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AT&T Agrees to Buy T-Mobile

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it's business..who cares who buys who

as long as there is an iphone in my hand thats really all i care about

T-Mobile was the only carrier who consistently upset the apple cart on pricing. They drove down or at least kept pricing industry-wide static. Without them the wireless cartel of AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint will continue to restrain allowable use while increasing price without any actual competition.

AT&T as a corporation hates the consumer. Verizon is really the same way, they just hide it better (sorry to all the VZW fanbois out there, but it's the truth). Sprint, that company has been the walking dead for at least the last 5 years waiting for someone, anyone to just buy them or shoot them to put them out of their misery.

If the FCC approves the AT&T - Tmo merger, there's no ground for them to deny the eventual VZW - Sprint merger which then leaves us with a national duopoly run by two consumer hating mega-corporations.
 
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i understand and agree but do we have any control over these buy outs??

Yes, it's called your government. If they do the right thing, they should be enforcing anti-trust laws created to protect the consumer and the market place. However, given that corporations for the most part own the US government at this point, that rarely happens.
 
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This is terrible news. I hate AT&T, and avoid working with them whenever possible. As a result, my personal cell phones, all of which are on T-Mobile (my work iPhone is, obviously, on AT&T) will be assimilated.
 
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I'm thinking a lot of the T-Mobile people may hop boat to Sprint if the prices jump.

From what I here, T-Mobile and Sprint were talking about a merge a couple weeks ago.
 
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I'm thinking a lot of the T-Mobile people may hop boat to Sprint if the prices jump.

From what I here, T-Mobile and Sprint were talking about a merge a couple weeks ago.

You mean until Sprint is bought up by Verizon?
 
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Yeah, this blows. My unlimited T-mobile plan is 30 bucks less than a comparable plan on ATT and Verizon. I sure hope the feds kill this merger. I'd like T-Mobile and Sprint to stick around.
 

chscag

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I wouldn't bet on the US government enforcing anti-trust laws by killing the buy out. AT&T has plenty of lobbyists in DC plus it can potentially be a good thing for the unions. (AT&T is unionized, and this can get them more members.) And guess which party the unions support?

And with the economy the way it is here in the US, the buy out will be looked upon as a boost rather than a negative.
 
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Yeah, this blows. My unlimited T-mobile plan is 30 bucks less than a comparable plan on ATT and Verizon. I sure hope the feds kill this merger. I'd like T-Mobile and Sprint to stick around.

Consider that there has to be a reason why DT is willing to sell T-Mo in the first place. Perhaps that great pricing plan that keeps customers with them isn't going to enable them to survive and the need became apparent to raise prices. Perhaps it was just easier to get out from under the money losing rock and move on. They aren't likely to be selling it because it's a booming and profitable business.
 
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Consider that there has to be a reason why DT is willing to sell T-Mo in the first place. Perhaps that great pricing plan that keeps customers with them isn't going to enable them to survive and the need became apparent to raise prices. Perhaps it was just easier to get out from under the money losing rock and move on. They aren't likely to be selling it because it's a booming and profitable business.

DT's main reason for wanting to sell Tmo USA is because they're not doing so well back at home and have mountains of debt they need to pay down. Tmo USA is actually fairly profitable for them but they just don't have the money to invest in expand it here like they should.

And since DT needs the money from the sale, Tmo USA was really their only option to sell to get them the kind of cash they need.
 
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Whatever the reason it stinks for consumers. I remember when AirTran Airways stopped servicing Charleston, SC where I live. They were the last low cost carrier and airfares almost doubled overnight. Fortunately Southwest decided to add Charleston recently and that has driven airfares back down. If this goes through the big loser is the customer. Prices will go up if the low cost alternatives are swallowed up by the big boys AT&T and Verizon.
 
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DT's main reason for wanting to sell Tmo USA is because they're not doing so well back at home and have mountains of debt they need to pay down. Tmo USA is actually fairly profitable for them but they just don't have the money to invest in expand it here like they should.

And since DT needs the money from the sale, Tmo USA was really their only option to sell to get them the kind of cash they need.

Ok, makes sense. It wasn't the US division that was going south it was the parent company. I guess money is money and when you need some you need some. to bad they had to sell their something they were doing right.
 
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Ok, makes sense. It wasn't the US division that was going south it was the parent company. I guess money is money and when you need some you need some. to bad they had to sell their something they were doing right.

Yeah, you can see part of the issue when DT says they'll use $19 billion just to pay down debt after the sale.

While T-Mobile USA is currently profitable for them, the issue longer-term is that they didn't have the money to invest in buying spectrum for a 4G rollout because DT has way too much debt at home. This would have turned what was profitable into a mess in a few years. Selling is the only viable option for them.
 
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While T-Mobile USA is currently profitable for them, the issue longer-term is that they didn't have the money to invest in buying spectrum for a 4G rollout because DT has way too much debt at home. This would have turned what was profitable into a mess in a few years. Selling is the only viable option for them.

So in the end they did see the fact that the profitability was likely to go away which would likely have meant passing costs on to the consumer etc. My original statement wasn't that far off then it just wasn't "right now".
 
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So in the end they did see the fact that the profitability was likely to go away which would likely have meant passing costs on to the consumer etc. My original statement wasn't that far off then it just wasn't "right now".

Well we're just making an assumption they didn't have a plan. All that we know for certain is that DT itself needed the cash to pay down it's huge debt-load.

I mean it wasn't that long ago people thought TMo didn't have a 3G strategy and now they have the fastest 3G network. So we can't really be sure what their 4G strat would have been.
 

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