AT&T gives U.S. regulators a reason to block Softbank-Sprint deal

40. Droid_X_Doug (Posts: 5993; Member since: 22 Dec 2010)

More like sour grapes on the part of AT&T.... Softbank's purchase of Sprint doesn't consolidate the competitive landscape like AT&T's purchase of T-Mo would have. Sprint has basically re-capitalized. The source of funds is Japan, not China. The U.S. has a mutual defense treaty agreement with Japan.

As I said at the top of my post - it is sour grapes on AT&T's part.

42. bigdawg23 (Posts: 462; Member since: 25 May 2011)

Its called business. Any company that is in it for making their business successful will block a competitor when possible. AT&T is just returning the favor to Sprint.

9. lsutigers (Posts: 821; Member since: 08 Mar 2009)

They don't really need to right now. Once Nextel's 800mhz spectrum is refarmed for LTE and they go VoLTE Sprint will consolidate a lot of it's unused or inefficient spectrum and be able to sell some of it or use it for expansion. Also, with Clear deploying 20x20mhz carriers of TD-LTE, signal penetration will not be the issue it was with WiMAX and Clear's LTE will be the fastest in the US.

19. letgomyeggroll (Posts: 138; Member since: 13 Jun 2012)

Nextel is pretty much down. But you can wait all you want to, even until your contract is up. If they don't have the funds its not happening soon. They broke the bank from the purchase of Nextel all the way to the IPhone. And paying Clearwire for the data services, and which they could've have use that money build their own LTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regardless,, whatever spectrum they own. They have to make it work with their LTE phones. Otherwise they minus will go out of business. And as for the extra spectrum, they can also sale them.

10. iCandy (Posts: 46; Member since: 07 Dec 2011)

AT&T just received FCC approval on the purchase of a boatload of 2.3GHz spectrum. This fact combined with Verizon's recent acquisition of a motherlode of AWS will dampen any argument in opposition.

11. -box- (Posts: 3991; Member since: 04 Jan 2012)

So (if it were possible) if apple wanted to purchase google, or Microsoft wanted to purchase either, or Toyota wanted to purchase Fiat/Chrysler, or BP wanted to purchase Shell, etc, it's automatically OK if the boards of each say so? You know what a monopoly is, right?

12. Rydsmith (unregistered)

Don't be too harsh on the young lad, they don't offer Economics 101 in most high schools (where I assume his education ended).

27. vvelez5 (Posts: 623; Member since: 29 Jan 2011)

"Young lad" I've been on this website for a while now. Way before the fanboy bashing came around. Also with the point of economics my friend if you'd understand the only way that monopolies can exist is through government coercion then you would not be saying what you are now. Question for you since it's obvious that you haven't taken any econ courses outside of what was a general requirement in your college liberal arts education. What does a monopoly mean to you and when does it happen?

16. Hammerfest (Posts: 384; Member since: 12 May 2012)

"You know what a monopoly is, right?"

The question is, do you know what a monopoly is?

Because last time I checked, the once broken up AT&T for being a Monopoly, is infact, 2x as bad compared to before the breakup...

Quite a few infographs about the before-after-longtimeafter of the AT&T Monopoly...

20. -box- (Posts: 3991; Member since: 04 Jan 2012)

Yep, which was my point. The same was threatened to Microsoft in the late 90s/early 2000s

25. vvelez5 (Posts: 623; Member since: 29 Jan 2011)

I would hope I know what a monopoly is, seeing as my major is in economics. And yes if those companies would like to sell then yes they should be able to. As an Austrian economics supporter I believe that the free market would actually prevent monopolies. Unlike governments which make monopolies.

37. ckingt4 (Posts: 26; Member since: 15 May 2012)

he who hath the most money wins. company a: extremely profitable, Company b: bleeds money and customers for 6 years. How do they compete selling the same products and services? They all started on an even playing field and sprint/tmobile lost, VZW and ATT won. I'm a VZW guy used to work for them, reguardless I don't want to see a limited US resource be controlled by a foreign company. I dont believe cheaper is always better and the wireless market obviously agrees. Getting back to my point, the free market created the duopoly. Now they have the most money which allows them to cover the most people which equals the most consumers.

13. rb68 (Posts: 27; Member since: 23 Apr 2010)

Then you just validated AT&T's stance. Using that same argument, they should have been allowed to merge with T-mobile.

26. vvelez5 (Posts: 623; Member since: 29 Jan 2011)

Yes, they should have been able to purchase T-mobile. It's amazing to see the number of new faces on this website that weren't around when the government who intervened on the AT&T, T-mobile merger. Seriously how new are you people.

28. dmckay12 (Posts: 243; Member since: 25 Feb 2012)

I agree with AT&T's position, but for a different reason. I don't think that foreign entities should control our communications or media. This policy was law under the Communications Act of 1934 until 1997, when concessions were made by the FCC, now many communications and media companies are owned by foreign companies/people (especially Japanese companies/people). The reason behind the policy is in case of war, where we are enemies with the owners, they could cripple our ability to communicate. The FCC can regulate it, but has only cracked down once.

29. vvelez5 (Posts: 623; Member since: 29 Jan 2011)

I understand your point. Myself I am for a global economy and if another entity, whether it be foreign or domestic, can make another business more profitable and efficient than I am for it.

32. johnbftl (Posts: 281; Member since: 09 Jun 2012)

Other way around buddy. Dan Hesse was butt hurt when AT&T pulled the rug out from under him and almost snagged T-Mobile. Hesse has had a hard on the size of Florida to destroy AT&T since he was ousted as CEO over a decade ago. He destroyed their wireless division to the point they sold it to SBC (AT&T currently is a rebrand of Cingular, which was acquired when AT&T Global purchased Cingular's parent company, SBC). If you look back at Dan Hesse's AT&T, it was analog TDMA. Instead of building a more advanced network like Verizon and Sprint were doing with CDMA and SBC was doing with GSM, Hesse stayed the course with analog TDMA. Sound familiar? Instead of advancing to the LTE game, let's use WiMAX which is slower on an average congested metropolitan network than EVDO-RevA (3G). Now they're getting into the LTE game late and are well near bankrupt, probably will be if this deal gets blocked by the DOJ.