I really hope the government kills this deal. I have been a AT&T customer wireless, Land Line, DSL, Wireless, U-verse TV/Internet and I don't trust or respect AT&T. In my opinion they are sleazy, sloppy and selfishly short term thinkers. But I think all companies dominated by Finance people, marketing people and Lawyers have similar poor mindsets. I prefer companies that concentrate on making the best product that they can. AT&T is allegedly sitting on a lot of unused spectrum. I had better cell coverage with Cingular before AT&T acquired them. I still don't understand why coverge got worse when AT&Ts and Cingular's combined towers should have improved coverage. I do understand why coverage got worse when the Iphone came out. Too many bits trying to use too few towers. I can forgive AT&T for not knowing how popular the Iphone would be and not anticipating the magnitude of the increase in cellular data. I don't forgive AT&T for not making a great effort to put up more towers quickly. I know that NIMBYism from towns and neighbors is an obstacle to new towers but I see no sign that AT&T is even engaging in a major effort to put up more towers. I think Wireless phone users wanting better service can out vote the anti-tower people in local elections so I don't think the NIMBYs are the real obstacle to new towers. I think the nickel and diming overpaid MBAs in the wireless companies corporate headquarters are the obstacle to more towers. I got better cell coverage in rural India than I get in some wealthy densely populated parts of the USA. This locked handset game in the USA also is stupid annoying and anticompetitive. AT&T and T-Mobile are the only GSM carriers in the USA. If you unlock their phones you can use them with sim cards from around the world particularly if you buy a quad band phone. Unless you have money to burn you don't want to use international roaming. Verizon and Sprint non-GSM phones are not very usable outside the USA. I would not really want to travel with a phone I can't use just phone it's phone contacts. For me AT&T merged with T-Mobile is a monopoly. I wondered why Sprint opposed the merger. I thought getting rid of T-Mobile would benefit Sprint by making Sprint the main company for price conscious wireless users. Then I found out that Sprint's issue is that Sprint and T-Mobile are in a constant regulatory fight against AT&T and Verizon for affordable "wireline backhaul" (T1 wired lines from their towers) provided by the phone companies (AT&T and Verizon). Sprint needs T-Mobile's help bribing politicians to offset AT&T and Verizon's bribes of politicians. (bribes and campaign contributions are effectively the same thing so I call them bribes.) Sprint position http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-15048764/Sprint-Fears-Getting-Priced-Out.html I applaud the Obama justice department for resisting the merger but I am nervous that this may be a public relations smoke screen. If AT&T and Verizon have outbribed their corporate opponents the Obama administration could make a case designed to fail thereby deflecting consumer anger away from Obama and the Democrats and onto the Republican judges without jeopardizing Democratic access to future bribes from AT&T and Verizon. I notice the major media seems to be siding with AT&T. Major media have antitrust vulnerabilities of their own and are not paying market rate for their broadcast spectrum and are receiving a lot money from AT&T's massive advertising campaign. AT&T clearly thinks it has a major but winnable fight on it's hand and thinks that public opinion matters. AT&T is spending vast sums of money trying to win public support for this merger. Verizon has made only minor invasions of AT&T territory with FIOS. I don't think AT&T has made a single invasion of Verizon territory with U-Verse. Real fiberoptic competition might bring down cable prices but probably not. I think their is collusion on pricing between Verizon, AT&T, the Cable monopolies, and the Satellite TV companies. I would expect collusion and secret non-competition agreements between AT&T and Verizon in the future particularly if they can get rid of T-Mobile and Sprint. They can get rid of T-Mobile by buying it and then try to get rid of Sprint by jacking up it's "wireline backhaul" rates. Sprint could try to transition to microwave wireless backhaul or find competitors to AT&T and Verizon willing to extend cables to Sprint's towers but both of these transitions would br expensive and could be slowed if AT&T and Verizon financially backed NIMBY opposition to Microwave backhaul and to the digging up of streets by non-utility communictions backbone companies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backhaul_(telecommunications) I don't know why we Americans tolerate rigged anti-competitive markets in a number of economic sectors. At minimum AT&T should be forced to sell it's unused spectrum to companies promising to build a GSM network if this merger is to be allowed to go through. We don't want to create an artificial shortage of spectrum to enable wireless carriers to exploit wireless users.
The other corporate sector said to be trying to stop this deal is the phone makers. On the GSM side AT&T will tell them they can't sell in the USA unless they give most of the profit to AT&T. Nokia tried to hold the line with the American Wireless providers with the result that Nokia has been largely pushed out of the USA. What the wireless carriers are doing with subsidized handsets and locked in contracts comes close to being a practice that I would want antitrust enforcement to regulate against. I would keep local landline phone companies and long distance phone companies and wireless carriers separate if I was in charge of the FCC or in charge of antitrust enforcement.
I currently live in a monopoly area...if I want DSL, I get to pay verizon...more than other people do in non-monopoly areas... If I want cell service that I don't have to stand in the middle of my street to use, I have to use ATT. Used to be Cingular, we were bought out. The network should allow reciprocal access, as it is there are already monopoly areas. Edited to add...my wife explained this would require more cost or standardized protocol...standardizing by law being the cheaper of the two options...
