7 States Pile On Lawsuit to Stop AT&T/T-Mobile Deal
Sprint Statement
AT&T Statement
Comments 55
Sep 16, 2011, 2:37 PM by Eric M. Zeman
updated Sep 16, 2011, 3:07 PM
Updated: added att response
Seven U.S. states have officially joined the Department of Justice's lawsuit against AT&T, which hopes to prevent it from acquiring T-Mobile. The states include California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. In a statement the Justice Department said, "We have had an excellent working relationship with a number of state attorneys general and they have provided invaluable assistance throughout our investigation. We are pleased that these states have joined the department in its lawsuit." The Justice Department filed its lawsuit on August 31. It believes the merger would create an anti-competitive environment in the wireless industry, consolidating too much power in just two companies. A preliminary date for the lawsuit is scheduled for September 21, and the judge overseeing the lawsuit has already indicated that all the parties involved should come prepared to negotiate a settlement. The Federal Communications Commission is still conducting its own review of the proposal. AT&T responded this afternoon with a statement, "It is not unusual for state attorneys general to participate in DOJ merger review proceedings or court filings. At the same time, we appreciate that 11 state attorneys general and hundreds of other local, state and federal officials are publicly supportive of our merger. We will continue to seek an expedited hearing on the DOJ’s complaint. On a parallel path, we have been and remain interested in a solution that addresses the DOJ’s issues with the T-Mobile merger."
Reuters »
Sprint:
This afternoon, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that seven state attorneys general representing California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington joined the department's lawsuit against AT&T, T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom. The Justice Department filed its amended complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Vonya McCann, Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) senior vice president for Government Affairs, issued the following statement:
"After a comprehensive review of the facts related to AT&T's proposed takeover of T-Mobile, seven state attorneys general have reached the same conclusion as the U.S. Department of Justice: This proposed takeover violates antitrust law and would harm consumers, competition and our nation's economy. This is a strong stand for American consumers, and Sprint commends this bipartisan group of state attorneys general for joining with the U.S. Justice Department to protect consumers, competition and American jobs."
About the author, Eric M. Zeman:Eric has been covering the mobile telecommunications industry for 17 years at various print and online publications. He studied at Rutgers Newark and University of Kentucky, and has a degree in writing. He likes playing guitar, attending concerts, listening to music, and driving sports cars.
Thank you States (& DoJ)! Now America Movil, PLEASE buy TMO!
I think this consolidation of T-Mobile into AT&T would be horrible for the U.S. consumer. You see it happening now that Verizon, ATT & Sprint all mirror what the others do. I really, really hope a powerhouse with deep pockets and hundreds of millions of customers worldwide like America Movil comes in and scoops up T-Mobile for a deal. With their 20 million current Tracfone, StraightTalk and Net10 customers & T-Mobile's 35 or so million it would instantly surpass Sprint as #3 carrier. With lots of cash & spectrum from ATT with the deal being squashed, AM could build out TMO's network dramatically & quickly & could catapult themselves into #1 position before long. I like the idea of an " big outsider" far larger than Verizon or ATT combined e...
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America Movil is a crap company. If they purchase T-Mobile they'll destroy it much more efficiently than AT&T could.
This way too we keep our current 4 nationwide carriers & have some serious competition in the cellular market. With AM/TMO beating out Sprint at the get-go and likely to be nipping at the heels of ATT & Verizon shortly thereafter, we consumers would w...
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I think the best case scenario would be for a large land line carrier that does not currently have a cellular presence to buy T-Mobile. CenturyLink, maybe? They're currently listed as a dealer for VZW, but they could dump that.
Open your eyes you sheeple
I find it interesting that nobody was up in arms when that whore of a company VZ was eating up its competition in rural america when they bought air touch, Alltel and many others just to name a few. The DOJ is owned and controlled by Verizon and Sprint has heavy influencers in that space as well. Were those mergers any different when it comes to a market by market monopoly? If they block this acquisition the FCC and DOJ have major lawsuits coming to them because of the free ride VZW has always had. The truth of it is that Tmobile is losing money and AT&T is one of the few companies that has the money to buy them. Nobody will loan Sprint the money as they lose money on anything they touch. D Telekom has said it needs to get rid of Tmobile and...
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I think it might have something to do with the fact and by ATT's own admission they don't need T-Mobile to bring LTE to 97% of Americans. And indeed they can do it allot cheaper than $39 billion.
In case you've forgotten, at&t did its best to block the Verizon / Alltel merger. Now, they want to buy out, not a regional carrier, but the 4th largest national carrier. The end result being at&t and Verizon controlling over 70% of the wireless marke...
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YouAresheeple said:
I find it interesting that nobody was up in arms when that whore of a company VZ was eating up its competition in rural america when they bought air touch, Alltel and many others just to name a few. The DOJ is o
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I think it also has something to do with the fact that T-Mobile and AT&T are the only large GSM cellular carriers left. There might be one or two small regional GSM carriers left, but if AT&T gets its mitts on T-Mobile, it will have pretty much a tota...
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What about Comcast? One of the few companies in the U.S. I think America Movil & Telefonica are possibilities outside the U.S.
Exactly YouAresheeple same with the data issues on the topic above this. AT&T caps and then slows down data on unlimited plans, heck you would think they flew some airliners in the World Trade Center with all the hundreds of complaints over it. Some...
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Fair weather lawsuits
I find it interesting that nobody was up in arms when that whore of a company VZ was eating up its competition in rural america when they bought air touch, Alltel and many others just to name a few. The DOJ is owned and controlled by Verizon and Sprint has heavy influencers in that space as well. Were those mergers any different when it comes to a market by market monopoly? If they block this acquisition the FCC and DOJ have major lawsuits coming to them because of the free ride VZW has always had. The truth of it is that Tmobile is losing money and AT&T is one of the few companies that has the money to buy them. Nobody will loan Sprint the money as they lose money on anything they touch. D Telekom has said it needs to get rid of Tmobile and...
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In no way is this even comparable to Verizon's buy out of any of the companies that it has bought. AT&T and tmobile are very large companies and are cell phone carriers nationwide alltel was much smaller and all the other companies that went by the w...
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So enlighten me as to why you needed to make two topics with the exact same speech? 😕
I'm pretty sure that if the doj were "owned by Verizon" they wouldn't be suing to block this merger.
I couldnt agree with you more, well said 😁
The Obvious Solution:
Google buys T-mobile out from under AT&T.
There. I fixed it.
true but then people wwill complain about them getting all the good android phones lol
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