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Congress Wants Obama to Force AT&T/DoJ Settlement

Sep 15, 2011, 2:39 PM by Eric M. Zeman

A handful of members of the House of Congress have written President Obama a letter formally requesting that he intervene in the Department of Justice's lawsuit against AT&T. Specifically, the representatives want the president to force the Justice Department to settle the lawsuit in favor of the merger. The representatives believe that the merger will be good for the country and create jobs. "The road to economic recovery is long, but there is an opportunity before us to immediately create jobs and spur infrastructure investments and technological innovations that will create jobs for years to come," said Rep. Heath Shuler in the letter. "By settling the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA we can put thousands of Americans back to work and promote economic development across the country. I urge the President to strongly consider the vast benefits this merger will have on job creation and the economy and quickly resolve any concerns the Administration may have with the proposal." The DoJ sued to block the merger because it feels the combined companies will have too much market power. Sprint representative John B. Taylor was quick to respond to the letter. He said, "Make no mistake, AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile will eliminate tens of thousand of jobs across the country. The flawed economic study embraced by AT&T and its union ignores what Wall Street investors and the Federal Government have been already been promised: that the overall investment for the combined companies will be substantially reduced if the proposed transaction closes." Sprint has also sued to block the merger. The judge overseeing the DoJ case has called for a hearing on September 21, and wants the parties involved to reach a settlement agreement. The Federal Communications Commission is also still reviewing the proposal.

source: Sprint

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Comments

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This forum is closed.

flywheel

Sep 18, 2011, 9:40 AM

Merger

I'm really not sure if this merger will benefit us... the public.

It seems the few carriers you have the greater the cost of service as there is less competition.

It makes it virtually impossible for a new carrier to enter the game as an existing large carrier will reduce price temporarily to crush them.

Example. I know in New Zealand they have a duopoly... just 2 carriers (Vodafone & Telecom NZ).
They both charge the same outrageous prices for service.

Example:
300 Mins
2500 txt msgs
250 MB data
$85

1000 mins
2500 txt msgs
500MB data
$150

In the USA T-Mobile currently offers:
unlimited minutes
unlimited txt msg
unlimited data
$89

You decide.

Troll-Bait

Sep 16, 2011, 5:41 PM

Socialism.

What right does the government have to make any decision regarding ANY merger of ANY private business?

Next they will be telling you that you cannot marry whomever you wish... oh wait.

WiWavelength

Troll-Bait said:
What right does the government have to make any decision regarding ANY merger of ANY private business?

Ah, Troll-Bait, I see that you are still simple mindedly spewing the Ayn Rand claptrap.

Wel...
(continues)

...

wecivus

Sep 15, 2011, 2:49 PM

How in the !*&# can this merger creat jobs???

Can someone please tell me how this will create jobs when most of the service territory between the companies overlaps. There will be retail closures, billing and accounting excess, network operation and call center redundancies, not to mention management layoffs. I dont understand. I wonder how much money AT&T and T-Mobile are paying lobbyist/Congressmen to write bull#$@! letters to the president.

IRIE4IPIER

Well if obama is as smart as perceived, then he will block this merger. The statements made by those reps seem like they are reading a script from AT&T. Someone's getting paid off here.

...

Ashke13

Anyone surprised? Let's all take votes to see which members of congress are wanting the merger to go thru and how much they were paid by ATT to write that letter.

...

sgoodbear

the name of the game is called Money. I believe this buy out will go through. AT&T has the money for it. And if anything happens it will be the same thing that happen when they where Bell South. They will split up TMO and sell them out to the highest ...
(continues)

jskrenes

I think the jobs created will be in the network deployment side. TMobile lacks the capital to conduct a massive 4G rollout like Verizon and AT&T, so if the merger goes through, we'll see more towers either go up or get modified for 4G which may create...
(continues)

Naytess

Sep 15, 2011, 3:27 PM

I call B.S. on this one!

I'd love to know which (Republican) House members are writing the President in support of the merger. Since AT&T donates A LOT of money to conservative politicians to help rally support for their own interests...it's not hard to fathom that there just might be a link between who received donations, and who is in support of the merger. Sounds like AT&T has finally requested to make a withdrawal on their earlier "political deposits". Ridiculous.

Oh...& domestic job creation???? Give me a small break, PLEASE!!!! That's one of the best punchlines for a truly stupid & unfunny joke I've ever heard! 👿

attrep42

Interesting... I dont know where you got your information, BUT, the 15 house members who wrote the letter were in fact of the democratic party, and the group is led by Heath Shuler, a NC democrat. Next time, check your resources. Thanks 🙂

...

Naytess

http://www.fastcompany.com/1726212/tech-corporations ... »

😎

ReaperXero

Neytess, no need to correct yourself. MOST of us understand your comments. This strung out longer than it should have.

...

Mektah

Sep 16, 2011, 12:53 AM

The only way it would work...

... is if along with the merger AT&T were forced to create manufacturing plants that created all of the devices needed to upgrade to 4g services and had to pay for all of the ex T-mobile employeees to be retrained in another field and had to guarantee them jobs or unemployement benefits until they were able to get them.

Vmac39

Sep 15, 2011, 4:19 PM

question posed

What carrier could buy TMO and keep the majority of the jobs?

If TMO's parent company DT is intending on selling that portion of the their business, wouldn't the majority, if not all the TMO employees loose their jobs?

Wouldn't some jobs being maintained be better than none?

If Sprint had been the ones to buy TMO, they most certainly would not keep most of the jobs. They wouldn't be able to afford to. It just seems that the argument most people have have about the merger, would happen with or without ATT being in the picture.

Slammer

Theoretically, There are NON-carrier companies that could purchase Tmobile as an "expansion" to their business structure. This could keep most of the current Tmobile staff.

However, the argument is not about jobs being lost as what happens with a ...
(continues)

...

paulflorez

Sep 15, 2011, 3:43 PM

Mergers create duplicate "jobs" which are then eliminated

If AT&T needs more spectrum, they can enter into an agreement with T-Mobile where they lease their services and coordinate deployment to reduce service duplication. The two do not need to merge to share spectrum.

All the merger would do is kill jobs and decrease competition, which would result in even more out of work people and higher prices.

Xaphan

Sep 15, 2011, 3:40 PM

Adding 5000 estimated jobs from oversees while losing 40000 equals a 35000 job less. If it costs at&t 3.9 billion to do in under a year what this supposed merger will do in half a decade for 40 billion it's obvious they just want to eliminate the competition. This has nothing whatsoever to do with helping any consumer. I'm disgusted and appalled that the American people have elected people into congress that think like this. These people didn't grow up rich, white, and educated to give this bull ****. They all got bought out. Period. Money runs the world. The last thing America needs is another 40000 jobs down the ****ter which will trickle down into other markets ever deepening the unemployment and poverty gaps. **** this industry.

Slammer

Sep 15, 2011, 3:19 PM

Heath Shuler: The Ray Finkle of Real Life.

The disgruntled football character portrayed in Ace Venture, was Ray Finkle.

It appears Representative Joe Heath Shuler might be suffering from the same trauma after being ridiculed his last years as a football Quarterback. Out for revenge against society.

He will not get a Heisman for this recommendation for a merge.

John B.

sp_5015

😁

Tofuchong

It was'nt his fault man! The Laces were IN!

Jellz

Sep 15, 2011, 2:43 PM

I'm no politician

But I think that the Congress just doesn't want to touch this with a ten-foot pole and figures that Obama supporting it can make it go through yet not bring bad publicity on individual congress people.

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