Sprint Sues to Block AT&T's T-Mobile Takeover

[alp227]

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Sprint Nextel Corp. filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block AT&T Inc.'s proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile USA, a few days after the Justice Department moved to block the combination.

Sprint's complaint was filed in federal court as a case related to the Justice Department's effort to block the pending deal. The telecommunications company had been vocal in opposing the deal, which would leave it in a tough competitive position, well behind industry leaders AT&T and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC.

Sprint said the proposed deal would lead to higher prices for consumers and business customers and entrench market leaders AT&T and Verizon. It said those companies would control more than three-quarters of the market and 90% of the profits if the acquisition were completed.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904900904576554661785111964.html

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Enter the title into google to read the full article, as clicking on the link from non-search result pages will bring up a "registration required" notice. This happens with WSJ and Financial Times articles a lot from my experience with their RSS feeds.

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Hah, nice timing.

Guess they wanted to take a big ol' shit in AT&T's cheerios.

[leftyohiolib]

2. at&t gave .5mil to rick perry's campaign

and paid 13000 for several hundred copies of perry's book. their idea is drag the court procedings out til the election get perry in as pres and then get the pres to stop the objection to the merger. buisiness the american way

[avaistheone1]

3. I agree and support Sprint's objections to this merger.

k&r

:kick:

[stockholmer]

4. T-Mobile users rejoice at Justice Dept. blocking AT&T merger

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/01/tech/mobile/t-mobile-users-rejoice/index.html

WIRED) -- "I'm so happy that I don't have to be an AT&T customer."

Posted to a T-Mobile message board this morning, one user's feelings nail the sentiment among consumers following Wednesday's announcement that the Justice Department is suing to block AT&T's proposed acquisition of the Deutsche-Telekom--owned wireless network.

T-Mobile users generally responded positively to the news that they wouldn't be seeing the AT&T death star on their cellphone bills anytime soon. Riffing on the oft-bemoaned shortcomings of both networks, one Wired.com reader http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/08/justice-department-moves-to-block-attt-mobile-merger/#comment-299655204 proposed an unfortunate merger scenario: "AT&T's zero-bars reception merged with T-Mobile's customer service. I think the result might just collapse into a black hole of suck."

snip

Of course, if the lawsuit fails to block the merger, today's customer rejoicing could lend itself to tomorrow's mass customer departures: "If AT&Terrible is able to acquire them," wrote one T-Mobile subscriber, http://support.t-mobile.com/message/27705#27705 "then I am outta here so fast they won't even know I existed."

[stockholmer]

5. How Sprint Wins Big If AT&T/T-Mobile Merger Blocked

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2011/09/02/how-sprint-wins-big-if-attt-mobile-merger-blocked/

Yesterday I posed a simple question: Why did Sprint Nextel shares go up when the Justice Dept. sued to block the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile? In its lengthy filing with the Federal Communications Commission opposing the merger, Sprint said the combination would raise prices for consumers, presumably a good thing for a smaller competitor who could follow suit with impunity.

snip

- Despite all the chatter about Sprint buying T-Mobile at a bargain price, Lee says that can’t happen, specifically because of the claims Sprint makes in its filing with the FCC. If industry concentration is the problem, then a Sprint/T-Mobile merger would raise the dreaded Herfindahl-Hirschman Index by 500 points, only slightly less than the 700 it would be raised if AT&T and T-Mobile combined. “The fact is that Sprint, through its advocacy, has disqualified itself from acquiring T-Mobile,” Lee writes. “So Sprint is not seeking to disqualify AT&T from acquiring T-Mobile, so that it may subsequently acquire T-Mobile for a lower price.”

- In its filing Sprint ridicules AT&T’s claims that it needs T-Mobile’s radio spectrum to expand its high-capacity4G data service. But what if AT&T is telling the truth? In that case AT&T would be forced to impose “congestion pricing” in its most crowded markets, discouraging customers from heavy data use, and opening a competitive opportunity for Sprint. The smaller carrier, Lee says, in its affiliation with Clearwire holds the most unused spectrum of all. Sprint has 93% of the SMR spectrum and 27% of PCS spectrum, to AT&T’s 26%, plus access to a huge swath of spectrum through Clearwire (details on pages 168-169 here.) http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0630/FCC-11-103A1.pdf


snip

- If AT&T is blocked from buying T-Mobile, the Deutsche Telecom unit will wither as its parent has made it clear it would prefer to invest in European mobile telecommunications instead of T-Mobile. The result is a three-carrier oligopoly with attractive competitive characteristics for Sprint, Lee says.

If T-Mobile decides to go it alone, “their only realistic alternative for offering “national” 4G services is through . . . Sprint’s majority-owned wholesale carrier, Clearwire. This is a brilliant gambit.”

snip

[99th_Monkey]

6. Makes me feel better about paying my Sprint bill this month. lol. ~nt

[IamK]

7. CWA union is for the merger.... Why are they wrong?

Washington, D.C. June 20, 2011 – The Communications Workers of America today filed additional comments with the Federal Communications Commission on the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. CWA reiterated why the merger is good for American consumers and good for American workers.

CWA’s points include:

An AT&T/T-Mobile Merger is good for consumers and workers.

•The merger will dramatically expand high-speed broadband buildout to underserved areas, bringing coverage with all its advantages to 97% of the United States.
•This merger will create jobs. AT&T has committed to increase capital expenditures by at least $8 billion over the next seven years, which would create as many as 96,000 good, family-supporting jobs.
•The merger will substantially ease network congestion, resulting in fewer dropped calls and faster connection speeds throughout the country.
•The merger will benefit workers in the wireless industry as AT&T is the only wireless company with a unionized workforce and a long tradition of non-interference with respect to the organizing employees.

http://www.cwa-union.org/news/entry/cwa_the_facts_support_attt-mobile_merger

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. Useful idiots,

Jobs and investment were promised when Cingular merged with AT&T Wireless in 2004, instead they laid off 10,000 people.
Jobs and investment were promised when SBC merged with AT&T, "the new AT&T" merger and instead they laid off 15,000 people in 2008 and 2009 and allowed their network to become a national punch line.

But this time is different...

[Delphinus]

9. Guess

it is a good time for me to switch to Sprint.