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Telecom & Wireless

AT&T/T-Mobile Deal May Not Help Apple

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), the preeminent provider of smartphones to AT&T (NYSE: T) Wireless, may not get any new customers if its deal with Deutsche Telekom AG to acquire T-Mobile USA goes through. Verizon Wireless and Sprint have already been pegged as losers because AT&T will have the most wireless customers in America after it closes the $39 billion transaction.

T-Mobile’s network structure and wireless technology are not identical to AT&T’s. Apple iPhones and iPads may not work on the T-Mobile system. More importantly, there is no reason to believe that AT&T has a contract with Apple that allows for distribution across another wireless system. AT&T may have to go to Apple to negotiate an expanded partnership which could take months.

AT&T may not have months to set a new deal 3G with Apple. Verizon has begun to launch and LTE 4G network. So has AT&T. The T-Mobile upgrade to LTE 4G may happen more slowly. Apple will almost certainly have a 4G iPhone in the market this year. Sales of its 3G model may fall off before T-Mobile has upgraded its network. Consumers who want the “best” iPhone will be buyers of its 4G versions and not its 3G models.

Apple may appear to be an early and big winner because of the T-Mobile transaction,  but there are no details indicating that is the case.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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