T-Mobile Talks To Its Customers About Merger

In a press release Friday, Jim Alling, T-Mobile Chief Operations Operator, answered some of the questions we'd seen posed by the community in the wake of the biggest news this week. In a press release sent to "Dear Valued T-Mobile Customers", Alling assuaged the fears and lauded the benefits of the merger. From a purely technical standpoint it's going to be a great move for the US wireless network, if everything goes well during the regulatory and review process over the next year, there's going to be a double-thick wireless network from the overlapping mesh of LTE towers all under AT&T's hand.

There have been dark rumblings from those use T-Mobile about only having a year for their G2x's. This isn't going to be a technical issue. With both companies using SIM cards and with the merger going down over the course of a year. AT&T and T-Mobile will both be working together to ensure that customers will have no trouble migrating their devices over to AT&T's network. Anything else just doesn't make much sense. You might not even have to change your SIM card. I kept my Cingular SIM card for multiple years after their merger with AT&T. It worked the whole time, it just drew a lot of jibes from the salespeople whenever I got a new phone. Really, LTE devices are LTE devices, and most of the integration of the network is going to happen on the back-end.

Q: Will I have to upgrade my T-Mobile 3G/4G device after the acquisition closes?

A: T-Mobile has no plans to alter our 3G / 4G network in any way that would make your device obsolete. The deal is expected to close in approximately 12 months. After that, decisions about the network will be AT&T's to make. That said, the president and CEO of AT&T Mobility was quoted in the Associated Press saying "there's nothing for [customers] to worry about... [network changes affecting devices] will be done over time... "

[via T-Mobile]