If you aren’t already a believer that the wireless industries biggest players, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, could ever be touched by the likes of T-Mobile and Sprint then it’s time to start believing. Representatives from both Verizon and AT&T have apparently cited increased competition in the market as the reasons for their higher quarterly churn numbers and gaining back less earnings per share than they’d hoped. This may not have been too much of a surprise for some, since T-Mobile for example has been steadily gaining tons of consumers from all their competitors for some time, and that kind of upturned momentum can only be fought off for so long.
Despite what it may be like for the wireless industry big boys, this kind of competition is great for us as the consumer. It will force the carriers that aren’t already doing enough to compete for business to do more, and think of new ways to either gain their customers back or gain new ones to increase the numbers in places where they’ve been impacted. In the end, the consumers will win again because they’ll have even more options in the carrier choice realm while also getting competitive rates or deals from everyone. While it will be impossible to know exactly at this point what Verizon and AT&T plan to do about things, chances are they’re drumming up some plans on how to bring better value to the customers who may have already jumped ship, so they don’t continue to see quarterly losses thanks to the great offerings from the two smaller major carriers.
AT&T CEO John Stephens told investors Tuesday that their prices cuts were a direct result of the aggressiveness of their rivals(meaning John Legere and Marcelo Claure and the respective carriers they represent and oversee)this past year. With expansions in T-mobile’s market as well as their massive increases in data speed and the unCarrier plans that offer unrivaled value in the plan savings department, all part of T-Mobile and John Legere’s vision to shake up the industry, it’s no surprise that AT&T is seeing higher churn rates than this time last year. Verizon is typically known as the nation’s most reliable wireless network, but even that can apparently only take you so far, as they have reported that they might see a negative impact on their EPS numbers, also as a direct result from increased and aggressive competition. T-Mobile has set out to shake up the industry, and they have done just that. Of course, Sprint’s new CEO and their aggressive changes in the past 4 months or so has had some affect on the bigger carriers too, just not quite as much as T-mobile.