Big news today (surprisingly on a 4 day US weekend). The AT&T and T-Mobile merger was withdrawn from the FCC today.
On November 23, 2011, AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG electronically withdrew without prejudice, as of that date, the pending applications listed in the Public Notice released by the Federal Communications Commission on April 28, 2011 in that proceeding. Associated manual notification of withdrawal filings also are being made.
The two companies look to be pursuing an alternative plan… Read more
I have taken the position that the AT&T merger with T-Mobile was kind of like gravity. It had to occur, because you had a company with a T-Mobile that had the spectrum but didn’t have the capital to build it out. AT&T needed the spectrum, they didn’t have it in order to take care of their customers, and so that match had to occur.
I don’t think that I’ve heard a rationale for the merger stated more succinctly.
But coming from AT&T and T-Mobile’s biggest rival, you know it is a bunch of horses**t.
Since when does a company CEO say something to the effect of “We want our competitors to be stronger and better equipped to compete with us and take our customers”?
The reason why Verizon is in favor of the deal is because it eliminates a low-cost player in the market and brings the U.S. closer to a telecom duopoly, in which AT&T and Verizon can set prices. Just recently, Verizon was forced to offer a $50 pre-paid data plan that competes with Sprint’s Virgin and T-Mobile. With Verizon/AT&T running the show, they won’t need to make moves like that.
It’s pretty obvious to anyone not on an AT&T or Verizon payroll (including fifteen members of Congress led by North Carolina’s Heath Shuler) that a merger would be horrific for wireless competition in this country.
No one with an eighth-grade education really believes that any merger, telecom or otherwise, has ever created jobs or competition in the marketplace which is what AT&T is somehow trying to argue. Hopefully this thing is killed. Soon. Read more
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., who chairs the Senate’s Antitrust Subcommitteee, is calling for regulators to block the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile:
”I have concluded that this acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies.”
“We believe that AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile would be a troubling backward step in federal public policy–a retrenchment from nearly two decades of promoting competition and open markets to acceptance of a duopoly in the wireless marketplace,” House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairwoman Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and House Judiciary ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote in their letter to FCC and the Justice Department. ”Such industry consolidation could reduce competition and increase consumer costs at a time our country can least afford it.”
Not exactly what AT&T wants to hear. T-Mobile, if it gets out of this AT&T merger, also gets a $3+B check from AT&T for the dance. Read more
