As you are probably aware over in the US AT&T is making a bid to takeover T-Mobile and merge the two mobile companies, but Sprint is against the merger and therefore Sprint has asked the FCC to deny the purchase as the merger would decrease competition and raise prices.
Sprint noted in a filing with the FCC, “AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile must be blocked,” according to an article over on Bloomberg. However the Communications Workers of America support the deal and have informed the Federal Communications Commission that the deal could speed up high speed Internet service deployment and create up to 96,000 jobs.
Stifel Nicolas & Co analyst Christopher King commented in an interview, “I am not sure a No. 3 player painting a doom and gloom scenario is necessarily going to sway the Department of Justice and FCC.”
Sprint also stated in their filing that the merger of the two companies would “turn back the clock on competition and innovation,” as Verizon and AT&T would command 76% of all wireless subscribers.
While Craig Aaron, president of advocacy group Free Press commented that the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile would “destroy tens of thousands of jobs,” and went on to say, “Eliminating a significant competitor from the wireless market obviously harms competition. Moreover, the two companies do not need to merge to achieve the capacity or build-out gains they claim.”
And thus the big debate on whether AT&T should be allowed to acquire T-Mobile rolls on and on with not clear outcome on the horizon, but what do our US readers think about the deal should the merger go ahead or should it be blocked as Sprint wants?