Consumers Sparked Opposition to AT&T/T-Mobile Deal

Loyalty to T-Mobile Spiked After Merger Announcement


Washington, DC, Aug. 31, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AUGUST 31, 2011 - A lot of organizations endorsed AT&T's proposal to acquire and merge with rival T-Mobile. Even a group of 10 state attorneys general backed the deal. But consumers, the people who actually use cell phones and pay the bills, have never been all that enthusiastic, a ConsumerAffairs.com analysis of millions of consumer comments has found.


Most of the consumer comments directed to ConsumerAffairs.com took a decidedly negative view of the proposed merger, which has now been challenged by the U.S. Justice Department.


"Less competition is not the American way," said a poster named Dave. "This could raise cell phone rates for everyone, not just T-Mobile users," another poster, Daniel, said. "Less competition means higher prices, it's basic economics. Let's band together and stop this, everyone speak out."


Another poster, Craig, chimed in with: "AT&T + T-Mobile = better reception? Oh, that's a good one."
Using computerized sentiment analysis, ConsumerAffairs.com tabulated about 1.5 million consumer postings on social media sites during the last year and found consumer sentiment about AT&T roughly evenly divided.  In March, when the proposed merger was announced, consumers made about 10,000 negative comments about AT&T and about 11,000 positive ones.


Perhaps more telling are the sentiments expressed by about 2.3 million consumers about T-Mobile during the same period of time.  During March, about 20,000 consumers expressed positive sentiments about T-Mobile, compared to 7,800 negatives.


"Love T-Mobile! There is no better cell phone," said one of about 150,000 Facebook posters commenting on T-Mobile in March. 'Not sure I'm thrilled about AT&T's interest in T-Mobile. Definitely prefer T-Mobile," said another.


AT&T has claimed the merger would enable it to more quickly deploy its 4G high-speed network to rural areas and other under-served parts of the country. While it may have made some headway with regulators and politicians, the sentiment analysis indicates it still has its work cut out for it in garnering support from consumers.


The full report is available at http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2011/08/consumers-leading-opposition-to-att-t-mobile-merger.html