Fear the ‘twin Bells’: Petitions seek to halt AT&T takeover of T-Mobile

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/01/fear-the-twin-bells-petitions-seek-to-halt-att-takeover-of-t-mobile/

Mobile phone carrier Sprint and an Internet advocacy group filed petitions this week with federal regulators seeking to halt AT&T's $39 billion acquisition of competitor T-Mobile.

"The merger would remove one competitor from the already consolidated mobile market, leaving Verizon and Sprint as the only other major competitors," the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) wrote in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission.

"It would result in a single carrier controlling almost 42 percent of wireless subscribers, with approximately 128 million customers and a monopoly in the GSM service marketplace. The merger would also result in two companies, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, controlling nearly 80 percent of the U.S. wireless market."

In a separate petition, Sprint called the potential for a Verizon-AT&T dominated market reason enough to fear the "twin Bells." Sprint officials have already provided testimony regarding the merger to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

More at the link --

[Taverner]

1. Why did we de-regulate the telephone monopoly again?

Oh yeah....

[customerserviceguy]

4. That had nothing to do with cell phone

Only landline services. This consolidation of cell phone companies would have happened anyway.

Hard to believe that Sprint (with lousy customer service in their stores) is now my 'champion', I sure don't want to go from a T-Mobile customer to being an ATT one again. And I'll never, ever give a dime to Verizon Wireless again for the rest of my life.

If this merger goes through, then I'm almost out of options.

[Taverner]

5. Not directly, but land lines were de-regulated to break up monopolies

Cell Phone cos and Land Line cos are folding into monopolies just the same

[customerserviceguy]

6. Yes, they are

But your point about the original deregulation were unrelated to what's happening now.

Frankly, as long as there are still landlines, and especially cable and Internet telophony, I cannot see Congress ever trying to use monopoly regulation over cell phone providers, even if they merge into only one or two companies. ATT/Sprint/Verizon will always have enough money to buy enough congresscritters to keep that from happening.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. I really don't care what T Mobile does

so long as they keep Carly Foulkes doing their commercials.

[DefenseLawyer]

3. I would rather have a highly regulated monopoly than unregulated collusion

between a small number of huge companies that control a market. When you have a business like telephones, oil, airlines, etc where there are so few players in the market and no real way for a new player to enter, there is no real "competition" anyway. They can, and do, get together like the Five Families and just slice up the pie.