DoJ files antitrust suit to block AT&T's T-Mobile buy The US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit to block AT&T's proposed acquisition of fellow wireless carrier T-Mobile USA. In a press release that hit the wires on Wednesday, the DoJ said that the $39bn deal would "substantially lessen competition" for wireless services in the US. AT&T runs what is likely the …
I'm a former T-Mobile UK employee, and a current Telefonica Shareholder and Employee.... I have no say in either corporation at this sort of level where deals exist.
Blocking this merger is a mistake.
T-Mobile US is a ticking timebomb. DT have been trying to get rid of it for ages, its weird 3G frequency allocation limits its value. Its lack of spectrum for some sort of service reasonable people would call 4G (HSPA is not 4G) limits its life expectancy.
Plainly put, T-MUS is going to go away; either DT are going to see more value in a shutdown and fire sale, going to see it die as it fails to compete against LTE networks, or it merges with a company that can get some value out of it.
Only one company reasonably can get value out of it - AT&T - the GSM space is value to AT&T today, the GSM handsets and SIMs may limit the work thats required tomorrow to migrate those customers onto the regular AT&T network (which the other major US CellCos can't boast).
This merger is the best thing that can happen to T-MUS for both DT and its users.
Do you REALLY think letting the only cellular carrier with a decent customer service disappear into the morass that is AT&T is a good idea? Especially since preventing this merger will actually get T-Mobile more spectrum?? Or did you not read the last paragraph of the story?
As one reasonably satisfied T-Mobile US customer who HATES Verizon and AT&T customer service, I say, "No way! Stop this merger cold!" At least this way I'll get a shot at getting a reasonably unlocked phone when I finally get around to upgrading.
The worst thing that can happen to T-Mobile and it customers is for this merger to go thru. AT&T cares nothing for T-Mobile's customers, all they want is their network because they dont want to bother upgrading their own.
As far as T-Mobile being on borrowed time and suffering a slow dreadful death?! $3bn in cash $2bn worth of spectrum and a roaming agreement, i'd say that will go a long ways for curing slow and dreadful death.
Anyone in support of this merger is either stupid or vested in form or another...
Oh Nonsense; that upgrading would make sense if T had a Coast to coast LTE network - they don't.
T-Mobile brings to the table their old 2G GSM network - which has a short remaining shelf life, but has some value to AT&T ; a 3G UMTS network that isn't immediately compatble with any other, including AT&T's UMTS network; and a bunch of customers that probably wouldnt take too much work to migrate over.
Regardless of the first poster's contention that this is a good deal, it is not a good deal for consumers. If a company is going to fail, let them freaking fail for once. In the meantime, offer customers the benefits of competition. If Deutch Telekom wants out, let them sell it to India or China. They have tons of money and would dearly love to run an operation here.
Frankly, AT&T has no choice but to roll out LTE anyway, and they don't need anything from T-Mobile to do so.
AT&T's arguments are spurious at best, and ludicrously illogical at worst. They can get more market share the good old fashioned way - competition via excellent products and services. Frankly, there hasn't been near enough of that going on in the marketplace, and further thining of the choice of carriers will not provide an incentive for that.
As a t-mobile customer I welcomed this merger since it would hopefully increase my service. Verizon has a lock on several areas and will not let other providers in their areas (thanks to government).
So at&t is second best in the area and t-mobile flat out sucks. They give you a card telling you where your service should work and it does sometimes. Other times i'll find myself without service in the middle of the grocery store which is very odd.
What about google? No anti-trust there? What exactly does google not do except provide tangible goods that we can actually use? I guess you could say they even do that with the androids to an extent.
Google owns search on the web, they are launching their own fiber optic service that will leverage all the peering deals companies have to them against the same companies. They have their people in government (and when it comes out nothing happens).
They ride around in cars taking pictures of the country, hijack into wifi networks, do things that any other private company would land jail time for the management for alot less.
And what about verizon? They own a landline plus a mobile outfit. Or perhaps comcast?
I guess t-mobile and at&t didn't pay off washington.
I hate monopoly's more than the next guy but we have them with water, sewage, power, gas (same price everywhere).
So we'd still have 3 cellphone companies to choose from. I don't have 3 cable companies to choose from it's comcast or nothing.
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