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Senators Taking Sides In AT&T/T Mobile Merger
Sniper98G writes "US senators have no official power to block the AT&T/T Mobile merger. But that has not stopped them from making strong recommendations to the FCC and the department of justice. This whole situation has left me asking 'If the US senate and house are so concerned about a Triploy in wireless communication, where are the hearings about why most US household only have access to one or two wired communication providers?'"
They had plenty of time to "take positions" earlier but remained silent. I have to wonder if this has more to do with collecting campaign funding than actually caring about a cause.
Clearly someone has missed their yearly bribe payment, oh wait, I mean "campaign contribution".
I'm sure this will all get sorted soon. Once that check gets deposited, it always does...
Those morons in DC are paying attention to things other than the budget and the debt cap.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In answer to the question from the original post... I think there are no hearings about wired communication "monopolies" because there are a variety of wired providers nationally, even if only one or two of them service each domicile or office. There's still comparatively heavy competition in most markets for wired communications services. Wireless, on the other hand, utilizes a finite resource (EM spectrum) and the 4 remaining carriers are largely the only ones available in the US. If I move from Miami, Florida, to Miami, Ohio, I probably have the same options available to me. Virgin Mobile, Boost, Wal-Mart Mobile, etc. all lease their spectrum from one of the big 4, so they aren't true alternatives or competitors. Three providers (or really two providers since I don't count Sprint) controlling all of the cell network EM spectrum seems like a very bad idea. I think that's why Congress is more concerned about the wireless merger than the paucity of wired communications providers serving Podunk, Montana. Other thoughts on this?
The reason they aren't upset is that the telecom monopolies are and were always caused by explicit government policy.
Read The Myth of Natural Monopoly by Thomas J. DiLorenzo http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE9_2_3.pdf
The record of Congress in the telecom industry is so poor. Why would anyone even give two thoughts about what these politicians say?
T-Mobile hasn't learned to be assholes who jerk their customers around while the CEO gets paid $26 million/yr. I guess that all changes once AT&T gets its mitts on the company.
All you need to do is physically lay a cable either underground or overground on poles to everybody's house ! simple and cheap no ?
When you have to dig holes in other peoples dirt
things get real expensive fast
As I understand it, it's quite legal for them, so they are probably complaining that their snouts are not in the trough any more.
Deleted
Do you mean triopoly?
Free Martian Whores!
I'm a T-Mobile subscriber. In the past week, I've gotten two text messages from them:
Incoming SMS price will be increased to $0.10
Directory service call price will be increased to $1.99
And this strategically timed so it's just before the merger. This is going to be "better for consumers" my ass. They know exactly what they're doing.
Apart from the odd capitalization, "triploy" isn't a word, though if it were, it might refer to some kind of three-pronged ploy.
Tripoli, formerly sometimes spelled Tripoly, is perhaps the closest word. It is Greek for "triple city"; famous examples include those in modern-day Lebanon, Libya, and Greece.
The term tri-poly or tripoly can also have some uses in chemical nomenclature, as in sodium tripolyphosphate.
Moving further afield, one can extend the competitive-markets concept monopoly to refer to situations where there is more than one major player, but a small number who jointly control the market between themselves. The most common is the duopoly, where a pair of market participants own the market between themselves. This can, less commonly, be extended to three or four with terms such as triopoly and quadropoly. The more general term is an oligopoly.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
They had plenty of time to "take positions" earlier but remained silent. I have to wonder if this has more to do with collecting campaign funding than actually caring about a cause.
I have absolutely no doubt. Whenever things like this happens, I think the media should print the campaign contributions, directly or indirectly including soft money, received by these politicians from the parties involved.
I know we'd see a much different picture.
It was the same regarding the whole banking and Wall Street issues.
Corrupt sons of bitches!
'citing AT&T's promises to improve access to poor and rural Americans'
really... promises, since when have big corps delivered on promises, except for the promise too bend you over and suck your wallet dry and deliver horrible customer service/support
I would love to see them become AT&T&T :)
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
On the 3 network, the only network that owns and manges its own infrastructure....
£30 / $55 a month gets me...
1/ Free SGS rooted and running 2.3.4
2/ 5000 free minutes talk per month any network or landline
3/ 3000 free 3 to 3 minutes a month
4/ 5000 free texts (sending, no charge for incoming text / sms / mms) a month
5/ "all you can eat" data allowance, and I typically get 1.7 mbit minimum up and down anywhere, tether to laptop, run wifi hotspot, all free.
It's a good deal, the SGS + 3 is essentially science fiction from 1980 come to life.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
I travel for work and have a GSM phone which works in most countries I go to. Since I go to the US a lot, I got myself a prepaid AT&T SIM card many years ago and used that when I was in the US. In my last few visits however, I experienced so many annoying issues with the service (e.g. bad sound, dropped calls, dead spots even in the middle of big cities) that I decided to switch to T-Mobile prepaid in my next visit. Now this. *facepalm* This AT&T/T-Mobile merger will bring about a GSM service monopoly in the US which is bad news for us international travellers.
They just don't like the new name that it would become: AT&T&T
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
The irony here is that anyone who truly believes in free market principles should be opposed to these kinds of mergers. This is the sort of thing that kills healthy competition, particularly in a segment where there is already a distinct lack of competitors.
When Republicans talk about the free market what they actually mean is that they're looking out for the best interests of their corporate backers. Of course, don't delude yourself into thinking Democrats are any better. They simply pander to a different set of special interests. The thing Democrats have done right is that they've managed to brand themselves very effectively as looking out for the little guy even if it isn't actually true.
It's well established in the business literature that large stock mergers like this almost always hurt the acquiring company's stock holders, as well as employees and consumers. I'd imagine this even applies to the acquired company's stock holders.
As a rule, the only people that benefit from the acquisition are the executives of the acquiring company, who's power & compensation increase vaguely proportionally to the size of the company they run. In effect, the acquiring executives are devaluing their own stock holders investments to make themselves more important and force those stock holders to vote them more compensation.
Just fyi, cash mergers average out like investing in the S&P500. In a cash merger, the acquiring company's executives have real utility for cash on hand, so they negotiate a fair price or make better strategic decisions even when overpaying. In the stock merger, they simply acquire the largest company possible using other people's money.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
You cannot compare competition within wireless to wired. For one, the wireless folks only need to build one tower to serve hundreds. The wired providers has to run hundreds of physical lines. The cost of implementation is the key factor, it is a barrier to entry. Wireless does not have this problem. That said, no consumer wins in fights like this. The few remaining providers will hike prices up, knowing that there is no other competition. The government is needed in a case like this limit the abuse that has already happened.
Bearded Dragon
What is this 'wired' thing? It sounds cool.
-Charlie
It looks like somebody forgot to bribe...ahem, I mean 'contribute to the campaign' of a few of the politicians.
>
End re-election concerns by going to single terms, and I bet most political posturing and useless activities like this would end (or at least become significantly less).
Sadly no. Just look at California that have relative strict limits. The first term legislators are all high and mighty – and get nothing done. The second term they figure out how things work – but they don’t.
Some are too busy trying to figure out how to run for the next office.
Nobody is willing to make long term compromises [i.e. the hard choices] because there is no long term pay off.
And there is no leadership to steer the whole thing.
No, what you want is a nice mixture of new and old. You want old because they can provided the long term leadership needed. You need to new to make sure the old don’t become complacent.
They don't have the wherewithal to bribe Congresscritters.
This is a huge gamble for AT&T. They are basically trying to buy a 4G network instead of building it themselves. They've made the gamble that they can buy T-Mobile and bribe regulators for less money than they would have to spend to build it themselves.
Of course the consumer will get screwed in the deal. Rather than having two 4G networks to choose from, we will be left with one over subscribed 4G network and thousands of fewer jobs once AT&T gets finished digesting T-Mobile and jettisoning the remaining workers. The merger is a complete FAIL for everyone other than AT&T. The fact that Congress is evening considering letting it happen just shows how dysfunctional our government is.
Yes, 70% of the mergers tend to destroy value. On the other hand, about 30% do create real synergies.[how I hate that word.]. Basically what happens is that the managers of the acquired company have a better inside view of the company and will try to extract the highest price possible.
I am a bit more optimistic about this merger for 2 reasons. AT&T is less interested in acquiring T-Mobil business then in its spectrum. AT&T needs more spectrum so it drops fewer IPhone calls. Second, this will basically make a duopoly of Verizon / AT&T. I expect they can squeeze the customers. Sigh.
By the way, I think the difference between cash and stock mergers are very different. In both cash and stock mergers the acquired company has every incentive to get the highest prices. So I don’t see the difference. Most of the time the acquiring company does not have the cash – they go to Wall Street and issue bonds to get the cash. The expectation is when a large company is buying a small company – normally the case where an establish company is buying a startup for their technology – See Cisco. You almost never see a cash merger because the owners of the acquired company “sells” there stock – thus triggering capital gains taxes. In stock mergers they “exchange” stock – which does not.
Not a triopoly, but a single nationwide GSM carrier. Sure, there are regional GSM carriers in some locations, but AT&T will be the only nationwide GSM carrier. That's a problem.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Never having had to win a reasonably contested election until the one for President.
Seriously, he never did.
His state senate seat was Democratic, which means no Republican reasonably has any chance of winning. The first time in 1996 he had his only serious competition disqualified on a signature challenge, the very person who appointed him as her successor when she decided to run for higher office. In 1998 he ran unopposed in the primary, winning against the token Republican in the election. In 2002 he ran unopposed in both the primary and the election.
In 2004 his supporters helped Jack Ryan's divorce case be opened, releasing details that caused his only real competition to bow out of the race. He only had to go up against the last-minute token Republican from out of state.
1994-2008, not one hard-fought campaign win, one campaign loss, and no government executive experience.
How the hell did we elect a person like this to the office of President?
Even Sarah Palin had a better resume with city council (reelected once), mayor (elected against an incumbent, reelected against serious competition), president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors, won the Republican gubernatorial primary against a political powerhouse former US Senator and gubernatorial incumbent, then the election despite being outspent by a Democrat who was the previous governor.
It gets much less expensive when the government forces the owners of the dirt to let you dig there.
And then you get a decade+ monopoly in the area because you invested in the cable.
Because this issue is far more important at the moment? I mean really.
Jack of all trades,master of none
He never had to fight for it, never had to prove to the people he was the better person for the job.
It was handed to him all the way up to the end, and then he only had to run against the old codger McCain who couldn't inspire a Muslim to kill a Jew, and the wacko Palin who drove away the moderate Republicans that were McCain's base.
I am definitely not in favor of this Tmo buyout, moreso since I'm both a Tmobile and Sprint customer, BUT... DT, Tmo's parent company, has made it abundantly clear that it no longer wants Tmo. So Tmo WILL die, unless some unknown buyer swoops in to continue to operate it as an independent carrier. So far (DT has been taking bids for a while now), no such white knight has appeared. This means that, Tmobile will almost certainly die, if not swallowed by AT&T, then merged with Sprint, or some other unknown fate. Therefore all the arguments made about the necessity of having Tmobile as an important fourth US national carrier are probably moot, as it is unlikely that that can be, even if the AT&T buyout is blocked. Nobody can force DT to continue to operate Tmo as is... sad about that, but that's the troothhhh....
please spell correctly so that is is easier for people to track down what you are referring to.
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His election was a given every time he ran for state senate, once completely unopposed in both the primary and the general election, and his election to US Senate was seriously in his favor, requiring a major screwup or scandal in order for him to lose.
History would be quite different if he hadn't had his incumbent mentor kicked off the ballot in his first primary, or if he hadn't been in a seat that always went to the Democrat. He would have run, and lost. Then he wouldn't have had the platform to leverage for higher office.
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"He was the better of the candidates on the ballot in the eyes of electors"
"Only one on the ballot" do you not understand? Even when he was opposed in the general election, people weren't necessarily even voting for him -- they ALWAYS vote the Democrat regardless of the person (ever seen "straight ticket" voting?). Thus for that seat, the only election that matters is the primary.
"Even you admit that Obama was better than McCain/Palin"
No, I don't. I admit that McCain/Palin wasn't a particularly inspiring team. Say what you want about Obama, he did learn to read great teleprompter. His patronizing and vacuous speeches sound better than anybody in a long time.
"You can't judge somebody on what might have happened had circumstances been completely different. You can only judge them on what really did happen"
What did happen is that Obama's mentor effectively willed to him her state senate seat to run for Congress (you can do that in Chicago politics). When she lost her congressional primary she decided she still wanted her state Senate seat. A very ungrateful Obama promptly challenged her signature collection and won, kicking off the ballot the very person who put him on it.
That's the kind of person we have in the Oval Office now. All he had to do was not succeed in his effort to kick her off the ballot, or maybe to be a grateful protege and bow out when his mentor wanted back in, or at least allow a fair contest. No, he was a political animal hungry for power, allegiance meant nothing.
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Technically: He won the primary and the election for state senate, the will of the people.
Reality: There is no general election for that seat. The Democrat always wins due to the districting and the power of the Democratic party in that district. Remember, this is Chicago, home of the infamous Democratic machine.
Reality: He was effefctively appointed to the position the first time by the Democratic powers that be.
Reality: The decision of the voters will never remove an incumbent candidate from that seat in the general election against his will. The decision will be made in the Democratic primary, and will be heavily influenced, if not de-facto decided, by the party elite.
It looks like you would think Kim Jong-Il's constant reelection actually reflects the free will of the people too. Technically, it's an election, with 100% turnout and universal suffrage, and his party always seems to stay in power.
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Mississippi is just general trends. This is the infamous Democratic Machine. It took a big hit in the 80s after Daley's death and still came out as powerful as ever.
It is this machine that produced Obama, that pushed him up through the ranks.