At 29 Jun 2009 00:10:43 -0700 XS11E wrote:

> >> Since prepaid plans do not promise the customer the ability to
> >> renew they could be changed at any time, couldn't they?
> >
> > Technically yes, but it's rare that anyone is forced off their old
> > prepaid plan. Frankly there's never been a prepaid plan with such
> > a good value it was actually a liability for the carrier, so why
> > P.O. a customer who has a "better" plan than you currently offer,
> > and potentially drive him to a competitor out of spite?
>
> Let's consider New Mexico, OK? Apparently the divestiture has given
> all of Alltel's New Mexico to AT&T. So what will an Alltel customer
> with a CDMA phone do on a GSM network? What will AT&T do? Allow
> Alltel phones to roam on VZW?


Good question- they might offer to honor the plans on AT&T equipment.
When I was an SBMS (eventually Cingular) dealerin Kansas City in the TDMA-
days of the late 90s, SBMS bouht out a rural CDMA carrier and we received
about 20 pages of instruction on how to deal with the "purchased"
customers. All non-equivalent rate plans were adopted/grandfathered (but
where SBMS' plans were "better"; for example, more minutes for less money,
customers were migrated. As to equipment, there were proceedures to trade
"equivalent" equipment for no charge (with contract extension) and a
"customer complaint" process to handle customers not satisfied with SBMS'
definition of equivalent on a case-by-cae basis.

This isn't 100% analogous to today, of course, since CDMA and TDMA handsets
could both fall-back to analog, so customers, while encouraged to swap,
weren't required to (at least in the short-term- I think SBMS gave them a
year, maybe two.) I also don't specifically recall how we handled prepaid-
it was far less prevalent in those days of $200 prepaid phones and
$0.95/minute prepaid rates. (I was far enough from the "border" that I
never dealt with any conversions personally, but all dealers received the
rules and proceedures as an FYI.)

> Rumors are flying around that they'll be forced to buy new phones, that
> can't possibly be true can it? But who would have thought they'd fire
> Chad?
>
> <http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/26/lay...nt-leadership-
report.html>
>
> Watch the line wrap...


I doubt AT&T would force new handset purchases since that would certainly
drive many to competitors out of spite. AT&T needs to win their new
customers hearts and minds- loyal customers aren't won by FCC decree!