“Sprint Nextel urged regulators to block AT&T Inc’s $39 billion bid to buy Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile USA, saying the merger would harm consumers,” Jasmin Melvin reports for Reuters. “‘This transaction is fundamentally anti-competitive, and you can’t fix that with merger conditions,’ Charles McKee, Sprint’s vice president of government affairs, federal and state regulatory, told Reuters in a phone interview on Monday.”
“The deal would concentrate 80 percent of U.S. wireless contract customers in just two companies — AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless,” Melvin reports. “”No. 2 U.S. mobile carrier AT&T, often criticized for dropped calls and slow connection speeds, said the merger would spur innovation and economic growth by improving quality and expanding service to 95 percent of the U.S. population.”
Melvin reports, “The U.S. Federal Communications Commission — which aims to extend mobile broadband to virtually all Americans — and Justice Department are expected to take at least a year to review the proposed merger, and impose significant conditions if they approve the deal.”
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