I read this article over on CNN yesterday, and misread the title as “not good.”  Turns out it’s “got good” instead.  Who knew?

Turns out that quietly, AT&T has been beefing up their wireless backbone, rolling out enhanced 3G and new 4G LTE capabilities across the country.  I’m not sure why they are being quiet about this, unless they are waiting for some sort of “big reveal,” but their network is improving day by day.  There’s already been a 25% reduction in “dropped call” problems, and with the rolling out of the enhanced networks, their service levels may return to something passably good. Or maybe even better!

As I am an AT&T customer who is unlikely to go through the bother of changing wireless companies (since we have a family plan and four phone numbers and a staggered set of contracts that will stretch over the next 20 months), I’m happy to think service will improve.  It’s too expensive to switch, having to buy new phones and pay off contracts.  But maybe there’s hope for our hobbled AT&T service in the coming year.

Still, it’s pretty certain that the perception of AT&T has a long way to go to see any improvement.  Consumers sometimes have long memories, and AT&T has been the worst in service for several years.  It will be interesting to see if the users notice the upgrades.

It appears as if the engagement is off in the proposed AT&T purchase of T-Mobile.  Was it something T-Mobile said?  Or did AT&T not bring enough bling to the union?  Or was it just a falling out, a difference of opinion?

Actually, it rather looks like the minister in charge of officiating (the U.S. Government that has to approve such mergers) questioned a bit too deeply AT&T’s commitment to the plan.  In the end, AT&T realized that the government would never approve the merger.

AT&T is still crying that it can only build available bandwidth by buying up other companies with bandwidth to spare.  It is now using the equivalent of that old pre-marital argument, “you didn’t deserve me, T-Mobile, but someone else will want me.”

I have to wonder why AT&T isn’t investing their billions of dollars in profit in building its own infrastructure to fill what it claims is a huge demand for bandwidth and service.  I would think that if it built it’s own infrastructure, it would ultimately control its market share by sheer force of its available service.  This seems like a no-brainer to me, but I may be missing something.

And since I moved from a place where AT&T coverage was ubiquitous (St. Louis Metro area) to a place where AT&T coverage is spotty at best, I do realize that they come up short in the “we are everywhere” broadband service spectrum.  They aren’t everywhere.  There are places in my own town where we are completely in a dead zone.  They definitely need to improve their coverage areas.

I’m probably one of a lot of people who are very happy to see the end of this potential merger.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see who they try to buy next.  I, for one, would rather see more wireless carriers, not fewer, in our country.