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AT&T Stops T-Mobile Merger Bid With the FCC
An anonymous reader writes Relationships are tough and it looks like AT&T and T-Mobile's has stopped before it even started. From the article: 'AT&T and T-Mobile have announced that they will remove their pending applications to the FCC for their merger bid. This comes after statements from the FCC chairman 'strongly opposing the merger'. In doing so, AT&T has agreed to pay T-Mobile 4 Billion US dollars to cover accounting and other costs that this may have caused. While AT&T would still like to merge, it is unlikely that they will gain antitrust clearance from the Department of Justice. It's the antitrust aspect that this is mostly about, in that AT&T has said that they want this move to free up the FCC to consider all options, and focus both AT&T and T-Mobile on the pending antitrust.'"
Yay!
That means the T-Mobile commercials with that hot girl in pink will continue!
Hell just froze over. I am not sure I can sleep tonight.
T-Mobile is now officially my #1 entry. Deutsche Telekom was looking to get rid of them, and I don't see them being likely to hold in there very long without them.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Does this mean the merger is officially dead or is it just the first step in ending the merger? The article gave me the impression that the merger was still happening, kinda, but not with the FCC.
-Sean
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
Just what kind of other costs could they have? $4B is an awful lot of hookers...
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AT&T Stops T-Mobile Merger Bid With the FCC
I didn't even know T-Mobile was trying to merge with the FCC. How did AT&T stop it?
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Gee, it's almost enough to make you believe that regulators can do their job once in a while. Maybe the FCC can run training seminars for the SEC...
Regardless, it's the right decision. Mergers of this scale are bad for everyone except one of the two CEOs. One guy gets a promotion. Meanwhile customers lose choice, the market loses competition, employees lose jobs (when they become redundant), and shareholders lose their investment (when half get bought out).
And that's before you factor in the (rightly) indignant T-Mobile customers, most of whom have sworn a solemn oath to do business with anyone but AT&T.
AT&T figures it should bring the full weight of bribes and lobbying to bear on one agency at a time... so they're starting with the DoJ. After they knock that off, then they can concentrate on the FCC.
They're still in a bad position here that they didn't expect to be in, so I guess Verizon and Sprint had some pretty good counter-bribes under the table. The merger's in serious trouble at this point. To the bribe-mobile!
This isn't a conclusion. The DOJ is still reviewing the proposal. AT&T only retracted their application to the FCC. They can re-apply if they feel it is appropriate, i.e. if the DOJ gives their nod.
Not really, if they managed to merge the money would be long gone as the money would go to T-Mobile's parent company.
And really as long as the GOP doesn't retake the White House in 2012, the likelihood of this merger going through is precisely nihil. If the DoJ or the FCC was interested in letting it go through it wouldn't be challenged to this extent. Under the Bush administration the DoJ was essentially sitting on its hands whenever these things came through apart from the rubber stamp.
It's impossible for the merger to go forward ultimately. If by the grace of God the DoJ and the FCC sign off on it all that means is that it goes to court when Verizon or Sprint files their own antitrust lawsuit against AT&T. Which ultimately they would almost certainly win because this is about as blatant a violation of Clayton as has ever been committed. You cannot buy up a competitor when it substantially lessens competition, and in a case like this where there are only a total of 4 to begin with, yeah, that's going to substantially lessen competition.
The bell breakup was stupid. Decouple Bell Long Distance from Bell Local Service, yes. But break up Bell into SBC and Illinois Bell and Mid Atlantic Bell and all of that was asinine. It makes no goddamned difference to the consumer how big the company is when they have no other choice for their dialtone service.
Asking as someone wanting to get a more educated answer from the good denizens of Slashdot:
It's been stated on here before that there's been the trend of the phone industry to keep going through these mergers. I remember somebody posted a great flow chart of the monopoly breakup of old Bell and the subsequent acquisitions that followed.
Is there any reason why this industry in particular keeps splitting and then gradually getting re-merged - is it any different than any other industry and just more publicized, or is this industry prone to more consolidation over all? Seeing as it all seems to be the derivatives of the old regime AT&T that were gradually reacquired, why is all the power gradually flowing back to AT&T over time? Is it patent control? Aggressive marketing driving out competitors? The company mentality? What makes AT&T survive getting split up, to being back to its current state and trying to acquire T-mobile now? I'd love any insight you have to share!
I've been with T-Mo for almost 15 years, and this is good news. Not great news -- I'm sure there will be more trouble for T-mo in some form or another -- but at least not this year, and probably not next. But you know what this does mean? I'm re-upping my contract with T-Mo. When T-Mo came calling last year (one of several "PLEEZ don't jump ship" themed customer retention campaigns) I told them desire to have a GSM phone was only trumped by a desire never to be an AT&T customer again. As long as the death star doesn't gobble them up, T-Mo can keep having my money.
Oh, and btw -- T-Mo coverage is more than adequate across the US & Canada, (Iirc I still don't have coverage in rural Neb and WY, but no trouble anywhere else), data services are cheap, and they actually have decent humans in the corp stores. T-Mo isn't making money hand over fist, but they're doing _ok_, and that's good. In these times, in this economy, I want to give my money to an org that's doing _ok_: neither going out of business, nor robbing me. You hear that, T-Mo? "Ok" and "staying in business without f__king your customers" is the new black. So keep on keeping on.
I think not...(*poof*)
Four billion to cover "accounting costs"?
.... wow, no wonder they're going under.
Can I be their accountants? I mean
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
I've had service from all 4 of the major carriers (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and TMo) and they all sucked. How much they sucked depended to some extent on where I happened to be physically at any point in time and how much I had to deal with their customer service. In the case of TMo, they sucked on coverage, but they /really/ sucked the most on customer service. People complain about AT&T and Verizon customer service but I've had far more success with them than I ever did with TMo. I am not sure that I ever had a successful interaction with them and I finally dumped them after about 3 years of that crap.
These companies aren't going to change. The mindset of the management teams and boards prohibits it. They will continue to screw their bases with bizarre pricing plans, poorly implemented limits and serious privacy issues. Maybe what we need is for them to continue to roll up into a couple of large, lumbering, unresponsive companies and then have someone nimble come in with new technology and decent plans and radically shift the playing field.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain