Department of Justice Approves $26B Merger of T-Mobile and Sprint

[MrXiro]

3 yrs from now....price goes at least 25% higher, You heard it now.

Yes... that's called inflation. When I was a teenager comic books cost 75 cents at the store, by the end of high school they were $1.99 and then $2.49. Now they're up to 5-6 bucks now for some. Sometimes you still see 1.99 comics but those are few and far between.

 

[justme1]

Yes... that's called inflation. When I was a teenager comic books cost 75 cents at the store, by the end of high school they were $1.99 and then $2.49. Now they're up to 5-6 bucks now for some. Sometimes you still see 1.99 comics but those are few and far between.

I'm so old that comics were 10 cents when I was a kid

 

[Breaking Good]

I hadn't looked into adoring in years. It honestly wasn't a huge player for us recently because we didn't really know how phone compatibility worked. Most of Our current phones were all purchased through TMobile and unlocked. The SE my son is using was a Verizon device that icbiguht second hand. Should they all theoretically work?

Right now we are paying $100 exactly for four lines. I wouldn't be against adding a fifth (I've seen five lines for $100 promotion with Sprint but hadn't kid too much attention)

It depends on the specific model of phone that you have. Both Visible and Sprint have compatibility checkers on thier respective Web sites. You just need to enter your IMEI number.

 

[rmsanger]

Less competition is not good for consumers unless there is some underlying technology gain to be had. In this case the consolidation will just lead to less choices and higher prices.

 

[M.PaulCezanne]

But you see they are not colluding to raises prices at the same time. They are all reading the signals from others. Take for example airline prices. If you notice historically the big boys all move their prices in pretty much lock step with each other. By lock step I mean with in a few days. If one raise prices the others will either follow suit or the one who raised it will drop back down. It all very slowly none of it illegal or even colluding just a way to do it and they can all claim they are using the same information and made it independently of each other.

Like most legal issues, this one is a bit complex, but in short an "agreement" to fix prices does not require an actual written or verbal agreement (and of course that almost never occurs). Circumstantial evidence of a pattern of unexplained behavior, such as all carriers raising prices without any independent economic reason, can be enough. The line between market pricing and price-fixing is often blurred and is simply left to a fact finder (judge or jury) to decide.

The OP said, "In Oligopoly, AT&T and Verizon WANTED this merger because less competition will allow them all to raise prices together now." While less competition can certainly lead to a normal rise in prices (hence the DOJ's Antitrust concerns), read literally this statement implies the two competitors viewed this as an opportunity to immediately raise prices as a coordinated strategy (whether spoken or unspoken). That would certainly seem a lot more like price-fixing than a market adjustment, since it would be absent any other legitimate purpose for both companies to raise prices (e.g., an increase in government fees that impacts them both).

If the OP means the two companies simply expected reduced competition will allow prices to float up, then yeah - that's not illegal. But as written, such evidence would certainly draw attention from the Antitrust Division (well, almost certainly - the current Administration isn't exactly predictable here).