AT&T T-Mobile merger faces few technical hurdles

Jessica Scarpati
01 Apr 2011
00:00
 
If the AT&T/T-Mobile merger were approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), it would give AT&T about 45% of the mobile market share in the United States, according to today's number of subscribers, said Phillip Redman, a research vice president at Gartner Inc. Also, AT&T estimated that the merged network would have the potential to cover 95% of the US population.
 
AT&T expects to completely merge networks with T-Mobile within two years of closing, Stankey said.
 
"This is an optimal combination: It pulls together a highly complementary network asset, the spectrum holdings are compatible and we're on the same global technology path," Stankey said. "The common technology base that represents the starting point of these two independent companies means these benefits come faster and larger than they might with any other U.S.-based combination."
 
Although AT&T and T-Mobile's shared technology heritage will make it easier to merge networks, an integration of this scale would be by no means simple, Redman said.
 
"You can look at [AT&T's past mergers with] Centennial [Communications] and Dobson [Communications], but they're not the same size as what a T-Mobile network will be," he said. "It's not going to be simple, but I think they've certainly been through this before when they [merged with] Cingular and also had [to integrate] the Bellsouth side and SBC [Communications] side."
 
Because of the carriers' shared technology base, AT&T's plan to merge networks with T-Mobile's network will be more of a checklist than a challenge, Redman said.
 
Integration points will include OSS, BSS, telecom network monitoring tools, SMS, gateway configurations, different versions of vendor software on their infrastructures, end user device compatibility and any customized systems each carrier has developed, Redman said.
 
However, integrating and upgrading the wireless backhaul network that AT&T inherits from T-Mobile will require a broad strategy, Rubino said.
 
"There may be differences in what T-Mobile's bandwidth can handle and what AT&T's bandwidth can handle, and they're going to have to bring that up to the highest level," Rubino said. "They're going to have to look at physically and logically upgrading some of these areas to optimize the scalability, reliability and overall cost."
 

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