Senate probes "unfixable" AT&T/T-Mobile deal

[DainBramaged]

When a Senate antitrust committee hearing is called “The AT&T/T-Mobile Merger: Is Humpty Dumpty Being Put Back Together Again?”, you know that the back-and-forth will be contentious, and today's hearing certainly was.

"When I was a kid," said Senator Al Franken (D-MN), "every Sunday at exactly 9am in Minnesota, my grandmother would call from New York and talk to my father for precisely three minutes." It was the only time the two had to talk, but fortunately "the breakup of Ma Bell forever changed the cost of long-distance service." Now, Franken sees AT&T's $39 billion bid for T-Mobile as an attempt to put Ma Bell back together again.

I fear that if approved, the merger would take us one more step toward the monopoly market that we had under Ma Bell," said Franken, who warned that it was "going to raise prices for American families."

The Midwest senatorial contingent was hard on AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), who chaired the hearing, openly mocked AT&T's contention that T-Mobile was not a strong competitor. "My view is that this statement is incorrect," said Kohl to Stephenson. "Now, look, you two are competitors!"

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/4-competitors-are-better-than-3-senate-probes-attt-mobile-deal.ars

[truebrit71]

1. I hope this deal does NOT go through..If I wanted over-priced shitty service with internet caps...

...I would have signed up with AT&T in the first place...

As it is I am a longtime perfectly content T-Mobile user and want it to stay that way...