FCC: AT&T/T-Mobile Merger 'Not in the public interest'

[bradl]

Surprised no-one has caught this one yet.

Various sources (NPR, USA Today, BGR, etc.) are reporting that the FCC has joined along with the Dept. of Justice in stating that the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger would be against the best interests of the public, and request a full administrative hearing with all three commissioners. Unfortunately, this hearing will not begin until after the lawsuit between the DoJ and AT&T/T-Mobile concludes, in which trial starts in February.

This is a rather big blow to the proposed $39 billion merger, which the only separation of concentration each company has is Omaha, Nebraska, where T-Mobile doesn't operate its network. Where this puts the merger now remains to be seen.

 

[ap3604]

Money controls the world my friend...

Everyone (even the DoJ, commisioners, and the FCC) has a price where they say "screw the common good! I wanna get PAID!"

 

[macinnv]

The merger is looking more and more like it won't go through. Once the DoJ trial goes through then an FCC trial. It will get stalled by the govt by any means possible.

 

[KPOM]

This was entirely expected as the DOJ had announced its objection. It remains to be seen what happens. At the very least, it delays the merger, but AT&T and T-Mobile are fighting the DOJ and plan to take the issue to court.

From my perspective, T-Mobile has lots of unused capacity, is bleeding customers, and has difficulty attracting phones (since it has an unusual frequency band in the US). AT&T had planned to use T-Mobile's AWS band to expand its LTE network, freeing up some of its 3G spectrum in the process.

If the merger doesn't go through, there is no other obvious buyer. Verizon would face the same anti-trust issues. Sprint has an incompatible network, and is still struggling to integrate Nextel. The regional carriers are all CDMA. Deutsche Telekom really has no interest in building up T-Mobile USA since it has been a money pit for them. What might happen is that they would wind down their operations and sell off their spectrum and towers piecemeal.

 

[cyks]

Money controls the world my friend...

Everyone (even the DoJ, commisioners, and the FCC) has a price where they say "screw the common good! I wanna get PAID!"

So, the common good would be a to stop competition?!?