AT&T Withdraws FCC Application to Buy T-Mobile; Will Focus on U.S. Anti-Trust Suit

[dgstorm]

It looks like the AT&T and T-Mobile merger is now likely dead. AT&T has officially withdrawn its application to the FCC to acquire the company. Instead they plan on focusing their money and efforts to defend themselves against the anti-trust lawsuit that the United States Department of Justice has brought against them. Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski, called for an FCC hearing on the merger, and the following was included in his statement of the issue, “...the deal would significantly diminish competition and lead to massive job losses.”

Another reason cited for the pullout was that, since the merger was looking bad for them anyway, AT&T knew they would have to pay out a $4 Billion "breakup fee" to Deutsche Telekom (owners of T-Mobile USA) for the failure, and they wanted to reserve cash for that. Here is the full press release,

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom Continue to Pursue Sale of DT’s U.S. Wireless Assets

Companies Withdraw FCC Applications; AT&T Expects to Recognize $4 Billion Charge; Companies Focus on Gaining DOJ Approval

On Nov. 22, 2011, the Federal Communications Commission indicated a proposed order was circulating that would designate for hearing the applications of AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG For Consent To Assign or Transfer Control of Licenses and Authorizations, WT Docket No. 11-65. On November 23, 2011, AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG electronically withdrew without prejudice, as of that date, the pending applications listed in the Public Notice released by the Federal Communications Commission on April 28, 2011 in that proceeding. Associated manual notification of withdrawal filings also are being mad

AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG are continuing to pursue the sale of Deutsche Telekom’s U.S. wireless assets to AT&T and are taking this step to facilitate the consideration of all options at the FCC and to focus their continuing efforts on obtaining antitrust clearance for the transaction from the Department of Justice either through the litigation pending before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Case No. 1:11-cv-01560 (ESH) or alternate means. As soon as practical, AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG intend to seek the necessary FCC approval.

As a result of the FCC’s action, AT&T expects to recognize a pretax accounting charge of $4 billion ($3 billion cash and $1 billion book value of spectrum) in the 4th quarter of 2011 to reflect the potential break up fees due Deutsche Telekom in the event the transaction does not receive regulatory approval.”

Source: Android.net and TalkAndroid: (1), (2)

 

[ilikemoneygreen]

shocker.:happy3:

 

[npro1464]

Occupiers-1, AT&T-0

 

[eagle1967]

this is all over the net. and its been said several times that the reason they pulled it was they were getting ready to show their findings that would have proved that att's claims it being a job creator and better for the customers was not anywhere near a reality. so they pulled it so those findings weren't revealed to the judge in the case.
this isnt them giving up its strategic. what to watch is does this 4 million reappear after this is approved or did that money just disappear prior to the deciding factors all getting revaluations as to what a great deal this really was and they were just mistaken.

 

[zomnomnombie]

I am pleased.

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[RETG]

Occupiers-1, AT&T-0

I agree? Exactly what they want. T-mobile will close as per Deutsche Telekom's statement from a year ago, and all those NON-union workers will be laid off and the big evil T-mobile will be gone.

It will be interesting to see which of the three remaining large evil companies will soak up the customers.

 

[tjk629]

I agree? Exactly what they want. T-mobile will close as per Deutsche Telekom's statement from a year ago, and all those NON-union workers will be laid off and the big evil T-mobile will be gone.

It will be interesting to see which of the three remaining large evil companies will soak up the customers.

MetroPCS will gobble them all up!

 

[ilikemoneygreen]

I agree? Exactly what they want. T-mobile will close as per Deutsche Telekom's statement from a year ago, and all those NON-union workers will be laid off and the big evil T-mobile will be gone.

It will be interesting to see which of the three remaining large evil companies will soak up the customers.

i see your sarcasm. Tmobile is one of the largest U.S. Carriers. That is highly desirable.... If At&T does not get to merge with them then the next day they arent going to completly shutdown. lol. Its not dramatic like you said. At worst DK does close down Tmobile but out of that all the spectrum and hardware i guarentee it will be passed around to many of the smaller carriers and even at&t will get some. That in itself would be a lot better for competetion then 2 of the 4 largest carriers merging. And im sorry if im misreading the sarcastic tone but Tmobile isnt the big evil people dislike...I would think the big evil would be AT&T since they would be eating tmobile... Just my IMO.

 

[zomnomnombie]

I agree? Exactly what they want. T-mobile will close as per Deutsche Telekom's statement from a year ago, and all those NON-union workers will be laid off and the big evil T-mobile will be gone.

It will be interesting to see which of the three remaining large evil companies will soak up the customers.

Your statement would be poignant except that AT&T has agreed to sell off 40% of T-Mobile's assets. Which translates into lost jobs. And if AT&T doesn't get this deal they'll offer to sell more of T-Mobile. So yeah AT&T really cares about saving jobs.

I'd like to see T-Mobile merge/sell spectrum to Sprint or Comcast or something that isn't Verizon or AT&T.


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[RETG]

Your statement would be poignant except that AT&T has agreed to sell off 40% of T-Mobile's assets. Which translates into lost jobs. And if AT&T doesn't get this deal they'll offer to sell more of T-Mobile. So yeah AT&T really cares about saving jobs.
I'd like to see T-Mobile merge/sell spectrum to Sprint or Comcast or something that isn't Verizon or AT&T.


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I never said AT&T cares about jobs...they don't, they care about the bottom line just like most corporations.

Let's do some basic math. Forty percent lost jobs with AT&T vs. 100 percent of lost jobs when T-Mobile closes their doors. I wonder what the larger actual number of people losing their jobs would be? Sometimes a merger might actually save jobs if one of the companies is actually going to shut down its US operations. Doesn't happen much, but it can happen.

Besides, I was being sarcastic in the non-union job comment. If you don't remember, a few weeks ago, a bunch of occupiers, let by Union jerks, marched on T-mobile because they are non-union. “Occupy” Protesters And Communication Workers To March On New York T-Mobile Store

The occupiers have won nothing in this fight with the possible breakup of this so-called merger. This was probably a failed idea before there was even one occupier on wall street. However, I would not say it was 'denied' as in the graphic, and I would not say it is over with. I do believe AT&T will come back and try something different. Possibly, they will wait until T-mobile announces it is shutting down and then move into the purchase.

As for Sprint merging with T-Mohope? I would hope Sprint has learned their lesson on purchasing or even merging with a company using a different system (remember Nextel?). Besides, has Sprint made any profits lately? Do they have any cash to do a purchase? I don't think so, but since I own no Sprint stock and have no intention of owning any, I have not looked at their spreadsheets.

One way or the other, a heck of a lot of people will lose their T-mobile jobs. The secret is to prevent ALL of the jobs to be lost and if that means a merger with AT&T or another large company, so be it. (I might add here that I am no lover of AT&T, been there, done that, and it was a terrible experience.) If the economy was strong, many of those people losing jobs when T-mobile closes would be absorbed by other telecoms, but in this day-and-age of a very crappy economy, I don't see many being picked up.

 

[SFGate]

Glad to hear this plan is scrapped for the near future.

 

[eagle1967]

tmobile has continued to upgrade while this merger was being worked on. not sure where this they wil close their doors comes from thats not ever been discussed that i have seen.

Google come buy tmobile

 

[ilikemoneygreen]

I never said AT&T cares about jobs...they don't, they care about the bottom line just like most corporations.

Let's do some basic math. Forty percent lost jobs with AT&T vs. 100 percent of lost jobs when T-Mobile closes their doors. I wonder what the larger actual number of people losing their jobs would be? Sometimes a merger might actually save jobs if one of the companies is actually going to shut down its US operations. Doesn't happen much, but it can happen.

Besides, I was being sarcastic in the non-union job comment. If you don't remember, a few weeks ago, a bunch of occupiers, let by Union jerks, marched on T-mobile because they are non-union. “Occupy” Protesters And Communication Workers To March On New York T-Mobile Store

The occupiers have won nothing in this fight with the possible breakup of this so-called merger. This was probably a failed idea before there was even one occupier on wall street. However, I would not say it was 'denied' as in the graphic, and I would not say it is over with. I do believe AT&T will come back and try something different. Possibly, they will wait until T-mobile announces it is shutting down and then move into the purchase.

As for Sprint merging with T-Mohope? I would hope Sprint has learned their lesson on purchasing or even merging with a company using a different system (remember Nextel?). Besides, has Sprint made any profits lately? Do they have any cash to do a purchase? I don't think so, but since I own no Sprint stock and have no intention of owning any, I have not looked at their spreadsheets.

One way or the other, a heck of a lot of people will lose their T-mobile jobs. The secret is to prevent ALL of the jobs to be lost and if that means a merger with AT&T or another large company, so be it. (I might add here that I am no lover of AT&T, been there, done that, and it was a terrible experience.) If the economy was strong, many of those people losing jobs when T-mobile closes would be absorbed by other telecoms, but in this day-and-age of a very crappy economy, I don't see many being picked up.

Lol, it will NEVER get to the point where tmobile just shuts down and everyone loses its jobs. Stop the drama. Like i said At&t is not the only peeps in town and at worst it sells off chunks of its networks to various carriers which would definetly include the people working that chunk. Itl be a merger. Why? Because that way DK would get money out of it. if nothing sales and they shut down then the hypothetical people in this wouldn't get no money from it. Logic.

 

[jpiarull]

I am glad this did not go through because all this would've spelled for the USA cellular communications market was MONOPOLY. AT&T + T-Mobile = increased prices, stiffer competition from Verizon and Sprint, not to mention driving smaller companies like US Cellular, MetroPCS, Boost, among other carriers out due to higher costs. How bad would have the merger been for customers, particularly those having Verizon and Sprint? Simply put, there are too many unknowns with this proposed merger, plus how much of a headache would it have been in terms of tower upgrades and infrastructure organization? T-Mobile didn't plan on going to LTE until 2013 at the earliest, focusing on HSDPA, while AT&T was in between the two technologies. Would this have made Sprint and Verizon merge to offset the upper-hand to AT&T who knows. Anyone remember how AT&T was forced to divest in markets from home land-line phone services in the 1980s, we all know how well that was for the average consumer. Bottom line, this is better for the little guys, you and me, higher prices is not something you and I should ever want.:icon_ lala: