By 
If you were looking for an Inspire 4G or an Atrix 4G soon, AT&T’s brick and mortar and online shops may be the only places to find them. Wirefly, LetsTalk, and numerous other third party retailers have announced the disrupt in availability of AT&T products and services. As AT&T has not publicly announced anything and as other major retailers – such as Best Buy and Amazon – hasn’t put out any notices, we’re not sure to what extent this is happening. It’s unfortunate as these retailers often provide the best deals on devices soon after they launch, while the carriers usually reserve promotions for holiday sales or EOL preparation. [BGR]
bricks and more?
wow, can you say they’re hurting? i think so. their average revenue per user is down, and easy fix is get rid of middlemen, increasing profits from sales. their problem isn’t enough users, it’s getting enough money from those users
$25 for a mere 2 gb?
constant dropped calles in heavy usage areas?
time for people to wake up, at&t is going nowhere fast
Yea, I think you mean “brick and mortar”
Boner
chalk another up nail in the coffin for att. losing the iphone, not getting better androids, and capping data. Now this. As a former att turned sprint customer, im glad i left that sinking ship.
brick and *mortar* :)
ass t&t is for losers… It’s ashame they even are allowed to have any android devices on there network. No one carrier is bigger than the PLATFORM of ANDROID… ass t&t thinks they are bigger than they platform.. They should stick to selling windows mobile devices and iphone devices nobody cares about those devices… Google needs to kick these bums to the curb as soon as possible… They suck
It’s “brick and mortar”
If at&t wants to survive they should bring back unlimited data. If they did that they would get so many customers with the atrix and the inspire
Pretty stupid if you ask me. If AT&T were struggling that badly then why cut off such a large retail channel. The more subscriptions they get the more money they make.
Chris is absolutely right. Their biggest problem is lack of the features that anyone with a brain would want. I love pandora, but its rendered useless thanks to the cap on my data. Im not gonna waste it on that, instead I feel as though I have to be frugal in how I use my phone. I paid for my phone, its mine, now how about I get the service I expect instead of the scraps that they offer from a company who can afford to add towers anywhere they’d like.
Poor AT&T.. on hard times.. yeah right. The Apple/Verizon apocalypse didn’t happen.. regardless on how many of you would like to believe that.
@chris
wait for Tmo to raise the “unlimited” (check tmonews for rumors) cap…give it a few months and then AT&T will do it.
Wtf is this shit! Att has a small dick nOw!
@danbutter
Idk if at&t will do it they need all the money they can get and overages are the only way they are getting it now. If they had a $30 unlimited a lot of people would consider switching but compared to verizon, sprint or tmo who all have an unlimited plan and now verizon has the iphone why would anyone switch to at&t?
Who Cares AT&T Sucks anyways,, Let EM’ Fall.
HTC Inspire new/add a line/upgrade is $55 with tax and all at select Staples office supplies stores in southern california.
Brick and mortar.
Seriously, please start proofreading. You’re making Android users look bad.
Yeah. Att needs to bring back unlimited data. The Iphone is gone so do it!
it’s “brick and mortar”. nice.
android is cool and all, but i think we all know who the real phone maker is.
APPLE.
i had an android phone, and it was pretty nice, but it lagged a lot and there were quite a few software bugs. i switched to the iphone 4 in june, and i gotta say, there hasn’t been an android phone yet that has made me want to switch back. we’ll see though. but for now, it’s all iphone.
Everyone in this community of f0n3 n3rds is gunna disagree with me but the atrix is gunna be huge a phone thats a laptop.
While I’m no fan of AT&T, this is a step in the right direction for consumers. While most if not all of us on here are well read when it comes to phones and carriers, the average consumer is not. I always tell friends that if you want someone to give you misinformation or straight up BS go to a third party retailer for cell phones. I doubt they will be dropping any retailer that is pulling their own weight and making AT&T money, but there has to be a large portion of these third party partners that are causing them more problems then what they are worth.
Not a fan of ATT either but i think getting rid of these shady 3rd party resellers like wirefly/letstalk etc is a smart move. Anyone who buys from a 3rd party and thinks they are getting a better deal is a complete idiot. Hello…McFly..they are a middle man. Read the FINE print folks. They have their own early term fee in addition to the carrier you are signing with along with more strings than a I have hair on my head. Also, why would any carrier pay a 3rd party reseller the kind of cash they do for an activation and cut out their own sales people. For those of you who milk suggestions/recommendations from any sales person and then shop them for a few bucks cheaper elsewhere. Go F yourselves. Props to ATT. Keeping the shady riff raff resellers out of their business means happier customers, sales people and more profits. You want straight HS, go to a reseller or better yet, sign up with cricket or boost mobile.
everyone seems to have jumped on the “AT&T sucks” bandwagon
Not all third party retailers are shady. I work for Wireless Advocates, or as most people know it, the cell phone kiosk in Costco. I think we do a great job of representing AT&T and I know this for a fact because our customers take that survey that AT&T emails them and they always rate us highly. I, personally, would be sad to see AT&T go. Also, as far as saying that third party dealers make them sign two contracts, one with AT&T and one with the third party dealer, is not true for us here. The real shady ones do, I used to work at the mall and those practices are terrible. Also, Consumer Reports rated us very highly and they recommend buying your phone from Costco if you want the best deal, which 95% of the time is true. That’s just my two cents.
Yes, because they are the DeathStar.
@GUnit Ummm I used to get phones (0-4 months after launch) for free or FAR from Wirefly all the time. You just had to keep an eye on the sales. If you didn’t have any patience and decided to pull the trigger without any patience than ya their deals were only slightly better than AT&T, but I got some serious sweet deals from them.
^ This move is AT&T screwing the consumers which is why I may let my contract run out on them which happens to expire in March as well… :)
@Dan(24) – Well AT&T keeps making constant changes that affects consumers and doesn’t put any money back into their “existing network”. Sure they will have 4G but for select markets. How about the rest that are stuck with unreliable coverage. T-Mobile (which I had as a second line before) is looking better by the day. Pretty sad since I have an employee discount with AT&T (not T-Mo) and I might even be willing to give that up too…
In case anyone missed it, it’s “brick and mortar”… yeah, I know once was enough, but I figured I’d hop on the bandwagon. ;-)
Anyway, I think people need to take a looong hard look at some of the contracts these dirt-cheap bargain 3rd party sellers offer. In some cases, if you switch any part of your plan, you’ve violated contract and owe your next car payment to them. That could be for as little as changing your text plan. I actually hope other carriers follow suit until those that represent THEIR company do so in a less shady way.
I could say the same for Failrizon. Their service and customer service has gotten worse over the years. Constant dropped calls in my house. After several Certified Pre-owned crap droids I was sent, nothing changed. Customer service finally started blaming the dropped calls on the people I was calling. That was the last straw.
Oh and since I switched to AT&T, not 1 dropped call. I can go anywhere in my house, even the basement, without dropping a call. I couldn’t do that with Failrizon.
You will regret going AT&T, have no doubt about that.
@yesicanhearyounow
“$25 for a mere 2 gb?”
Cry me a *bleep*ing river! I pay $30 for 1GB! In Canada our igloos are cold and our cell providers rip us off! But we have free health care!
@Dan
It’s not a bandwagon. They suck.
If you guys want the best experience from a wireless retailer go to Best Buy. No mail in rebates to haggle with and lots of awesome deals on phones. I used to work for AT&T and the part that really bugged me was people buying their phones from sloppy retailers like Costco, Wal-Mart, Radio Shack, and then they come into the store and gripe and complain because these retailers screwed up their plans or features or didn’t set their phone up right. I know people have the choice of where to buy your phone but don’t come in complaining when s**t gets messed up. I work for Best Buy now and can honestly say we are the number 1 retailer out there. Since most of us come from previous jobs with carriers we have the precise knowledge of the plans but also sell multiple carriers and multiple phones. So peeps, if you want it done right go to the carriers or come to Best Buy cause I’m tired of hearing all the bulls**t.
@PT – you mean “bricks and mortar”, otherwise known as the stuff people throw at AT&T stores.
@su2lly how on earth is this a good thing for consumers? Websites like letstalk offer pricey phones often for free. I got my original BB bold 9000 for $0 when it was $200 at att. How is taking this option away from cell phone shoppers good? Your logic is mind boggling.
@spartanx17, not to be bias or anything but I’ve dealt with Best Buy before and they aren’t the most knowledgeable. I bought my wife a smartphone (HTC Surround) there and the guy didn’t even know how to set it up. Also saying that Costco is a “sloppy retailer” is ludicrous. Member satisfaction is through the roof, people pay to shop their and their business is increasing daily. It wouldn’t increase if they were a bad retailer. As far as phones go: free activation on all new lines day in and day out, free accessories and phone prices are ridiculously low.
Just bought the Atrix at Costco. Very happy with the service and set up. Not to mention the free “bundle” Charger, etc. for $119 plus $50 rebate, so the final price $70 ;-)
most people i know wait until they contract is up to jump ship to another carrier…… so the 3rd party add ons dont really matter to most. i got my evo and an intercept for the wife with overnight shipping for about $200 less then i would of had to pay at the sprint store. plus most of the people i know research a smartphone before they make a purchase…….its been at least 5 years since i bought a phone without knowing just as much if not more about it then the store clerk. 3RD PARTY IS AWESOME!!!!