At 05 May 2008 23:42:15 -0500 The Bob wrote:
> > What about the same type of different merging of networks
> > with ATT and Cingular - the old GSM vs TDMA battle ?
>
>
> GSM was the next evolutionary step for TDMA in the US.
I'm not sure it was "evolutionary" as much as it was simply a cheaper
conversion to GSM than to CDMA, so they chose the path of least finacial
resistance!
> IIRC, ATT has
> started the GSM conversion prior to the merger.
Absolutely- both (old) AT&T and Cingular were converting from TDMA to GSM
prior to the merger. In fact, in the "history is repeating itself"
department, like Sprint and the Nextel merger, (old) AT&T had major
customer service and technical/billing issues with the transition, started
losing customers and offered fantastic deals to stem the hemorraging (like
Sprint with SERO?) and weakened to the point of becoming a takeover
candidate by Cingular.
Cingular had their share of issues with the conversion as well, but handled
it more smoothly by taking their time. ATTWS (old AT&T) seemed to rush the
transition- they forced new customers to choose GSM only before the GSM
network was fully built out, for example, and switched too much capacity
from TDMA to GSM before enough of the customer base had switched,
deteriorating the network the bulk of their customers used. Even worse,
they only offered a single TDMA/GSM phone, IIRC- an unattractive,
featureless Siemens.
By comparison, Cingular was very patient- allowing TDMA sales to continue
until the GSM network was at least a fair approximation of the TDMA
network, and offered two TDMA/GSM combo models, from major manufacturers:
Nokia and SE.
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