REDMOND, Wash.-AT&T Wireless Services Inc. said it was moving towards fixing a software glitch that has prevented the carrier from activating new customers or converting its current TDMA customers to its GSM network for more than a week.
“We’re definitely moving exponentially in the right direction,” AT&T Wireless spokesman Mark Siegel told Dow Jones Newswire.
Analysts estimated the glitch prevented AT&T Wireless from accessing information on its more than 3 million GSM customers and that nearly 125,000 potentially new GSM customers have been effected since Nov.1.
“We would expect between 33 percent and 50 percent of those frustrated by the activation glitch to seek an alternative carrier after a few days,” noted SG Cowen telecommunications analyst Thomas Watts.
A New Jersey-area AT&T Wireless dealer told RCR Wireless News that he has haphazardly been able to activate new customers since Tuesday, but that he was told by the carrier that he cannot make any changes to current GSM customers’ rate plans or upgrade TDMA customers to GSM accounts until at least Friday.
