AT&T responds to Senate Antitrust Subcomittee chairman’s recommendation to block merger

By on Jul 20, 2011 at 5:35 PM
Business July 20, 2011

Earlier on Wednesday, the Senate Subcommittee chairman Senator Herb Kohl urged federal regulators to block AT&T’s planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile. On Wednesday afternoon, AT&T responded to Senator Kohl’s recommendation with the following statement:

We respect Senator Kohl. However, we feel his view is inconsistent with antitrust law, is shared by few others, and ignores the many positive benefits and numerous supporters of the transaction. This is a decision that will be made by the Department of Justice and the FCC under applicable law and after a full and fair examination of the facts. We continue to believe those reviews will result in approval of this transaction.

Despite opposition from Kohl and others, AT&T said that there are currently 26 governors, 76 democratic members of congress, 72 mayors, and unions that represent 20 million members that are in favor of the merger and argue that it will be good for consumers, provide jobs, and help the economy. In addition, Senator Mike Lee also made a statement today in support of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. “The mobile phone market is a critical component of our nation’s economy and the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile deserves careful review,” Lee said. “In my view, the merger has the potential to provide significant network efficiencies that may help alleviate capacity constraints, enable enhanced service quality, and facilitate expansion of a 4G LTE nationwide network, which would in turn create opportunities for handset innovation and continued development of data-rich applications.” Lee also said that he’s confident the FCC and Department of Justice will ensure that the U.S. wireless market remains competitive.

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  • zps

    listening to the “benefits” of this merger by the various paid shills gives me quite a few laughs.  it’s laughable that this merger will be good for consumers.  knowing how much money at&t has spread around, my gut tells me it passes, in spite of the fact that it concentrates the mobile market even further and allows at&t and verizon to act in even more anticompetitive manner than they are currently.   pathetic and infuriating.

    • Bullet Tooth Tony

      It will be good for consumers… any other position on this means you don’t understand a damn thing about spectrum.  AWS, to be specific.  What AWS means to worldwide roaming, what AWS was reserved for by everyone’s precious GSMA, and how T-Mobile is currently wasting AWS on a totally different technology, creating a walled garden in one nation.  You want competition?  How about we start where the competition really matters, in handsets and FUNCTIONING networks.

      Keep eating whatever hyperbole is being fed to you tho.

      • zps

        you are forgetting to address the crucial issue, and that is the state of the market post-acquisition.  with two dominant players controlling 80, yes 80 percent of the market, VZN and ATT will have way too much power to raise prices and stop competing.   i’m glad that you are so certain in your assertion of this being good for consumers, but most of us realize what this is really about, and that is the ability of ATT to further dominate the market and jack up prices.

  • Xkidace

    I love how everyone think at&t will jack up prices it drop unlimited plans ect. Nobody but at&t knows what the gameplan is, if the merger goes through. Speculation in its finest moment.

    • Anonymous

      Exactly. If you read Kohl’s response, AT&T can’t justify its position and merits based on speculation over “benefits over 6 years”.

      In fact, the FCC has stopped the review clock because AT&T changed its justifications suddenly after first submission.

  • Without_wires

    There’s no surprise here. AT&T’s has as much lobbying power as any company in the U.S. and the deal is supported by the unions… I wonder why. The deal will just grow the size of the already bloated, worthless unions.

  • Cyberstoic

    just leaked memo from AT&T to Senator Kohl;

    Dear Senator;

    we are sorry to see that you publicly disagree with out proposed takeover of T-Mobile.  As you know, we have been lobbying heavily by disbursing large sums of campaign contributions to members of congress including many key members.  It was clearly an oversight on our part that you were not included in our list of individuals to receive these campaign contributions.  If you wanted to be included in our lobbying efforts, you could have contacted us, no need to call us out in public.  Rest assured, the check is in the mail.

    Your friends at the AT&T Lobbying Dept.

  • lb

    People need to realize the real reason this is happening: deutsche telekom wants nothing to do with tmobile usa any more and WILL BE selling it off whole or in parts to the highest bidder(s), AT&T will not be responsible for tmo layoffs. Tmo’s time is done, and people need to see that one way or another and stop acting like if this isn’t approved, tmobile will be “saved” or something.

    • Anonymous

      True, T-Mobile is finished, but allowing AT&T to take over is bad news for the consumer. We would be better served if another company bought T-Mobile and kept the service running. I could even live with having them be bought out by Sprint. If this happened Sprint would still be the number three carrier and would continue to offer lower prices for service than AT&T and Verizon in order to compete. It would also prevent AT&T from having the monopoly on the international wireless customer. 

  • KCRic

    AT&T – The little kids that always has to have the last word.

  • http://twitter.com/outdoor_michael michael

    “we respect Senator Kohl. However we feel his view is inconsistent with antitrust law (as defined by us), is shared by few others, and ignores the many positive benefits (to us) and numerous supporters (as bought by us) of the transaction….”

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