I’m pretty sure most have heard the ongoing debate about whether AT&T should be allowed to acquire T-Mobile and merge as one carrier, and whilst many are against the merger some are for it, but apparently the FCC chairman and staff are opposed to the deal as they believe it will hurt competition in the mobile space.
According to AllThingsD, the Department of Justice has already filed a suit to block the acquisition and apparently Julius Genachowski, the FCC chairman has circulated a draft opinion with a view to have a hear before an administrative law judge but it unlikely any hearing will be held until the Department of Justice suit has been decided a basically if the DOJ gains success then the FCC filing would be moot.
The FCC does hold some strong concerns over the proposed AT&T, T-Mobile merger though, finding that if it goes ahead it would hurt competition and deliver an unprecedented reduction in competition, and have also rejected claims by AT&T that the merger would speed up the roll out of 4G.
Furthermore, on the jobs side of things the FCC has concluded that the merger between the two carriers would in fact lead to fewer jobs in the United States.
AT&T obviously isn’t happy with the FCC findings and senior vice president of corporate communications, Larry Solomon says the action by the FCC is disappointing and is just another example of an agency preventing billions in new investment and the creation of thousands of Jobs and thus AT&T is reviewing their options.
No doubt the debate on whether AT&T and T-Mobile should merge will continue for some time to come, but we’d love to know if you are for or against the merger, so feel free to voice your opinions to our comments area below.
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