States Begin Approval of AT&T/T-Mobile Merger

Digital Liberty ^ | 2011-07-27 | [Staff]

[92nina]

"...We urge the PSC to avoid placing conditions and burdensome regulations on the merged company. Merger conditions – extraneous or otherwise – would be extremely detrimental to the innovative tendencies of the wireless industry. Such conditions would be levied against a single company, picking winners and losers in the market, creating an un-level playing field, and disrupting the merger’s prospects on a national scale.

"Today’s wireless market is highly competitive, and it will remain that way following the merger. Over the past decade, there have been five major telecom mergers. Yet, wireless prices have been cut in half during that time. Even as consumers trend toward using more wireless data – an 89 percent increase in the past year – data prices have declined by 46 percent. Nationally, almost 90 percent of Americans can choose between five or more providers, even following the past decade’s mergers."

...

Update: A group of 11 state attorneys general announced their support for the merger yesterday as well. Notably, one signatory on the letter to the DOJ and FCC was the Attorney General of West Virginia, one of three states currently reviewing the merger.

[92nina]

"The Louisiana Public Service Commission today voted 4-1 to approve the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, following Arizona’s approval earlier this month. Both state commissions signed off largely without proposing regulatory requirements...."

Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at at Digg and at Reddit and in Stumbleupon and Delicious

[MamaDearest]

AT&T to start throttling its 'unlimited' mobile customers?

Even though AT&T has yet to walk down the aisle with T-Mobile, the bigger company might already be taking some lessons from its bride-to-be. A new report claims that AT&T will soon begin using T-Mobile's definition of "unlimited" data access and start throttling back data speeds once customers reach a certain threshold.

From 9to5mac.com, which reports that the change could start in October:

[Monorprise]

I for one am against the merger, AT&T is already too big controlling an outright majority of the market.

Like apple they should be broken up, not allowed to consolidated ever more market power by gobbling up more competitors.