in Senate

robocop act

The act that would coerce service providers to enable customers to block unwanted automated and prerecorded robocalls was introduced two months ago by Jackie Speier, Congresswoman. Under the act, consumers would have the choice of whether or not they want to use a call blocker. The bill is currently lying indolently in committee. The reason cited by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, mentions that permission needs to be given from FCC and without its approval, robocall blockers cannot be deployed, which authorities have claimed to be wrong.

Chuck Schumer, New York Senator, announced at his weekly press event on Sunday that he would be reintroducing the ROBOCOP Act, which would instruct the FCC to necessitate that telephone service providers give their customers access to robocall-blocking technology without any charge.

“Despite the existing ‘Do Not Call’ registry, the robocall problem has returned in a serious way,” said Schumer. “It’s an epidemic that we’ve got to stop — whether it’s the landline or the mobile phone. It’s taking far too long for telecom companies to act.”

Chuck Bell from Consumers Union was also present to stand beside Schumer in demanding federal lawmakers do something about robocalls.

He said “Most Americans have signed up for the Do Not Call list, but the unwanted calls from telemarketers and scam artists have just gotten worse.”

The present mounting issue with robocalls is that the majority of them come from ID thieves and scammers, who care about very little about any laws against the practice. Most of these use spoofed numbers, which is legal if done without intention to defraud, such as protecting news sources. But it also makes it much more difficult for investigators to track culprits.

In spite of the availability of certain methods to reduce these calls, the number that has been deployed so far by telecom service providers on any large scale is very small.

Certain campaigns to end robocalls have been ongoing to compel companies to stop making excuses and block the infuriating robocalls.

AT&T Pushing Bill to Discontinue Traditional Landline Service

No doubt the present age is the era of cellphones, but lovers of traditional landline phones are not yet extinct. A number of people are using traditional landlines for homes and businesses in California. But state lawmakers are going to pull plug on these old telephone services.

AT&T

“It is my connection to the world,” said Ruthanne Shpinner for whom her landline is her lifeline. But, in the near future, she might lose it.
A bill is being pushed by Shpinner’s phone company, AT&T, to let phone companies in California put an end to traditional landline service.
Customers could keep landlines if they want, but they may use alternate technologies such as voice over internet protocol, or VOIP, says AT&T.
Bill sponsor and San Jose Assemblyman Evan Low put forward that the old copper wires and switching stations used to route land line calls are quite exorbitant in terms of maintenance for a diminishing number of customers. He is of the view that money would rather be spent investing in new telecommunications technology.
“The plain old telephone system known as pots is rapidly approaching irrelevance,” said Low. “We’re modernizing with the times. We liken this from going to analog to digital.”
Mark Toney of the Utility Reform Network is of the view that the change would cause many to lose a trustworthy service in times of emergencies.
“We think it would be an absolute catastrophe. Our first concern is public safety,” said Toney. “The old landline telephone service will operate two weeks without electricity.” He is of the opinion that the substitutes such as cell services or VOIP are not so reliable in times of emergency.
But Ken McNeeley of AT&T holds a different opinion. As per him “The best phone in case of emergency is the phone you have in your hand”
There are state regulators who are against the bill, citing public safety and reliability. Some opponents believe that the real purpose is money.
As per records, AT&T has invested above $750,000 in lobbying at the capitol on a series of recent bills, including Lows AB 2395.
Among all this, the real challenge still remains in convincing people to stop using the traditional landline.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” said Shpinner.

Consumers Call on AT&T to Help End Robocalls

Despite of the best efforts to regulate and legislate the robocalls, still consumers complain about the unwanted prerecorded and auto-dialed robocalls. Now, this is not just one man’s problem- thousands of people have come together to curb this practice. Today, a petition signed by hundreds of thousands of people who want the nation’s telecom providers to do something about robocalls to the AT&T headquarters in Texas.

robocalls

Though there are tools that allow the individuals to put up robocall roadblocks on their own, but the telecom industry hasn’t taken any strict action to put a halt on such calls. The providers who offer options to block specific numbers generally charge a specific amount for the service or put limits on this sort of blacklisting. For example, AT&T allows their landline customers to pay a certain amount to block up to ten numbers and all anonymous callers. Likewise, Verizon also charges a specific price to block either six or twelve numbers or more. Generally, it depends on your service area.

However, the critics argue that- “this sort of customer-generated blacklist puts the onus on the consumer, and that such small blacklists are often pointless when dealing with scammy robocallers who use spoofed phone numbers and bogus Caller ID information to mask where they are really calling from.”

Consumers Union and concerned Dallas-area consumers delivered that petition to AT&T headquarters. “We’re calling on companies to step in and act and provide companies with free and effective tools to block these tools before they get to their homes,” explained Consumers Union End Robocalls campaign leader Tim Marvin.

In a statement to Consumerist, AT&T acknowledges that this is a problem that needs to be dealt with. “Robocalls are an industry-wide issue and we continue to work closely with the government and industry partners to make improvements,” reads the statement. “We appreciate Consumers Union’s input and will continue our work to help find solutions.”

Moreover,CU has already delivered this petition to Verizon and CenturyLink.

Seeing the current scenario where more than 800 robocalls are being made every second in US, the consumers hope that industry understands the problem and will look into the matter seriously.

 

AT&T’s New Android App Enables Texting from Landline

At&t Many consumers still pay heavy bills for their landlines. Most of them are either business owners or elderly. There are still some who use landline and in some cases it is considered necessary. And, if you feel landlines aren’t worth the trouble because they can’t even be used for texting, then you are wrong. AT&T’s new Android app lets you send and receive text messages using your landline.

The official AT&T Android app is not just a text messaging service but is exclusively used for those who pay an extra amount to enable sending and receiving of text messages from their landline. However, they aren’t paying extra at all for this app. It simply costs them $10 for 100 messages a month, or $25 on top of whatever they are already paying for the landline bill in the first place. Although the Android app is a virtual message bucket, it also includes some advanced features like auto-reply, scheduled text and also a call function. It is still not clear if it is a VOIP or a reroute solution that makes this work from their landline number.

The app makes a lot of sense if you are running a large scale business. So this pricey add-on would allow business owners to cater to more of their communication needs. Another major advantage includes that the app is free but only for AT&T landline customers. AT&T obviously hopes that the new Android app helps in making a drastic change in business communication.

AT&T, Verizon Landline Service Quality Problem to be Investigated

Landline service

The California Public Utilities Commission plans to investigate why AT&T and Verizon aren’t providing quality services to the state. Soon, a finance investigation in their infrastructure will take place. Recently, the commission has directed both companies to provide financial information to an independent consultant so that network analysis can take place within the next three months, following the fact that the performance of both of these telecom companies has consistently failed to meet existing service quality metrics. However, the decision came nearly four years after the commission initially recommended the investigation. During the investigation, CPUC found that the provider was unable to restore services within the given time span whereas smaller carriers were able to meet customer requirements and thereby restore service in time frame guidelines.

After two years, the CPUC ordered the investigation to be necessary and the companies will have to pay fines if any flaw was found. The condition of the carriers’ infrastructure and plan directly affects its subscribers to which delivering quality services are essential. However, both the carriers protested the taking of financial responsibilities for the studies and hence no investigation has been conducted to date.

In response to the CPUC’s claim and decision AT&T said, “The Commission out of service metric was inherently flawed and the allegations of substandard performance are flatly wrong.” The company also included that it had already submitted “extended and unrefuted evidence as proof regarding the allegation of outdated metrics. In addition, it alleged to be currently providing budget home phone services to its users.

Similarly, Verizon also defended itself by concluding that their company’s network was reliable and all the allegations were off the mark. They claimed to be providing cheap home phone services to its customers. In response, CPUC said the arguments have been misunderstood by both the companies and they aren’t providing a strong reason as to why the ordered investigation shouldn’t take place.

The CPUC’s decision states that “Given the absence of relevant circumstances or new evidence, we find that it would not be appropriate to further defer the ordered study. Further delay could undermine the integrity of the regulatory process by suggesting that if enough time passes without action on a Commission order, that order can be disregarded.” Under this decision, Commission staff has been ordered to report to collect funds from companies in three months and then provide a status report in 6 months regarding the progress of the investigation.

AT&T Sees Increase in Landline VoIP

Recently procured data has enabled AT&T to infer that the number of customers has continued to increase for VoIP-based voice service as compared to wireline customers. In the first quarter itself, there has been a growth in the form of 5 million new subscribers for U-verse voice service along with an increase in broadband and video subscribers.

The growth in the number of new IP-based U-verse broadband customers was tremendous. Besides seeing a gain in new customers, AT&T has converted around 80 percent of it’s DSL subscribers to IP-based U-verse broadband where it’s available using it’s 1 Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) services.

A rising number of AT&T customers are buying a great deal of dual play bundles that include broadband and VoIP service. In an interview, the AT&T vice president of voice and data products said that many of their customers purchase both products but some of them are moving from IP to the DSL network.

E-911, call forwarding, and call blocking are the features introduced by AT&T that differentiate it from other VoIP players such like Skype and Vonage. Moreover, customers can experience a TDM-based equivalent service because the internet network is managed.

Currently, AT&T is offering three U-verse Voice packages. The first is the U-verse Voice International, with the help of which a user can make limitless calling in the U.S., its territories, and Canada, and get discount on calls to other countries. The second is the AT&T U-verse Voice Unlimited with the help of which a person can make limitless calls within the U.S. and Canada, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Marianas. The last is the AT&T U-verse Voice 200 with the help of which a person can make limitless calls to other U-verse Voice customers and avail 200 minutes of anytime calling to anybody in the U.S., the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas.

The Vice President also added in his statement that the rising telecommuting trend is also causing users to rethink using just a cell phone. Call quality through mobile handsets also depends on the proximity to the nearest cell tower, which is another factor driving users to opt for this service.

In the end, he added that voice quality of wireless carriers is not good enough to support conference calls. However, this can be assured in case of landline phones with the help of their services.