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AT&T Officially Ends Plans To Acquire T-Mobile USA
An anonymous reader writes "AT&T has officially announced that it no longer plans to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom. In a press release, the company said, 'The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.'"
A t-mobile subscriber.
I could put together even more meaningless words, but so what? What was the question again?
For now.
It just seems odd that AT&T would let a leak stop them from acquiring T-Mobile.
As a very satisfied T-Mobile customer with flat-rate 3G, I'm not going to put it beyond AT&T to try some less-visible route to get rid of the only national carrier that doesn't try to meter data.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The story just rehashes the press release by AT&T.
And by the time the story got to Slashdot, others have already written decent stories about it - those would have made much better links.
The business perspective .
The regular news
And the tech perspective
T-Mobile is the ONE operator that's pro-openness. GSM (bring your own device) from the start, no restrictions on how you use data, until the AT&T stuff started they even offered low cost, subsidy free, contract free talk plans. There's a reason it was T-Mo, and not AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint, who Google picked to launch Android.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Bite me, AT&T. Auto repair is competitive.
* Cell phones in the US have a small pool of providers, especially the nation-wide crowd.
* They primarily operate with 2 year contracts, and it's hard to get a phone without one.
* There's a financial disincentive for buying a phone without a contract.
* Text message rates (for which there is very little data usage, being measured in bytes) have been increasing.
* Data plans have been increasing in price and providing tighter bandwidth restrictions at the same time.
I loathe AT&T, and I'm stuck with them. Competitive? I'd get out in a heartbeat if I felt I had somewhere to go. T-Mobile has been the closest saving grace to AT&T, so I really don't want to see that absorbed.
Thanks to the Fed did -- they did one right there.
SIG: HUP
I know a lot of people who's contracts were up and jumped ship on the news that AT&T was going to buy them. I don't know the percentage but every T-Mobile subscriber I know all moved to other carriers when they heard the initial announcement.
Our cell phone oligopoly will have four participants instead of three!
Write Only Memory: Another pointless blog.
"We own our customers." has been the attitude for decades.
Has anybody forgotten their CEO's "my pipes" speech with the subtext of "That's a nice internet connection you have. Be a shame if anything happened to it."?
Thank God we don't have to deal with AT&T&T...
Seems to me like they're sitting on their hands to avoid taking the responsibility for over subscription and lack of capacity planning.
DoJ/FCC Officially End AT&T's Plans To Acquire T-Mobile USA
Because that's who really made the final decision.
" It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world"
Strictly speaking, I cannot say how it compares to other industries, but we can look at how the industry itself operates to get an idea of how true that statement is: http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE9_2_3.pdf
So, with those facts in mind, I would bet that this press release comment is not actually true.
There is a reason that AT&T was broken up 25 or so years ago. Those reasons still hold true. They were the worst service and most dishonest company around in the 70's. I have not dealt with them since I was given a choice and never would again. They don't need to buy other companies and become bigger.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
up until last week. Used a jailbroken iPhone for 3 years. Moved to Verizon.
I had no idea what I was missing. Full bars everywhere I go now, where I'd have dead spots all over the rural area I live with T-Mobile. They always had great customer service, but I couldn't even get Edge where I live.
When the merger was in full swing, I was calling about some unrelated issue, and mentioned the merger. I said I wasn't a fan, and that I'd like the merger not to go through. She gave me a well-rehearsed script about how it would benefit everyone everywhere, make bread smell better, and flowers bloom longer, and I mentioned the fact that ATT was first to give up info in the warrantless wiretapping scandal, and that T-Mobile didn't, and if the merger went through, I would be leaving.
She didn't know that, and said that I was the first person ever to bring that up. *sigh*
The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution
Boy, howdy, AT&T, you can say that again. It is unexpectedly honest of you to recognized that this could only be considered a good thing in the interim. Surely would have been a loss to our information infrastructure in the long run, but you are right that it may have smoothed out the short run a bit. How an honest person managed to slip a hint of truth into your deceptioneering is beyond me.
Whoever wrote that bit, well done. Rest assured that there are people out here who caught your little wink and nod in that phrasing. Nice work.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The FCC and DOJ actually stopped a merger that would be bad for the consumer?
This has got to be a trick or I am dreaming.
Next thing you know the FCC will make Cable companies offer channels alacart and not charge extra for local HD channels over SD channels.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"If we cannot reassemble our monopoly, it's bad for everyone!" We're dominating you, enshrining ourselves in legal scripture, raising your prices and smashing your service quality FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
T-Mobile will still get bought, or will go under.
To say nothing of the assets that will come available when T-Mobile declares bankruptcy
T-Mobile USA makes money. It just doesn't make enough money for the corporate overlords at DT. They don't view the United States as a growth market without billions of dollars in capital investment they've thus far been unwilling to make. Absent that investment T-Mobile USA will remain what it has always been: an urban focused value carrier.
T-Mobile will still get bought, or will go under.
Vodaphone is a possibility if they divest their 45% share of Verizon Wireless. Verizon would love to buy them out; the question is would they be willing to sell to jump into the US market with both feet or does it make more sense for them to keep cashing VZW dividend checks?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.
And I bet the grapes were sour too.
Or just a lack of innovation shortage?
With an appropriate network topology, adding more and more nodes to a network increases your overall bandwidth, not decreases it.
Of course, with enough innovation like this, who needs a centralized carrier model anyway?
It will be interesting to see which major carriers adapt to a decentralized model, and which ones die fighting it.
But give it time. Give it time. ATT is waiting for the next bought-and-paid-for (Republican-run government) and it will be back. Just wait. Give it time.
Right. T mobile is a very pervasive player in the Telecommunications landscape. SBC or AT&T as they like to be called, LOVES to buy out direct competitors. They saw Tmobile as a very large player in the space and coupled with T-mobile's 4g network and affordable prices, it was a natural fit for them. I worked for AT&T both before and after they where purchased by SBC. Which I detailed some of my experiences at http://whyattdestroysjobs.wordpress.com/ ... Let's just say while I was there, ATT management as well as Sales Managers such as myself while I was employed with AT&T where constantly going up against T mobile.. Simply because they T-mobile offered affordable plans, greater flexibility in devices, and more affordable and faster service(s) and CUSTOMER SERVICE that was hands down better than AT&T/SBC.
Only what ATT did not bargain on- which frankly they should of KNOWN is the current economy and state of affairs in DC - that proposing a Merger in an election year when unemployment is at record highs and their is further economic uncertainty around the world, that a deal like this that would stifle innovation, lead to higher consumer prices, et al could not of been proposed at a worse time!
If AT&T is truely worried about ifastructure they can pony up and over build T-Mobile if they chose. Its lame that they would use that as an excuse to justify a blatiant power grab. Good on you DOJ you don't often get things right.
T-Mobile USA makes money. It just doesn't make enough money for the corporate overlords at DT. They don't view the United States as a growth market without billions of dollars in capital investment they've thus far been unwilling to make. Absent that investment T-Mobile USA will remain what it has always been: an urban focused value carrier.
I live in an urban/suburban area and have great coverage. When I travel to a more rural area, which I do frequently, my T-Mobile phone roams on the AT&T network if T-Mo isn't available. The collapse of this deal will only help since not only does T-Mo get $3 billion cash, they get a transfer of radio spectrum to T-Mobile and a more favorable network-sharing agreement. DT valued the breakup package at as much as $7 billion.
I travel to Europe enough that I need a GSM phone. T-Mo provides great service at better rates that AT&T. They unlock your phones at no charge and with no fuss, and they have great customer service.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
"The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled"
So does this mean AT&T just gave themselves a reason to increase cellphone plans???
This probably had something to do with it. Verizon found a way to buy as much spectrum as they wanted while jumping through way less regulation hurdles. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/12/verizon-buys-up-spectrum/2/
I'm not sure why you're not getting modded up. Verizon is as much "Ma Bell" as AT&T is.
http://www.freepress.net/files/att_history.jpg
Didn't have a big enough paycheck attached.
Deleted
Sprint will renew their offer to buy T-Mobile, and possibly sell some spectrum to AT&T and/or Verizon in markets where Sprint + T-Mobile has more spectrum than they need. That would make almost everyone happy (maybe not some T-Mobile customers). AT&T will complain, but that's just because they don't want anything that might make Sprint a stronger competitor. Verizon probably won't object. Just my $0.02 of speculation.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
A DEMOCRAT. People say it doesn't make a difference who's in the WH, Obama's just another Bush, etc. But it ain't so. A Republican President would never, ever have signed Dodd-Frank either.
Let me repeat my ideas. Essentially put a couple short range cell towers on every block. Put it on top of peoples homes. They pay the electricity but get free internet. Very simple.You get the option as part of your internet connection.
Normal cell towers then become backups for cities.
The block towers would only transmit up to a few blocks with radio bands being interleaved. So long as each of the local cell towers could handle a few hundred users then everything would work out.
Now ya see THAT is what I don't get. Now wasn't the whole point of breaking up AT&T to get rid of the " giant money sucking lousy service lucky if we get around to it 3 weeks from Tuesday wallet raping nickle and diming royal PITA with customer service that hell wouldn't have" one size fits nobody phone service? so WTF?
I have watched AT&T reform like the damned T-1000 and as someone who has to deal with their sorry asses on behalf of customers frankly I've seen third tier Bangalore cue card readers with better service and you could probably get better coverage from a CB radio than their damned overloaded towers. Its bad enough i had to get dad one of those mini cell towers that plugs into his DSL (which thankfully comes from someone else) just so he could use his damned cell phone without walking down to the corner in the cold just to get reception!
Frankly I don't know whose bright idea it was to let AT&T get back together but I think I'd rather see the return of Enron or Worldcom than lousy ass AT&T. so let me say congrats T-mobile users,lucky bastards .As someone stuck in an AT&T only area let me say i wouldn't wish AT&T on my worst enemy, be thankful and consider this reprieve a most glorious Xmas prezzie, because you could have been in for a world of suck!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world"
Check the facts: look at coverage (awful), dropped calls (non-existent outside the US, massive inside), average subscriber monthly spend (way higher in the US), speed of new handset to market, innovation in features and billing, amount of crippled features on US plans, etc.
The US cell market amazes me every time I come to the US (from Europe) - things /. moans about (rightly) just *don't* exist anywhere else. You're getting stuffed by your carriers and don't realise it. Ditto for broadband and cable TV but that's another post.
Why don't you do something about it? How come 'regulated' Europe wins on this?
Verizon and Sprint areâ"or should beâ"no-gos for anybody even thinking about ever visiting outside North America.
For the iPhone the opposite is true.
If you have an AT&T iPhone you can pay a large amount of money for international data and voice plans - but AT&T will not unlock the phone.
But if you get an iPhone 4s on Verizon or Sprint, they will unlock the phone for you - they don't care because it will not help you in the US where they are CDMA services, the GSM portion they unlock is only good for you overseas.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Back then you pretty much knew what you were dealing with when you signed up to AT&T. I remember their bills detailing line fees, equipment fees, long distance charges, etc. You knew they were going to rape you and and rape you good anytime you did business with them. They really didn't become dishonest and try to disguise their raping ways until they had to deal with honest competition.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
If there is just no way to provide more bandwidth to the "hungry consumer", then why is every wireless company constantly advertising their 4G, how great it is, and how you could be steaming HD movies right now?
Seriously, the companies are driving the frenzy for data and then they can't deliver?
As a person who used to work at T-Mobile, and was privy to some insider information about the economic and technological aspects of the deal, I believe this is going to be a bad thing for T-Mobile and its customers. The problem T-Mobile is facing is that its parent company, Deutsche Telecom, is not investing in T-Mobile in the amount that it needs to catch up to the bigger customers. All of the 4 billion dollars that AT&T is required to pay T-Mobile is going to DT, and not likely* to be used for T-Mobile infrastructure. T-Mobile simply cannot catch up in terms of capital to compete with Verizon and AT&T.
* I can't say how much of the 4 billion dollars will or will not be, but the idea when we were discussing the deal was that 1. we didn't think we had to worry about it, and 2. if the deal did actually fail, the money went straight to DT and would not affect their investments in T-Mobile USA.
There was lots of talk about how the merger would have stifled innovation and created monopolistic problems. Well, those who said it don't understand the technological problems of the wireless utility industry. There is not enough spectrum for either AT&T or T-Mobile to compete separately while providing the best service for their customers. There is not enough capital for T-Mobile to build wireless infrastructure across the country. If there were, you may have a case about a monopoly. But there isn't, so you don't. There isn't enough spectrum for AT&T, and there isn't enough money for T-Mobile. T-Mobile isn't going to be able to provide the best customer service in the business and the coolest phones (only one of the four without iPhone) and the capital infrastructure for 4G and future wireless technologies.
Both companies, and the American consumer, has lost because of this deal's breakdown. I no longer work at T-Mobile, and I think they will continue to be a successful company, but I believe they will be drowned out by Verizon and AT&T due to their size, regardless of T-Mobile's continued nimbleness and "scrappiness".
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Right decision has been taken. Since both are good market players can survive individually. But these guys has to think about the poor people. People can also recycle their used mobiles with www.atterobay.com/sell-used-mobile.
The $4B from AT&T represents 4.3x TM's last 4 quarters of earnings.
Deutsch Telekom desperately wants to unload them. With 4 years profits in the bag they should just firesale them off at this point and declare victory.
The alternative is to make massive investments to try and end the hemmoraging of subscribers and turn the company around. The odds of their management making that happen successfully are somewhere between slim and unlikely.
No one else in the cellular market is going to want to buy them in the shape they are in. This is the time that someone who wants to be in that space and has deep pockets (Amazon? Google? Facebook?) should buy them. They could transform them into something other than a mediocre mobile phone company.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
This is what is wrong with the business world as a whole worldwide. It isn't 'good enough' to make a quality product that provides something useful to you customers and pays all the employees while turning a smallish profit. it must GROW GROW GROW , which sooner or later always messes over the customer and creates unstable markets, because guess what , resources and capital aren't infinite.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
They also should have known to wait until there was a republic president in office because most 'good republicans' know that what is good for big business ( no matter how much it stifles competition or destroys the economy) is good for the nation. ( that is sarcasm there if you missed it).
Which is one of my major beefs with the republican party. The democrats would be a lot easier to support however if they were not actively pushing abortion and buggery.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Boo fricken hoo. -A common carrier employee
Yes! As a consumer, I am glad to see AT&T pull out of T-Mobile. As an AT&T customer, I wish they would now pull out of me!! I'm getting sore...
Carly Foulkes is safe.
Proverbs 21:19
"blah blah blah customers will be harmed"
Suck my dick, AT&T.
Yep.... well said. I loved my t-Mobile service when I had it. Now I am in AT&T country and not as happy about it. Calls drop all the time here.