Cingular's Service with AT*T

AT and T offers unlimited mobile-to-home calling plan
Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:01am ET


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By Sinead Carew
NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT and T Inc. said on Friday it will let subscribers who pay at least $110 a month make unlimited calls between their mobile and home phones, as it moves to stop customers from defecting to cable rivals.

The service, dubbed AT and T Unity, is offered as a perk to subscribers who pay for both the $50 a month unlimited local and long-distance calling plan for their home or business and the $59.99 a month unlimited wireless plan.

AT and T, which brought Cingular Wireless under one roof through its purchase of BellSouth Corp., plans to bundle wireless and fixed-line services to compete against cable TV providers, which now also offer telephone and Internet services.

Ralph de la Vega, president of AT and T's regional wireline business, which operates 68 million telephone lines in 22 states, expects the offer to reduce customer cancellations, known as churn, and help attract new customers.

"You can take it to the bank that churn is lower, that customers are happier," de la Vega said in a phone interview.

AT and T said roughly half of Cingular's 58.7 million wireless customers already use AT and T's land-line services. The company plans to market the new option in Cingular stores throughout the wireline operating region.

But Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said the offer may have just a limited appeal, say to subscribers of wireless family plans, who tend to use up a lot of minutes calling home from multiple phones. Continued...

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.


Is it not interesting that people whom happen to spend over $100 per month for wireless service plus landline service should be entitled to receive extra benefits of their cellular service? It makes one wonder what took AT and T's management quite a while to give an incentive to their cellular market...hmm. Maybe, whatever plan comes next will answer this thought.