Thank You For Choosing Verizon, But We Don’t Want You Anymore

One of my media friends here in Lansing, MI recently signed up with Verizon Wireless for his cell phone service. He had been with another provider and was having serious signal issues while at his job. Doing his research, he found that Verizon was the only provider that had a decent signal at his job site and that Verizon had recently erected 19 cell sites around his job site to insure consistent coverage. However, after being with Verizon for less than a month, he was informed yesterday that his Verizon contract was sold to AT&T under what they are calling a "test market migration". 

OK, let's get this straight. You sign up with Verizon instead of AT&T because AT&T has crappy coverage, and now Verizon tells you that your cell contract has been sold to AT&T and you are back to crappy coverage? And people say I'm insane!

So after a "Google Genius" session, I found out that AT&T recently completed an acquisition agreement with Verizon Wireless which included select Verizon Wireless, Unicel, and Alltel properties to enhance service in 79 service areas in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. There is even a handy map I found on AT&T's website showing the property areas affected:

(click on image for larger view)

Looking at the above map, clearly Lansing and Ingham County are not in the acquired markets shown in Michigan. In fact the area that was acquired is several counties away to the north and west. So what gives here?

According to the folks at Verizon, when they bought out Alltel they wound up with too many subscribers…more that their system couldn't handle. So to remedy this situation, they need to "dump" more subscribers than the recent acquisition agreement with AT&T reduced for them. Apparently, even though Lansing is not in one of the areas AT&T acquired, Verizon has made Lansing a "test market" for this "transition" of subscribers to lighten the load on their infrastructure. Apparently in the "fine print" of new Verizon contracts signed, it states that this would happen, but I bet you not one Verizon salesperson in the past few weeks said to a prospective new subscriber, "By the way,…"

This is all very interesting in light of Verizon's recent announcement of the iPhone finally coming to their network on February 10th. Up until now the iPhone was only available through AT&T. Since day one there have been problems with AT&T's infrastructure being able to handle the increased load of new subscribers getting the iPhone with AT&T. Poor signal or no signal. Lack of bandwidth. iPhone antenna problems. AT&T changing its data plan charges in mid stream to help deter people from using so much bandwidth. Many people became disenchanted with AT&T's service, but still loved the iPhone. Rumors have been swirling around the idea of the iPhone being available on other wireless providers for years now, and for Verizon customers, or anyone looking for another iPhone option other than AT&T, the dream of owning an iPhone seemed to finally have come true.

According to a survey taken in December by ChangeWave (before the announcement of the Verizon iPhone), 16 percent of AT&T users said they would switch to Verizon if the iPhone were to become available on the Verizon network, while 26 percent of AT&T iPhone users said they would switch to Verizon if the phone company were to pick up the iPhone, according to the same survey. Clearly, according to these findings, AT&T stood to lose market share to Verizon releasing the iPhone on its network to compete with AT&T's iPhone.

So, what could AT&T do to not lose market share and at the same time improve its infrastructure? It seems to me that the recent acquisition agreement with Verizon would be a fine way to hang onto market share and growing their infrastructure. I am not saying that this was AT&T's main motivation for the acquisition agreement with Verizon, but with the iPhone being so popular, one has to wonder.

I recall back in 1984 the phone system in the US was owned and run by one entity – AT&T. That's when the US Government broke up "Ma Bell" AT&T into "Baby Bells" to end this monopoly and bring competition into the marketplace. Since then, the "Baby Bells" were gobbled up by "bigger Bells" and the "bigger Bells" being gobbled up by even larger telecommunications companies. Then enter in cell phones and the gobbling up there. And now we see AT&T again, gobbling up all these telecommunications companies. Confusing? The embedded video clip helps to make it clearer (with credit to Steven Colbert and the Colbert Report):

So if you have been lusting for an iPhone that was not on the AT&T network, when heading to the Verizon store to sign up to be a Verizon subscriber, read the fine print carefully before you sign on the bottom line. Although your area may not be on the above acquisition map, you could be "test market migrated" over to AT&T's wireless network after all, thus rendering that new Verizon iPhone useless because it won't work on AT&T's network.

And people wonder why I love my Android phone.