“Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt voiced his opinion on the Department of Justice’s decision to sue AT&T in an effort to block its planned $39 billion merger with T-Mobile USA,” Todd Haselton reports for BGR.
“‘AT&T is certain to lose,’ Hundt told SNL Financial. ‘They can litigate the case to death,’ he said noting that the acquisition was anti-competitive. ‘It’s an extremely easy case. The Department of Justice will win the case in court. No question about it.'” Haselton reports.
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“Until recently, AT&T was confident that the acquisition would be approved by March 2012,” Haselton reports. “AT&T vowed to contest the DOJ lawsuit and said it is confident the merger is in the best interest of consumers, and ‘the facts will prevail in court.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Hope he’s right. I want T-mobile and don’t want AT&T or Verizon.
I fear T-mobile is another DCW. If the merger doesn’t go through, they’ll be out of business and in the yard sale within 3 years (if that).
I actually hope AT&T wins this case. Just to see what will happen. I get perfect service regardless of any carrier. It’s just more power to AT&Ts 4G network if they take over T-Mobile. I always hated pink.
‘the facts will prevail in court.’
…you mean like the fact that you could have spent a tenth of the T-Mobile acquisition cost to just build out your network yourself? Or was that an accidental “fact” you didn’t want to slip out?
So? What’s the difference between buying a failing business or building one from scratch. AT&T did really well buy merging with Cingular (in fact they practically killed their own internal cell biz and replaced it with the Cingular service they bought). It was a win for AT&T and a positive change for their customers.
This is about cheating and corruption. The FCC is gaming the system for Sprint and/or Verizon, by blocking the highest bidder, AT&T. T-Mobile and its shareholders will get less money from the sale, and the government artificially limits an already successful company’s growth. Wanna talk about job growth? This went from thousands of potential jobs to zero, thanks to the admin’s FCC. This is a perfect example of how government screws up a healthy vibrant economy.
Chances are a merger would not mean job growth it would mean layoffs of thousands “to increase efficiency and avoid duplication”.
The merger would be anti competitive. It would hurt consumers.
AT&T should get kicked in the corporate ass, for even trying this stuff.
If T-Mobile gets the iPhone it will do quite well in the market, with it’s aggressive pricing.
Let AT&T build out it’s own network.
Today it was announced that the Department of Justice will attempt to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile. The deal is needed for technical and regulatory reasons to allow AT&T to compete in the 4G wireless market with Verizon, Sprint/Clearwire, and with the upcoming competitor LightSquared. So why is the Department of Justice calling it bad for competition?
Enter R. Gerard Salemme. It’s not a well-known name, but it’s been an important one in the Obama administration. It’s also a name that often comes up in the ventures of one Craig McCaw. Craig McCaw is an equal opportunity donor who gives to anyone who looks likely to win, including Gore 2000, Bush 2004, and both sides in 2008.
That $2,300 donation to Obama sure is paying off.
There’s a complicated web here, but I’ll do my best to explain it. R. Gerard Salemme is a man who has moved from one company to another in recent years, co-founding Eagle River, and working at XO, Clearwire, and now ICO Global Communications. What those firms all have in common is that they’re also firms invested in or founded by Craig McCaw, who’s Salemme’s business partner at Eagle River, and has often taken leadership roles in these firms. In particular, McCaw founded Clearwire, which operates a 4G wireless network.
Craig McCaw also took over Nextel, shaped it up, and sold it off to Sprint. Sprint Nextel currently owns a majority of Clearwire.
Where does Obama come in? In 2009, Salemme took time off from his job at Clearwire to join the Barack Obama transition team. One project of his was digital television transition issues, where he promoted the famous delay in the DTV transition. You see, the longer the DTV delay took, the longer it would be before Verizon Wireless could get its hands on the “C Block” of spectrum to aid its own 4G rollout, in order to compete with Clearwire’s network.
So the Obama administration took action, dragging its feet on DTV, in a way that hindered 4G competition. Salemme’s employer stood to benefit. Big surprise!
The time has now come for Clearwire’s 4G competition to be expanded further, as AT&T seeks to get ahold of T-Mobile’s spectrum, to allow it to roll out 4G wireless to over 95% of Americans. So naturally, the Obama DoJ is seeking to stop that from happening.
Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy your Hope and Change in the new Culture of Corruption.
It’s a completely bullshit stance by the government. Monopolies aren’t illegal unless they block all competition. There’s already Sprint and Verizon in this cell market.
The FCC needs to be dissolved, its been a blight since its inception. Just don’t count on Obama to do anything, he’s the type of guy who sees an iceberg and figures because there’s ice in his cocktail and he’s having a great time… so no reason to change course, just add more ice! Too bad we can’t set him adrift.
Completely agree. Verizon and Sprint are plenty strong. This is nothing more than anti-Constitutional, government interferring by picking winners and losers.
The power government uses to do this always robs future generations. It’s a downward spiral and never works out. The government was established to protect our freedoms not give us “benefits.”
(Personaly, I believe only God has the power to bring us benefits and blessing)
As Apple fans we all should recognize that Apple could havenever been able to put out great product after great product if government had gotten highly involved.
Bogus comparison, Stever777. Apple is an ordinary free-enterprise business. AT&T is a utility that uses the public airwaves. We give AT&T licenses to allow them exclusive use of part of the radio spectrum. It is justifiable to have some reasonable regulations for utilities, including blocking anti-competitive transactions.
That was from redstate.com. Good stuff.
AT&T now needs to send out the lobbyists with boat loads of money to get back in the game.
Sprint is stupid for blocking this merger! If the merger happens, then Sprint will be the only bargain wireless game in town and they would certainly gain a lot of T-Mobiles customers that don’t want to go along!
I hate the DOJ! Get the hell out of our business!! Let the market decide, not some socialist narcissist like Holder!
The ignorant posts — not to mention lavish unfounded speculation — posted here is astonishing. AT&T needs to find a new business model to screw over customers — without the iPhone, it would be #4 carrier in the USA today.
Any way you want to look at it, regulators are doing the right thing according to current law. Seems like everyone here cheered the DOJ when it convicted MS of illegal practices. Now AT&T is playing by the Microsoft playbook, and everyone changes sides? What gives?
T-Mobile, in my humble opinion, is poised for great growth if it starts offering the iPhone 5, which is nearly inevitable at this point. Verizon and AT&T both suck big time.