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dave

It looks like the AT&T / T-Mobile merger won't go through!

AT&T announced that they won't be acquiring T-Mobile due to antitrust concerns. Crazy! Because of this breakup, T-Mobile will get $4 billion in cash. Not too shabby.

AT&T users: Does this hinder AT&Ts plan for building an LTE network?
T-Mobile users: I imagine you're feeling pretty good right now!

Via: www.att.com­/gen­/press­-room­?pid­=22146­&cdvn­=news...

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6 replies
MetalHaze

You know what sucks about this? Everyone here loses except T-Mobile. And who the hell cares about them?

AT&T loses. (and they lose 3 billion dollars to T-Mobile for backing out)
AT&T customers lose.
T-Mobile customers lose.
Nobody's reception gets better, and T-Mobile gains 3 billion from AT&T.

As far as being a consumer is concerned, this is horrible.
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byt

I wrote a term paper for one of my economics classes on this acquisition. I think this was probably the least desirable outcome as well.
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roberto

Good for competition, though I fear T-Mobile will have to sell to someone eventually.
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nitehawk

So on the surface, "Yay! Competition! Boo AT&T!"

In reality, T-Mobile sucks, can't get any exciting exclusive smartphones and with the race to the bottom outside of the big 2 T-Mobile is still getting beat by other carriers with low plans it can't compete with. AT&T is a long time American company that spotted a poorly performing carrier with some useful assets. So on the business side this sucks because Verizon can delay rolling out LTE and AT&T will have to rush to keep up after they figure out how the hell they are going to give up $4B in cash plus legal fees. So people with AT&T will see a rise in their rates, and Verizon can likely boost their rates a little more if they feel they can get away with it.
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connorg

Yeah, I was rooting for this deal to go through. It would mean better AT&T service (in theory anyways) and probably a faster rollout of 4G in some form or another.

Instead we get the guise of preserving competition despite that within a couple years T-mobile is gonna either get bought out or just disappear anyways.
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byt

Why would T-Mobile USA disappear? Who would buy it if not AT&T? Certainly a Verizon acquisition of T-Mobile USA would be met with antitrust investigation just as this one did.
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