Sprint Sues to Halt Merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA

[MacRumors]

Less than a week after the U.S. government moved to block the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA, Sprint today announced that it too has filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the merger on antitrust grounds.

The lawsuit names AT&T, AT&T Mobility, Deutsche Telekom, and T-Mobile, and has been filed as a related case to the U.S. government's own complaint filed last week.

"Sprint opposes AT&T's proposed takeover of T-Mobile," said Susan Z. Haller, vice president-Litigation, Sprint. "With today's legal action, we are continuing that advocacy on behalf of consumers and competition, and expect to contribute our expertise and resources in proving that the proposed transaction is illegal."

Sprint's lawsuit focuses on the competitive and consumer harms which would result from a takeover of T-Mobile by AT&T. The proposed takeover would:

- Harm retail consumers and corporate customers by causing higher prices and less innovation.

- Entrench the duopoly control of AT&T and Verizon, the two "Ma Bell" descendants, of the almost one-quarter of a trillion dollar wireless market. As a result of the transaction, AT&T and Verizon would control more than three-quarters of that market and 90 percent of the profits.

- Harm Sprint and the other independent wireless carriers. If the transaction were to be allowed, a combined AT&T and T-Mobile would have the ability to use its control over backhaul, roaming and spectrum, and its increased market position to exclude competitors, raise their costs, restrict their access to handsets, damage their businesses and ultimately to lessen competition.

AT&T has touted the proposed merger as a way to provide 4G LTE service to a greater number of customers than possible under current arrangements, utilizing T-Mobile's wireless spectrum to help deploy the new technology. The company has also argued that the merger would result in lower prices and better service while also committing to bring thousands of call center jobs back to the United States and divesting of any portions of T-Mobile USA required in order to satisfy concerns over the deal.

Article Link: Sprint Sues to Halt Merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA

 

[troop231]

 

[tigres]

rock on sprint

 

[troy14]

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That's amazing how you did that so fast.

BTW, QQ more Sprint.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

That's amazing how you did that so fast.

BTW, QQ more Sprint.

It's from Engadget

 

[skeep5]

the iPhone 5 will stop all this fighting. it will bring peace to the world. or maybe just to me... BRING IT ON ALREADY!

PS why does owen wilson always look like he's about to kiss some butt

 

[troop231]

It's from Engadget

Winner winner chicken dinner!

 

[aziatiklover]

Yes and soon Verizon! I love my T-mobile service.

 

[Naimfan]

AT&T has touted the proposed merger as a way to provide 4G LTE service to a greater number of customers than possible under current arrangements, utilizing T-Mobile's wireless spectrum to help deploy the new technology. The company has also argued that the merger would result in lower prices and better service . . .

I'd like to see AT&T show HOW their prior mergers and acquisitions have lowered prices and improved service. Oh, right--they can't. Never mind.

 

[msalganik]

...and verizon is better?

love all the at&t bashing b/c they deserve it but I'm left scratching my head how verizon gets a pass here.... they're even bigger than at&t and arguably worst in throwing their weight around yet where was all the bitching when they last swallowed up a smaller carrier? If everyone wants more competition between smaller carriers then I think we need to stop ignoring the 800lb red gorilla in the room

 

[Astro7x]

I'd like to see AT&T show HOW their prior mergers and acquisitions have lowered prices and improved service. Oh, right--they can't. Never mind.

It's insulting that they would claim the would lower prices other than something ridiculous that nobody wants like a 50MB data plan for $5

Didn't Sirius and XM raise their prices shortly after their merger?

 

[rjohnstone]

Sprint will be lucky to survive with or without the AT&T/T-Mobile merger.
Moving from WiMax to LTE is gonna cost them a fortune.

 

[ouimetnick]

Sprint is just jealous that they won't be getting help, and AT&T's money.

 

[vikingjunior]

Love my T mobile!

 

[alent1234]

I'd like to see AT&T show HOW their prior mergers and acquisitions have lowered prices and improved service. Oh, right--they can't. Never mind.

i remember the days when $70 bought you 500 or so minutes with no night and weekend minutes and no unlimited mobile to mobile minutes. years ago i went over my minutes a few times calling my wife who was also on verizon at the time.

 

[SolRayz]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

..delete...

 

[alent1234]

This is the end of T-Mo. don't know if it was planned like this or things just happened, but that's it.

sprint getting the iphone will steal t-mo's customers. the lawsuits will drag the merger out. the value of the company will plummet and trigger the break up fee not having to paid. AT&T will call off the merger citing the fallen value of the company. T-Mo will then file for Chapter 11 at some point in the near future

can't say if at&t planned it out like this or sprint played their cards right. but someone is going to get a nice bonus for a job well done

 

[SolRayz]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Good...at$t can stick it where the sun don't shine. They have been setting a terrible precedence with their 150gb cap and tiered data on home Internet usage and the mobile options are a joke. ATT attempt to screw over their loyal unlimited data customers while ripping off everyone else with commodity pricing structure is a terrible precedence and dangerous for the survival of the internet. Their attempt to limit internet access and stifle innovation is in full affect and spearheaded by AT$T. They are leading the trend in turning a gigabyte data usage into commodity. This will destroy the interwebz people!!!

 

[z3r0]

Why don't Sprint and T-mobile merge?

They would be the first carrier to support GSM and CDMA in the US. This could be good and bad

 

[tigres]

This is the end of T-Mo. don't know if it was planned like this or things just happened, but that's it.

sprint getting the iphone will steal t-mo's customers. the lawsuits will drag the merger out. the value of the company will plummet and trigger the break up fee not having to paid. AT&T will call off the merger citing the fallen value of the company. T-Mo will then file for Chapter 11 at some point in the near future

can't say if at&t planned it out like this or sprint played their cards right. but someone is going to get a nice bonus for a job well done

So t-mo is not getting the iPhone?

 

[macse30]

I'd like to see AT&T show HOW their prior mergers and acquisitions have lowered prices and improved service. Oh, right--they can't. Never mind.

Correct. I don't want to see AT&T spending money talking about 4G when they still serve us with 2G. You got cash? Bring everybody up to 3G.

 

[alent1234]

So t-mo is not getting the iPhone?

someone keeps leaking that sprint will get it. probably to lower sales of the upcoming Samsung phone that's coming out in a few weeks

t-mo is getting the same phone but no leaks yet that the iphone is coming to t-mo

 

[OriginalMacRat]

Good.

The US does NOT need a GSM monopoly.

 

[cmwade77]

It's insulting that they would claim the would lower prices other than something ridiculous that nobody wants like a 50MB data plan for $5

Didn't Sirius and XM raise their prices shortly after their merger?

Shortly before and after actually, I dropped them when they did it the first time, it's not worth it anymore.

As for AT&T, really, how will a merger benefit any customer? T-mobile's 4G and AT&T's 4G technologies are not compatible.

T-Mobile has by far the best customer service of the 4 major players, so I would hate to see anyone take them over.

That being said, if T-Mobile finds themselves failing, I think it would be smart for Apple to buy them and run their own wireless service. Not only would they get the revenue from selling the phone, but they would get the revenue from service as well. Combine this with the revenue from the App Store and they could offer cheaper plans than anyone else, without any caps or data throttling.

 

[Andronicus]

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