'No Way' and 'Steep Climb' quote from FCC Official on AT&T/T-Mobile Merger

[dgstorm]

Apparently, there is some measure of sanity in the world, as the Wall Street Journal got a quote from an FCC official on Wednesday, regarding the AT&T/T-Mobile Buyout. The official said,

"There's no way the chairman's office rubber-stamps this transaction. It will be a steep climb to say the least."

The Wall Street Journal also added,

The official stressed that the agency hasn't even begun to formally evaluate AT&T's proposal and will examine the deal on its merits and whether it's in the public interest.

Furthermore, the article also pointed out that deals like this have been approved before despite these types of warnings. Regardless, it will probably be a long time before we know anything for sure. It could be a year or more before it passes through the regulatory process with the FCC and DOJ. Also, the deal between AT&T and T-Mobile includes a $3 Billion dollar cancellation payout even if the merger falls through. You know AT&T is going to fight aggressively to avoid giving up $3 Billion bucks for nothing.

Source: Android.net via The Inquirer via The Wall Street Journal

 

[NeoPhoenixTE]

Yay for corporate drama.

*sits in his Verizon booth munching popcorn*

 

[mdowns989]

T-Mo-Att Merger

My friend has a blacberry on T-Mobile and 2days ago where her service normally said 'T-Mobile' it now says ATT and she's getting coverage in spots that were previously dead to her...

 

[Stelv]

I don't trust the government to block this merger, they are always swayed by under the table pay-outs and crooked lobbyist.

 

[cjreyes666]

i wont believe it till i see it

 

[piquat]

I don't trust the government to block this merger, they are always swayed by under the table pay-outs and crooked lobbyist.

Yup, all this:

It will be a steep climb to say the least.

means anymore is who do you have to pay and how much.

 

[smd12]

almost the same thing was said about the nbc universal comcast merger it took a year and a half and i'm sure a lot of $$$ but it did finally pass with a list of demands that probably won't be enforced.

 

[cucucachu0000]

this is so dumb why try to be the best company and to knock out competition when you succeed the government knocks you down lower then when you were (3 billion dollar fee). you started seeing it already with verizon they didnt have the iphone so they came out with the droid and unlimited plans and great service, inovating to get ahead they got the iphone and rather than knocking at&t out for the count they settled in changing pricing plans and upgrading policies and return policies. i was glad to hear this because at&t would finally would be able to keep up. now while government looters try to suck out as much money as they can from a company that could use that money for hiring new people or expanding service or lowering prices goes to congress. government is what corrupted business not the other way around. Think about this, when microsoft was broken up guess how much they spent on lobyist??????? $0 they were busy making better software for cheaper than everyone else the way it was meant to be. they learned there lesson now they spend hundreds of millions on lobyist. its alot like when the mafia would go to the most successfull business owners telling them to pay protection money and if they didnt theyd burn your shop down.

 

[dafischman]

this is so dumb why try to be the best company and to knock out competition when you succeed the government knocks you down lower then when you were (3 billion dollar fee). you started seeing it already with verizon they didnt have the iphone so they came out with the droid and unlimited plans and great service, inovating to get ahead they got the iphone and rather than knocking at&t out for the count they settled in changing pricing plans and upgrading policies and return policies. i was glad to hear this because at&t would finally would be able to keep up. now while government looters try to suck out as much money as they can from a company that could use that money for hiring new people or expanding service or lowering prices goes to congress. government is what corrupted business not the other way around. Think about this, when microsoft was broken up guess how much they spent on lobyist??????? $0 they were busy making better software for cheaper than everyone else the way it was meant to be. they learned there lesson now they spend hundreds of millions on lobyist. its alot like when the mafia would go to the most successfull business owners telling them to pay protection money and if they didnt theyd burn your shop down.

I think you're confused. ATT isn't trying to be the best company by purchasing T-Mobile, they are trying to gain leverage so they don't have to deal with the competition. The 3billion is not a government thing, it was part of the agreement between ATT and T-Mobile. I imagine it was put in to keep ATT from backing out of the agreement once the merger went public which could cause investors to pull money out of T-Mobile and causing them losses. And as much as I agree that government often times doesn't handle things the best, if you believe that large cooperations aren't just as likely to ripoff anyone they can then I can't help you. Up to this point, tell me what ATT or Verizon (the top 2 mobile companies) have been doing to improve prices or products for their customers. Without competition from the littler guys, they will have even less motivation to push forward in tech and to keep prices low.

Josh

 

[kodiak799]

I just keep going back to the new tech that is rumored to be coming out with the small box-type transceivers that can be put up all over the place without being an eyesore (on top of lamp posts was one thing mentioned). What's interesting is since all the wireless ultimately gets pumped through hard-wired lines, this could enable some of the cable operators to get in the game in the not-so-distant future.

I expect the AT&T/TMo deal ultimately to be approved, but they will probably be required to divest some assets and sell some wireless frequencies they have rights to. The combined unit is still less than half the market.

On top of that, there's still a lot of competition from broadband as far as data. There's only so much people will pay, much less need, in between home and work where most have wifi. And as far as voice, VoIP and Google are poised to become major players, so I think the overall dynamic is still there for significant competition.

 

[Hugh Jass]

The FCC is going to approve this, don't be fooled...all they are doing is quieting down the drama by saying they're going to give this a hard time but it's hogwash, media damage control 101 for dummies, pick it up at your local library. :sleep:

 

[cucucachu0000]

At&t has terrible service and so does t mobile but combined they won't have so many dropped calls therefore the company is better, plus more customer would mean more money which means they can keep up and try to be a better company which in turn makes more money. I think we can all agree verizon is bigger and better than at&t and if they didn't do something there wasn't gonna be much room for them to compete. so I don't know what you mean by getting leverage to not deal with competition they were lagging behind tthis was more of a desperate move to keep up. The case I was making about the 3 billion was that if they get cut down by the govt they will lose that 3 bill and be worse off then they were before they tried to get bigger and better. the little guys give no competion they were the last guys to get smart phones. I already gave some examples of them competeing at&t come out with iphone, verizon comes out with droid and several other phones, then. They both lowered there prices to 90 bucks a month for a smartphone plan, at&t lost iphone exclusive, verizon with its better service and now endless phone could just wipe out the competion now by lowering prices on phones or monthly plans but instead change return policy, upgrading policy, and soon to change there data pricing all in there favor. We have put a ceiling on how successfull a company can be so they just float around mediocrity never striving to be the best. There's never been a record of a naturely acuring monoploy that raised prices to screw everyone the closest thing to that was in the early 1900s when we raised import tarriffs so high that we completely cut off imports and by that taking away competion from other countrys and cutting supply and in effect raising prices. Showing once again every time the govt touches anything all goes to hell.

 

[Vulcan1600]

AT&T had a pathetic 3G presence, and their 4G was even more pathetic. They really need this merger to succeed or they will probably not stay solvent because VZW and even Sprint have a better grip on 4G.

 

[Hugh Jass]

AT&T had a pathetic 3G presence, and their 4G was even more pathetic. They really need this merger to succeed or they will probably not stay solvent because VZW and even Sprint have a better grip on 4G.

But don't make the mistake of assuming that service is going to spell success in their alphabet soup though, devices are very important and Verizon is simply failing gratuitously in this department yet again. 2 years ago this didn't matter to the customer as much because smartphones were not a necessity as it's seen in society today, if the merger goes though and the cards play well for AT&T, and Verizon continues to drop the ball with flagship Android devices Verizon could quickly find it's self losing big chunks of previously loyal customers. Verizon service is great, but with no flagship devices taking advantage of it it doesn't matter to the consumer as a whole. People will go where the devices are found, period.

 

[Big Dawg 23]

AT&T had a pathetic 3G presence, and their 4G was even more pathetic. They really need this merger to succeed or they will probably not stay solvent because VZW and even Sprint have a better grip on 4G.

Not all coverage on AT&T is Pathetic. I was with VZW for 6 years(left Oct 2010) and I had spots that always dropped calls because of No Coverage. Moved to T-Mobile and has similar areas where I lost coverage or went to Edge.

Now as of March 7th I went to AT&T and got everyone's favorite Fruit Phone. The inability to increase the battery size on the Inspire and Bootloader/Smaller Screen on Atrix killed Android for me. As of today my phone is always in 3G has hasn't dropped a single call. It is nice streaming Sirius and other radio to my Car Stereo because it NEVER cuts out.

I also got unlimited data with my Fruit Phone. Not to mention speeds that I have seen posted are faster than LTE areas for VZW.


As for the merger, this will go through. They will do like VZW did with Alltell and AT&T did with Cingular by divesting overlapping Networks.