merger

Even as the federal government continues to weigh AT&T's proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile, the deal continues to win support at the state level.

Yesterday, the Louisiana Public Service Commission approved the deal by a 4-to-1 vote. In addition to expressing confidence that the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice will review the merger thoroughly, the Louisiana commission said that "the proposed acquisition has received overriding support locally, as is evidence by the diverse number of groups and officials who are in support."

On May 20, Louisiana regulators said they were opening … Read more

AT&T filed additional information to the Federal Communications Commission late yesterday to support its claims that wireless pricing will fall and service quality will rise if regulators approve its $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile USA.

AT&T has said since the deal was announced in March that it would benefit consumers with lower prices and improved service quality. Last week, the FCC asked the company to provide new economic models that use additional data points as part of the agency's evaluation of the deal. The FCC and the Department of Justice are reviewing the merger. Each … Read more

The NYC takeover of BOL continues, as the hardware heads from the Digital City talk about Day One problems with Apple's new Lion OSX update, the death of Google Labs, and who's getting hacked next.

AT&T reported a slight decline in second-quarter profit today, although revenue ticked up amid the continued strength of iPhone and other smartphone sales.

The Dallas-based telecommunications giant posted a profit of $3.6 billion, or 60 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $4 billion, or 67 cents a share. The year-ago results were helped by the sale of stock in Telmex Internacional. Excluding the Telmex asset sale, the year-over-year comparison would have been flat.

Revenue rose 2.2 percent year over year to $31.5 billion.

Analysts, on average, expected earnings of 59 cents a … Read more

The head of the Senate's committee on antitrust wants regulators to put a kibosh on AT&T's proposed $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA.

Today, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), who heads up the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, asked regulators in a letter to block the proposed merger, stating that the merger would be "highly dangerous to competition and consumers."

Separately today, Democratic leaders in the House also wrote their own letter to regulators asking for more scrutiny of the deal.

Kohl and the House Democrats addressed their letters to the U.S. Department of … Read more

Though AT&T continues to win widespread support from state governors for its $39 billion T-Mobile bid, at least one group from outside the wireless industry thankfully is returning to sanity. This week, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) withdrew its support for the merger after strongly offering it six weeks ago.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Acting President Mike Thompson said that while AT&T has a "strong record of support" for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, support for the merger "was not sufficiently consistent" with GLAAD's … Read more

In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission late last month, Sprint said it had received subpoenas and civil investigation demands from nine states as they conduct antitrust reviews of AT&T's proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile.

According to the June 28 letter (PDF), Sprint said attorneys general in Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington have asked it to deliver "full, unredacted copies of all materials" that it has submitted to the FCC including its Petition to Deny, reply comments, "and all accompanying declarations." The carrier also said … Read more

A new FCC report has found that the wireless phone market is growing more concentrated, but it did not leave any clues as to how the agency might rule on an AT&T/T-Mobile merger.

It's the second year in a row that the Federal Communications Commission has said the industry is "concentrated." But it did not say whether it finds the industry to be competitive. Last year the FCC reversed years of findings that the market was considered to be competitive.

The annual report released yesterday contained data gleaned from the wireless industry from 2009 … Read more

T-Mobile USA has finally responded to opponents of its proposed merger with AT&T.

Since the $39 billion merger was announced in March, AT&T has taken the lead in explaining the benefits of the merger, which has sparked opposition from competitors as well as consumer advocates and some states. But today it was T-Mobile that added its voice to the debate.

"The opponents of the AT&T, T-Mobile merger have had their final say as part of the FCC's formal leading cycle," Tom Sugrue, senior vice president of government affairs for T-Mobile, said … Read more