Texsox Posted September 1, 2011 Share Posted September 1, 2011 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/...E77U3JZ20110831 (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday filed to block AT&T Inc's $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom due to anti-competitive concerns. As part of the potential merger AT&T agreed to pay $3 billion and other considerations if the deal fell through. So it is potentially a nice payday for T-Mo. Is four the magic number of national cell providers in the marketplace and not three? Tough to say. On land-lines we learned that one wasn't enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Kickass Posted September 1, 2011 Share Posted September 1, 2011 If you think about it, its really two sets of two types of wireless companies. T-Mobile and ATT are the only two GSM providers, while Sprint and Verizon are the only two CDMA providers. I think if Sprint and T-Mobile merged and committed to providing both formulas, it really wouldn't be the issue that two of the same type of wireless providers would have merging at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Kickass Posted September 1, 2011 Share Posted September 1, 2011 If you think about it, its really two sets of two types of wireless companies. T-Mobile and ATT are the only two GSM providers, while Sprint and Verizon are the only two CDMA providers. I think if Sprint and T-Mobile merged and committed to providing both formulas, it really wouldn't be the issue that two of the same type of wireless providers would have merging at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2HH Posted September 2, 2011 Share Posted September 2, 2011 (edited) This is simply a case of the government (not blaming any in specific here), trying to look like it cares about 'fairness', when in reality, it's kind of shown us that it really doesn't care. For years Verizon and AT&T have basically price matched each others overly expensive services knowing they have the largest customer bases and most attractive coverage maps/phone exclusives, whether it be for super expensive text messaging packages, or dropping unlimited data plans for extremely low capped data services for the SAME exact prices. Meanwhile Sprint/Tmobile fight over the scraps and tend to cater to a lesser tech savvy crowd, as they don't lock in many huge exclusives that people care about (such as the iPhone, etc.)...and even they play the games. Look at Sprint, seeing as they got the iPhone coming to them, they suddenly decide to up their early termination to over 300$...yet the government says nothing about it? And here I thought they cared! At MOST, these early terminations should be based on the subsidized price of whatever phone you bought on a pro-rated scale. They're not. Bought a subsidized phone 1.9 years ago?! 300$. Oh, bought it yesterday...300$. Yea, that's fair. These are telco games, and always have been. Ever since they smashed up Ma-Bell into the baby bells...the government pretended to give a f*** about the people they've been price gouging for decades all the while allowing them to reconstruct the f***ing bell. A pictorial of the government breaking up MaBell only to allow it to slowly reconstruct. In the end, they broke it up into many competitors, only to allow them to reconstruct it into the big 2. Edited September 2, 2011 by Y2HH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chw42 Posted September 3, 2011 Share Posted September 3, 2011 Damn it...now I can't get out of my T-Mobile contract so easily... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted September 3, 2011 Author Share Posted September 3, 2011 I have had T-Mo for five years and honestly they have been the best cell company I have dealt with since CellularOne in the late 80s. But that was when you had to schedule an install for your "car phone". T-Mo has called me twice to lower my rates without lengthening my contract. That builds loyalty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Sprint has now joined in this lawsuit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts