What role (if any) will AT&T and T-Mobile play in mobile entertainment?

Will AT&T Mobility’s pursuit of T-Mobile USA Inc. have an impact on mobile entertainment? The tie-up of the two companies could lead to some changes, but much of it might already be underway.
Carrier involvement in content and entertainment has diminished considerably and largely fallen to an off-deck world mindset. Developers and media companies have set their sights on mobile operating systems like Apple Inc.’s iOS and Google Inc.’s Android to reach their audiences. They can reach users at much greater scale by developing for these increasingly popular platforms without putting much thought into the carrier piece of the puzzle.
“The first thing that comes to mind is: More customers! AT&T acquiring T-Mobile means, as a developer, I get a piece of the 33 million T-Mobile customers to buy or subscribe to my apps and click on my ads. It also means my content is further reaching,” said Juan Sanchez, experience architect at EffectiveUI Inc., a design and development agency based in Denver.
“For an iPhone developer, I’m not sure the carrier matters. I just need access to data. Where the carrier does matter is when you have features that require direct cooperation with the carriers, especially with feature phones,” Sanchez added.
“Much of consumers engagement in mobile content has been focused on apps of late,” Linda Barrabee, research director of connected intelligence at The NPD Group, told RCR Wireless News.
The content game hasn’t been easy for carriers, but they can still play a significant role in facilitating mobile content innovation and adoption. AT&T and T-Mobile have taken much different approaches to that end thus far. T-Mobile has gone for more of a value play in the content space by packaging services together and AT&T has shown a willingness to reach for more.
Indeed, the number of test points for the customer typically decreases when deals like this go through.
“AT&T was experimenting in areas that T-Mobile was not,” said Avi Greengart, research director on consumer devices at Current Analysis Inc. “(T-Mobile) has not been a pioneer in building out network-based content the way that say Verizon has, unsuccessfully I might add.”
T-Mobile has inked content deals with entertainment companies to highlight some of its most recent smartphones, but Greengart couldn’t point to much else. “All I know is I’ve watched more full-feature films on T-Mobile devices than any other carrier,” he said. Films like “Inception” and “Avatar” came preloaded on two of T-Mobile’s high end smartphones from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
If the two carriers become one there will be a whole host of issues to be ironed out. But one thing’s for sure, the content strategies of both companies are not in line today and something will have to give if they’re forced to converge.