A lot has been happening since AT&T announced their acquisition of T-Mobile back in March. AT&T planned to acquire the 4th major carrier for $39 billion from T-Mo’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, as the deal was expected to close within 12 months. From day one, the acquisition has had its share of problems: T-Mobile subscribers leaving, Sprint fighting against it, and FCC making AT&T jump through hoops. Read on for the all of details.
For an acquisition of this size in the telecommunications business, the FCC and the Department of Justice needs to approve of it (which they filed an antitrust lawsuit to block it). With the two GSM carriers merging, that would only leave three major carriers for consumers to choose from. It has been rumored that AT&T wanted T-Mo’s spectrum to assist with their nationwide LTE rollout.
In the past week, the issue really got turned up. The FCC deemed the merger not within the public’s interest as it will cost thousands and requested a formal administrative hearing after the DOJ lawsuit is done and over with. With the hearing called, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom pulled their application (which was still pending approval) from the FCC. Since pulling the paperwork, FCC also made the merger documents public and AT&T was severely pissed. There are also rumors that AT&T will even go as far as doing a joint venture in case the acquisition is a bust.
And that is where we are currently. Quite the drama on the business side of things. Hard to tell how things might play out. Can’t quite call the deal a done with the merger just yet cause stranger things have happened.
