Thursday, January 18, 2007
AT&T Plans ‘Unity’ Strategy for Free Calls
Only weeks after closing its deal for BellSouth, AT&T is embarking on an ambitious strategy to show customers the benefit of its owning 100 million phone lines.
In an announcement expected Friday, AT&T will introduce AT&T Unity, a pricing package that allows its cellular customers to call any AT&T landline customer without incurring additional usage fees or using their wireless minutes. While AT&T wireless customers can already call each other free, the new plan will extend the program on a large scale to landline customers, enlarging what AT&T likes to call its “community.”
To subscribe to a AT&T Unity plan, a customer would need to have AT&T wireless service as well as a landline plan that offered unlimited local and long-distance service. AT&T’s unlimited local and long-distance landline service starts at $40 a month if bought online.
The pricing plan comes weeks after AT&T closed its $85.8 billion acquisition of BellSouth, the largest telecommunications merger in history. With the merger, AT&T became the sole owner of Cingular Wireless, and on Monday the company dropped the Cingular brand in favor of the AT&T name. AT&T previously owned 60 percent of Cingular, and BellSouth owned 40 percent. The combined company offers wireless and landline service in 22 states.
Other wireless carriers, like T-Mobile with its myFaves option, already allow customers to call landline numbers free, but those are typically restricted to a handful of designated numbers. AT&T’s strategy is a logical step in telecommunications marketing, Mr. Winther said, following on the popularity of bundled packages that combine phone, broadband and cable services on one bill. The pricing plan comes weeks after AT&T closed its $85.8 billion acquisition of BellSouth, the largest telecommunications merger in history. With the merger, AT&T became the sole owner of Cingular Wireless, and on Monday the company dropped the Cingular brand in favor of the AT&T name. AT&T previously owned 60 percent of Cingular, and BellSouth owned 40 percent. The combined company offers wireless and landline service in 22 states.
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