Senate Antitrust Subcommittee chairman asks regulators to block AT&T / T-Mobile merger

By on Jul 20, 2011 at 3:24 PM
Business July 20, 2011

Senator Herb Kohl, the chairman of the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee is recommending that federal regulators deny AT&T’s $39 billion planned acquisition of T-Mobile. ”I have concluded that this acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies,” Kohl said on Wednesday. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee, Congressman John Conyers, and Congressman Edward Markey also recently wrote a letter to the Justice Department and the FCC expressing concern that the acquisition would hurt competition in the U.S. wireless market. “We believe that AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile would be a troubling backward step in federal public policy–a retrenchment from nearly two decades of promoting competition and open markets to acceptance of a duopoly in the wireless marketplace,” the letter said. “Such industry consolidation could reduce competition and increase consumer costs at a time our country can least afford it.” Sprint and its CEO Dan Hesse have also been very involved in trying to stop the merger. While Hesse has argued the deal will “stifle innovation” in the U.S. Wireless market, AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson has argued the opposite and has said it will result in “net job growth.” In June AT&T’s General Counsel Wayne Watts said that the deal, which has been backed by other big tech hitters such as Microsoft, was on schedule for a March 2012 approval.

Read [9to5 Mac] Read [NationalJournal]

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  • Itwillpass

    I hope it gets approved and it will. Especially when you have billion dollar companies like Microsoft and Facebook backing it up

    • Anonymous

      Of course it should get approved. Everybody knows that less choice is better since we don’t have spend more time deciding what we should buy. Plus, it is a well known fact that giant monopolistic corporations like AT&T, Microsoft and Facebook will always act in the best interest of the American Public. What we should do is  let giant corporations like run our country. It’s not like they would poison the environment, fix prices, cause a global financial disaster, market unsafe products, spy on others or treat their employees unfairly.

    • Anonymous

      Thank you for illustrating what’s wrong with our system.

  • Delacy Sanford

    lets see….you dont want att to buy t-mobile, DT doesnt want t-mobile usa, t-mobile usa doesnt have enough capital to survive…t-mobile usa shuts its doors like helio, disney, espn and others…people lose their jobs, t-mo customers lose their numbers…and then we are stuck with Verizon, at&t, and Sprint. back where we started. However, you spin it, you get the same result. Damn i forgot to ask “how much is this costing me in taxes with all these hearings??” 

    My stance on this: who cares, in my optimus prime voice “one shall stand, one shall fall”

    • KCRic

      So what, T-Mobile has to close it’s doors. Then every carrier has a chance to buy that spectrum. Oh my god!! Not COMPETITION! God forbid America goes back to it’s old ways were something like that is encouraged.

  • http://about.me/brandonmccall brandonmccall

    Ain’t that good news?

  • The Robot Devil

    Think about this…if this merger is allowed to go through every foreigner that travels to the United States will be roaming on the AT&T network. The billions of extra dollars in AT&T will pocket will make up that $39 billion dollar price tag to acquire T-Mobile in no time. This is why AT&T jumped in to prevent Sprint from buying T-Mobile. They want that market for themselves. Their other reasons are secondary.

    • Nope Com

      These businesses have intentions and plans to make profit!  I don’t like it one bit!

  • Phone guy

    The same senate that can’t run a country hmmm. I really don’t care for the merger because I believe that those phone choices will be there. Remembervthe verizon – altel merger. Altel customers weren’t happy at first but it worked for the best for everyone

    • KCRic

      So there’s actually a person in the government that’s concerned about the death spiral this country is taking and is trying to do something about it. Your response it to rip his ass? We have a true patriot here people. A regular Paul Revere you are. 

  • A_g_ness

    Block the deal!!!

  • Anonymous

    Wait, wait, wait… there are lawmakers that actually CARE about people?? And here I was thinking they were all focused on misinforming the public in order to get reelected.

  • Anonymous

    The United States and Canada have the highest cell phone bills in the entire world. Explain that, please. Why would we want to make it even worse?

  • Ben

    Another Politicians recommendation bought and paid for by those against the merger, although I am against the merger I just hate to see these self serving, corrupt politicans have anything to do with it, special interests simply buy them, hell, they cant even run our country so what makes them think they can understand this merger?

  • http://twitter.com/chpid Ben S.

    We also need to have closer monitoring of any lobbying that AT&T does.  Verification of no special ties to any senator, house member, governor, mayor or any other public official is in order.  Any person who supports this merger is a suspect, worthy of further investigation. 

  • Anonymous

    Block block block bbbbblaaaaooock

  • Anonymous

    thank goodness someone has come to their senses about this.  

  • Gabriel Braun

    I love T-mobile service and pricing. Hell no I won’t go to AT&T!

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