Nextel’s Tim Donahue, Cingular’s Stan Sigman and T-Mobile’s Robert Dotson on industry consolidation and more
How do wireless carriers view the state of their industry, including the massive consolidation now underway?
CEOs of the larger operators had some candid remarks during a roundtable keynote at last week’s CTIA Wireless 2005 conference in New Orleans. On the topic of industry consolidation – which recently saw Cingular swallow up AT&T Wireless for $41 billion, Sprint having its $35 billion offer accepted by Nextel, and Alltel buying Western Wireless for billions – Nextel CEO Tim Donahue said: “Six companies beating the Hell out of each other was never going to fly.”
On improving the customer experience, Donahue had some unique insights on Nextel competitors, too.
“AT&T [Wireless] let their network go to Hell,” he said. “Cingular has done a good job propping it up.” Donahue admits, however, that the industry as a whole “hasn’t been great” at customer service.
The industry’s Achilles Heel, meanwhile, is the ever-increasing sophistication of network and devices, says Cingular CEO Stan Sigman.
“We need to be challenged to simplify this business,” Sigman said. “The devices, the networks are so robust…”
T-Mobile USA CEO Robert Dotson believes the sheer number of wireless devices on the market is a weakness.
“We don’t need more,” he says. “We should do fewer and do it better. We get a little overzealous because that new thing is so shiny…”
But the industry as a whole should work to protect its margins and keep wireless transport from becoming the cutthroat business that wireline transport has become, Nextel’s Donahue says.
“We should make sure not to commoditize this product because the whole world is going wireless,” he says. I’m convinced of that.”
