T-Mobile Still Recovering from Failed AT&T Deal, Alling Says
LAS VEGAS -- T-Mobile USA “lost its way” as AT&T’s attempts to buy it last year fell through, said Jim Alling, T-Mobile chief operating officer, during a keynote at the Competitive Carriers Association convention Tuesday. Alling, who was interim CEO until last week, was the highest profile speaker from T-Mobile at the conference. T-Mobile joined CCA in March and the Las Vegas meeting was its first major meeting as a member of the group, which just changed its name from the Rural Cellular Association.
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"For me, it is such a pleasure to be here in Las Vegas with all of you as a member of CCA,” Alling said. “Being here in Las Vegas is a heck of a lot better than being in either Atlanta or Dallas as a newly acquired member of AT&T."
But Alling conceded that T-Mobile is still recovering from the failed merger. He said over the Labor Day weekend he was in New York City with his wife on a brief vacation, when he noticed that the lights on one of the T-Mobile stores had been allowed to burn out. “All that was left was ‘BILE,'” he said. “What message does this send if you don’t care about your sign? What’s it say you're going to do about your network?”
Alling said the merger attempt hurt T-Mobile. “I think we lost our way,” he said. T-Mobile employees “believed in T-Mobile. They believed that they could change things for customers,” he said. “I think you lost some of the most important things, just that emotional engagement. … We have to regain the trust of our frontline people, people in our call centers, people in our stores."
On a panel Tuesday, Hu Meena, CEO of C Spire Wireless, said CCA members are mostly in agreement on big issues. “We have 100 carriers in our trade association,” he said. “All in our trade association agree with our position on [700 MHz] interoperability, agree with our position on roaming.”
C Spire was a major bidder for A-block licenses in the 700 MHz auction and a leading proponent of an interoperability mandate. “We didn’t get it cheap,” Meena said of the 700 MHz spectrum. “We paid market value for that spectrum.” Data roaming rules are also critical to smaller carriers, Meena said. “Whenever you participate in a negotiation and one side has all the power and the other side has none, it doesn’t usually go too well,” he said. “The negotiation dynamics aren’t in favor of the smaller carriers."
Patrick Riordan, CEO of New-Cell, a small carrier based in Wisconsin, said competition is good for the market on many levels. Riordan also is chairman of CTIA. “When you only have two [competitors] you don’t have the out-of-the-box thinking you need in this industry,” Riordan said. The market should decide how many competitors are enough, he said.
Spectrum is important to smaller carriers and “it’s not just a matter of spectrum, it has to be the right spectrum,” Riordan said. “We need to have sort of a roaming arrangement on that spectrum and we need to have access to that spectrum.” The rules will be critical for the success of the incentive auction of broadcast spectrum, he said. “This time, we've got to get it right,” he said. “We didn’t get it right with the 700 MHz auction. That was a disaster."
New-Cell only bought one A-block license in the 700 MHz auction, Riordan said. But he counseled moderation as smaller carriers press for 700 MHz interoperability. “For anyone who has 700 MHz spectrum, you want to make sure you can use it,” he said in an interview. “You paid a lot of money for it. I think it’s all going to work out. I think it’s going to be good.”