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back to article Deutsche Telekom: 'FCC, DoJ didn't give AT&T deal a chance'

Deutsche Telekom, parent of T-Mobile USA, has hit out at US regulators over the collapse of its merger deal with AT&T in the US. AT&T and T-Mobile USA abandoned their planned marriage yesterday, a move that was no surprise after huge resistance from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice. Both …

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  1. Chad H.
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    They should have followed Qantas's union negotiation example

    And just threatened to shut it down if not agreed.

    Lets face it, it's no secret DT and the German Government have been trying to get rid of TMUS for ages. You can't argue competition concerns if either way there isn't going to be a competitor.

    Could have flushed out this supposed dishTv bid earlier as well.

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    1. Arctic fox
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      @Chad H. Ah yes, the good old "cut your nose of to spite your face approach".

      "They should have followed Qantas's union negotiation example.......And just threatened to shut it down if not agreed."

      Oh I see, as simple as that hmm? You are comparing a dispute between a company and a trades union with a dispute with the government of (still) one of the most powerful nation states on earth? The US authorities would, not unnaturally have assumed they were bluffing and said "go ahead" and if they were bluffing their bluff would have been called. Of course if they had not been bluffing and had actually tried to go ahead and do that (with the consequent *massive* financial losses) I predict that the shareholder rebellion would have cost the entire board their jobs. Though in reality of course it would not have gotten that far because DK would have ended up with *both* the US *and* the German governments on their arses and would have had to back down from *that* position so quick you would have been able to measure their doppler shift.

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      1. Chad H.
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        You miss the point Arctic fox

        The Government can't argue to its courts that there will be a decrease in competition if the merger goes ahead, if there is going to be the exact same decrease in competition anyway.

        The German government, as DT's biggest shareholder, wants DT out of T-MUS - and as quick as you please.

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  2. BillG
    Mushroom

    Not surprised

    Not surprised that the buyout wasn't approved.

    I'm also not surprised that U.S. company AT&T agreed to pay Deutsche Telekom $3Billion because the deal didn't go through. Germans are ruthless business negotiators.

    When you look at the whole thing, Deutsche Telekom played AT&T like a fiddle!!!

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  3. Charles 9

    Not much bigger than Verizon...

    ...but the thing is that a few megapowers can crowd out competition, resulting in an oligopoly situation (think the automobile industry) where upstarts face a prohibitive uphill climb just to compete. Plus, according to the FCC, AT&T was pretty much lying about job creation because just about any merger on the planet results in redundancy, which must be weeded out (because business has an incentive to act efficiently).

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    1. admiraljkb
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      @Charles 9

      Agreed. Course, nowadays it'd be next to impossible to build a mobile provider anyway. The ones that are established already are the ones you are probably going to be looking at for a LONG time.

      I like that T Mobile is still independent. I wouldn't mind if they did merge somewhere like Dish (which makes some amount of sense), just not ATT whose sole aim was to cannibalize it for spectrum.

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  4. Mike Moyle

    Pretty much from the get-go...

    ...I assumed that DT KNEW that the deal would be blocked and their plan was just to pull in an easy 3 billion. Actually selling T-M would have been a bonus, but keeping it AND getting easy money was the actual plan.

    And this:

    "Even following the termination of the agreement with AT&T, Deutsche Telekom expects to remain within the communicated ranges for certain financial performance indicators used to assess the financial performance of the company."

    ...sounds to me like they made their financial projections based on $3b, instead of $39bil.

    Right now, DT management has got to be thinking "Set the bait and drop your line in again, Johann -- they'r really biting today!"

    Or am I just being silly and cynical?

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  5. kns2c
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    Of all the evil US telcos AT&T is probably the worst. This T-Mobile merger would have been a disaster. I've been with tmo for 5 or 6 years now and surprisingly (or perhaps not) my monthly costs are still about half of what it would be with AT&T or Verizon. Granted the network is weak, but being able to use my phone in my basement is not worth the insane monthly costs.

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  6. Peter 39

    upgrade

    T-M is supposed to get some spectrum as part of the breakup fee.

    I hope it's in ranges that are the iPhone supports. Then I'll think seriously about dumping AT&T

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