Tuesday, May 18, 2004
AT&T Wireless & Sprint -- Like asking Coke to bottle Pepsi
According to Techdirt: AT&T has just signed a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement with Sprint. "Sprint gives AT&T the network, and AT&T does all the branding," says Techdirt, just as soon as the merger of AT&T Wireless with Cingular closes. AT&T even gets the rights to use the "AT&T Wireless" name. But would they want to?
Scott Moritz at thestreet.com says that this is, "like asking Coke to bottle Pepsi." Moritz adds,
Scott Moritz at thestreet.com says that this is, "like asking Coke to bottle Pepsi." Moritz adds,
With the pending combination of AT&T Wireless and Cingular set to create the nation's largest wireless carrier and Verizon Wireless already a formidable player, Sprint finds itself a distant No. 3. Lacking the marketing muscle necessary to win millions of new subscribers each quarter, Sprint's wholesale strategy helps add customers at far lower costs.Moritz has a skeptical eye for the business ploy. He observes,
This will be AT&T's second go at bundling. The first, investors will fondly recall, was cobbled together and then dismantled by C. Michael Armstrong.Wait a minute! Wait a minute!!! I've got a GREAT idea. AT&T should put John Zeglis in charge of the wireless offering.
Comments:
Naturally I perfer my own take on the matter.
"The ATT+Sprint deal is akin to the all too familar rationalizations that happen in Bars across the world at last call.
The unthinkable is now the best prospect."
Here's my original post on the matter over at gigaom.com
So I was talking to a reporter about ATT+Sprint and Cometa comes up before I knew the shutdown news. Damn Treo’s, they won't let you surf and talk at the same time. Humility strikes again.
Nevertheless, a couple of points:
1) Cometa was ATT+IBM+INTEL. I don’t think its a mere coincidence that this news is coming right after the MVNO (reseller!!!) news with Sprint. Om help me remember who was the early broadband carrier that all the MSO’s invested in and then allowed to flameout? The name escapes me, but I think this Cometa news could be analogous. It had an EX, or a W, or an F in the name, dang I hate old age….
2) Om, you know I don’t like to disagree with you, but I gotta,
re: “Cometa’s failure is proof that the wholesale model is not going to work”.
Way to early to make an assessment like that. I strongly suspect that this is nothing other than that the partners have figured out they would be better served via alternative arrangements. IBM and ATT are very much competitors now, and now ATT has a path to wireless that may benefit from it having more control over the WiFi end of things. Thus see ya.
FYI: anybody else notice that Sprint has now morphed into what Nextwave wanted to become? Hmmm.
3) ATT+Sprint economics.
ATT ain’t getting a free ride. They will pay PCS around $0.05/MOU maybe half a penny less, if they deliver lots of traffic. This being the case, ATT is not looking at the sprint network as a cashflow source, but rather a high cost route to stay in the game. Thus VoWiFi, where ATT owns it and sets the ground rules starts to look not only much more promising, but now almost a necessity.
So I fully expect to see some sort of new WiFi network announcement from ATT in the near future. Cometa has served it real purpose as an experiment, and learning exercise.
4) Right now I think the ATT+Sprint is akin to the all too familar rationalizations that happen in Bars across the world at last call. The unthinkable is now the best prospect.
Its too early to tell who got the better of the other, but right now based on the VirginMobile economics, etc. my bet is that Sprint capitulated, and ATT has pulled itself out of a straight down dive to something just below straight and level flight.
On the enterprise side of things, this deal confirms what most people already know, that being, Sprint is not a major enterprise carrier, and the best Global 2000 accounts have no interest in leaving ATT for Sprint, or anybody else as long as ATT keeps lowering prices.
charliesierra_2004@yahoo.com
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"The ATT+Sprint deal is akin to the all too familar rationalizations that happen in Bars across the world at last call.
The unthinkable is now the best prospect."
Here's my original post on the matter over at gigaom.com
So I was talking to a reporter about ATT+Sprint and Cometa comes up before I knew the shutdown news. Damn Treo’s, they won't let you surf and talk at the same time. Humility strikes again.
Nevertheless, a couple of points:
1) Cometa was ATT+IBM+INTEL. I don’t think its a mere coincidence that this news is coming right after the MVNO (reseller!!!) news with Sprint. Om help me remember who was the early broadband carrier that all the MSO’s invested in and then allowed to flameout? The name escapes me, but I think this Cometa news could be analogous. It had an EX, or a W, or an F in the name, dang I hate old age….
2) Om, you know I don’t like to disagree with you, but I gotta,
re: “Cometa’s failure is proof that the wholesale model is not going to work”.
Way to early to make an assessment like that. I strongly suspect that this is nothing other than that the partners have figured out they would be better served via alternative arrangements. IBM and ATT are very much competitors now, and now ATT has a path to wireless that may benefit from it having more control over the WiFi end of things. Thus see ya.
FYI: anybody else notice that Sprint has now morphed into what Nextwave wanted to become? Hmmm.
3) ATT+Sprint economics.
ATT ain’t getting a free ride. They will pay PCS around $0.05/MOU maybe half a penny less, if they deliver lots of traffic. This being the case, ATT is not looking at the sprint network as a cashflow source, but rather a high cost route to stay in the game. Thus VoWiFi, where ATT owns it and sets the ground rules starts to look not only much more promising, but now almost a necessity.
So I fully expect to see some sort of new WiFi network announcement from ATT in the near future. Cometa has served it real purpose as an experiment, and learning exercise.
4) Right now I think the ATT+Sprint is akin to the all too familar rationalizations that happen in Bars across the world at last call. The unthinkable is now the best prospect.
Its too early to tell who got the better of the other, but right now based on the VirginMobile economics, etc. my bet is that Sprint capitulated, and ATT has pulled itself out of a straight down dive to something just below straight and level flight.
On the enterprise side of things, this deal confirms what most people already know, that being, Sprint is not a major enterprise carrier, and the best Global 2000 accounts have no interest in leaving ATT for Sprint, or anybody else as long as ATT keeps lowering prices.
charliesierra_2004@yahoo.com
# posted by 
: 5/18/2004 8:45 PM
: 5/18/2004 8:45 PM
