Confirmed by AT&T, the merger with T-Mobile is officially dead. AT&T will now have to pay T-Mobile 3 Billion Dollars and a wad of spectrum, total value around 3 Billion. Hurray! :googlyeye AT&T, T-Mobile Kill $39 Billion Merger - Deal Journal - WSJ
Y - Thanks for posting this. Here is also the story from the NY Times: AT&T Ends $39 Billion Bid for T-Mobile - NYTimes.com
Yay! I think Sprint played a role in this deal being killed and it also sets a good precedent to keep Verizon from thinking about any additional mega mergers. Verizon will not be alllowed to buy Sprint or T-Mobile either. A great day for customers and competition!
I agree, larry. I don't want to see Verizon get any bigger at Sprint's expense or anyone else, for that matter. I'm glad this failed. The only bad part is what this means for T-Mobile's future. Thankfully AT&T won't be apart of it.
The problem is that DT doesn't want to be competitive in the US market, they want to be out of the US market.
With all of the spectrum VZW just bought from Cox and other cable companies, they won't need to buy anyone for a while.
According to the papers, the $3 Billion will only be around $1.4 Billion after a tax write off. Seemingly small change. But I'm probably the only one sad to see this merger fail. It would have been a win for me in more coverage with ATT, into areas that were owned by Tmobile. Increased costs? ATT hasn't changed my rates for my 850min/mon, rollover family plan in...I can't even remember when. Maybe 10 years now? So I didn't see my bill going up to pay for anything. And 10 years ago, it only changed, downwards, when I took a new plan. Amazing.
I know I am in the minority but I was in favor of the merger as I saw increased coverage available. How could "big brother" allow Verizon to buy Alltel and deny ATT from buying TMO? The FCC is another department that needs to be de-funded!
Because Alltel was not one of the 4 major US carriers. They were not in many major markets and the merger had a completely different feel to it. AT&T insulted the people by lying and saying it would create jobs with absolutely no evidence to support it (and accidentally leaking the truth that it would kill jobs).
So you de-fund the FCC and let anyone do what they want with the airwaves with whatever frequency they wish? Speaking of increased coverage, if AT&T has $39B to spend to buy T-Mo, they have plenty of money to build out a decent network. There are so many places around where I live that AT&Ts network is a joke. Spectrum is not the issue, they have a a 25MHz cellular band and 20MHz PCS. They just won't spend what they need to on infrastructure. There is no doubt the T-Mo buyout attempt was a poorly disguised effort to eliminate a competitor.
Not knowing where you live, I can't say for sure, but would AT&T gain anything by expanding in your area? If they don't see the potential to recoup their costs, why would they do so. Also, are there any NIMBY city/town councils in the area? That's another reason they might not be building out.
My SMS rate went from $.10 to send in 2004 to $.20 to send before the messaging has stopped working altogether in April. I'm also sure their margin on messaging is much higher than on any other service and by taking the flexibility of $5 and $10 packages away they must've increased the profits. I'm sure they'll find the ways...
What bands of spectrum are involved in roaming? What bands of spectrum will be given to T-Mobile? UMTS 2100? Does the iphone come into play?
Yes, sms service and data service for my smartphone have increased my bills with ATT. But the voice rates have been unchanged for a decade. So I was for the merger and saw no downside for me at all. Only more coverage for current ATT customers. vf
Apparently I am not the only one who thinks the ATT and TMO merger was a good thing and 'big brother' has overstepped his bounds by blocking it. From the Jacksonville NC Daily News: Empty ‘victory’ in telecom case | government, model, antitrust - News Source for Jacksonville, North Carolina - jdnews.com Empty ‘victory' in telecom case December 29, 2011 10:04 AM On antitrust, the U.S. government seems stuck in the Model T era. It just doesn’t understand that, in this age of Apple, Google, Facebook and thousands of lightning-fast digital companies, it’s practically impossible to build a monopoly. That’s why the Federal Trade Commission was so wrong in thwarting AT&T’s attempted $39 billion purchase of cellphone competitor T-Mobile USA. In its Aug. 31 suit against the merger, the government contended that competition would be reduced, increasing costs to consumers. The merger would have made the AT&T the largest U.S. cellphone company, with Verizon second, Sprint third and smaller companies following. On Dec. 19, AT&T dropped the merger attempt, costing it $4 billion in fees and other charges to Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s German parent. “This result is a victory for the millions of Americans who use mobile wireless telecommunications services,” cheered Deputy Attorney General James Cole. “A significant competitor remains in the marketplace, and consumers will benefit from a quick resolution.” The opposite is true. “One of the worst aspects of this is that it actually deprives consumers of competition,” according to Wayne Crews, vice president for policy and director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Because AT&T and T-Mobile both will be weaker now than a combined company would have been, “the competition can just sit back and take it easy. It’s a form of corporate welfare.” He added that “antitrust is often called an ‘alternative to regulation.’ This is one of the worst interventions you can have” by government into industry. He said that, aside from antitrust, American businesses face an incredible 4,000 new federal regulations a year. And state governments are no slouches, either, at regulating industry. The future is too unpredictable, and exciting, to be hamstrung by outdated regulations. If federal bureaucrats hamper technology development in America, it will occur, instead, in Germany, China or India.
