AT&T Comments May Indicate A Lull In Deals For Mobile Plans

It's March now, so the holiday shopping season is long past which also means that the sweet holiday deals by mobile carriers past us as well. According to AT&T's CFO John Stephens, the mobile network market, "seems to have stabilized." This appears to indicate that AT&T and other mobile carriers are back to increasing their fees and scaling back on their promotional offerings. AT&T claimed that right now they aren't particularly seeking out net additions, or more customers joining than leaving their services. This may signify a strategy change for all mobile networks.

Mobile carriers may be looking to keep their profit margins high, as AT&T's Stephen claimed that AT&T, "won't chase customers' net additions for the sake of another account. We're going to be smart about it." Unfortunately, "being smart about it," may spell less savings for consumers as AT&T could be moving to a less promotion-friendly sales model during the mid-year season.

That isn't to say that customers can't save with AT&T. They are moving to a new system where customers who bring their own device, buy it upfront, or pay for the device monthly can get a better rate on their monthly bill.

Considering most of us have a cell phone plan, it will be interesting to see how this unfolds for the rest of the mobile market. We can hope that other carriers such as Verizon and T-Mobile don't follow suit and instead maintain healthy competition with each other. We, as consumers, want to keep reaping the fruits of their competitive market through savings and promotions. We can also see if AT&T's promotions as well as their $49 billion merger with DirecTV will be effected by today's breaking news, DirectTV is being charged with fraud by the FTC.

Source: CNet