AT&T Officially Call it Quits on Bid To Buy T-Mobile

[Guest]

A Christmas Miracle for American consumers.

AT&T Officially Call it Quits on Bid To Buy T-Mobile : Read more

 

[pedro_mann]

The FCC did the right thing. Verizon and AT&T hove nothing close to T-mobile's price points. In fact after being a long time customer of Verizon, I moved to T-mobile simply because their price is more competitive. I am tired of the big 2 with their plans structured to move you up the price ranks. For example, you can't use the friends and family unless you have a 1200 minute family plan. Once, you start using the friends and family and have your non-verizon people added in, my usage dropped to about 300 minutes a month for 2 phone. No way are they going to let me drop to a smaller, less expensive plan because that feature doesn't exist on anything less. Also data. The milk it. 'Nuff said.

I am glad that my phone carrier didn't get boggled up and then the next time I get a new phone, being forced into a new contract price. I am glad the FCC didn't fall for their bull****

 

[zankuto]

Finally some good news with AT&T in the headline.

 

[Kami3k]

FCC did it's job, fucking amazing!

 

[chumly]

I bet you this news made T-Mobile stock go up.

 

[eddieroolz]

Consumers win big today!

 

[AznCracker]

Lol why does AT&T owe T-Mobile $4 billion ?

 

[dealcorn]

Make no mistake, the only reason this deal fell through is the presence of a free press. Instead of funding T-Mobile, AT&T would prefer to invest the $4 billion in some president's re-election campaign if that would get the deal done. Only the presence of a free press prevents the worst abuses of crony capitalism and big government.

 

[rosstradamus]

azncracker - Tmobile owes Deustch Telekom, T-Mobile's parent company the 4 Bil; it's a pay or play stipulation in the contract they signed when they agreed to take TM off DT's hands. The idea is to make it painful to pull out of a deal - Even though 4 Bil is cheaper than the 39 Bil AT&T would have paid for the final purchase, it's still going to hurt, and they won't have t-mobile's customers to (potentially) make up for the expense. So it's a double lulz.

 

[rosstradamus]

Derp, I meant AT&T owes DT, not T-mobile. but the rest I meant.

 

[mkrijt]

There is more than just the 3 billion:
[citation]AT&T, based in Dallas, also agreed to hand over airwaves in 110 markets and negotiate a roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom so T-Mobile can offer services in more areas, if the transaction fell apart. Deutsche Telekom values that entire breakup package, including the $3 billion cash amount, at as much as $7 billion, Philipp Kornstaedt, a spokesman for the German company, said this month.[/citation]
via Bloomberg

 

[AndrewMD]

Did the consumer really win? T-Mobile has very deceptive business practices which includes not allowing consumers to leave their finished contracts without going through a series of questions which will eventually tie you to another contract if your not careful in your answers, also trying to sell you additional services when your phone call to them has nothing to do with services...

 

[g00fysmiley]

more choices = better for the consumer.

I still wish verizon had never alloud to buy alltel as well but at least we'll have a big 4

 

[wildkitten]

I'm not exactly sure why people are celebrating and talking about it as if T-Mobile is going to remain a viable player.

Deutsche Telekom has already reportedly stopped investing in T-Mobile. Odds are they very well may just close it down. I mean there was a reason they wanted to get rid of it. All this does is really delay things. T-Mobile customers will still have to make a decision on which carrier to go to instead of just automatically being AT&T customers.

Competition is a good thing, but when it seems the hand writing is on the wall it seems sort of pointless. I mean the government can not force anyone to stay in business.

 

[dark_lord69]

And the T-Mobile customers rejoiced!
Maybe AT&T should just spend the money to increase thier bandwidth capability or start using/push for better data compression.

 

[dark_lord69]

"It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world"
If the competition is so "fierce" why are the prices so high?

 

[Dyseman]

Hmmm, but was damage done. Radio Shack and a few other outlets (That I liked because they bypassed the Rebate crap) quit carrying T-Mobile line because of the "up in the air sale". I'm a T-Mobile user and have been for a while and happy for this news.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]Dyseman[/nom]Hmmm, but was damage done. Radio Shack and a few other outlets (That I liked because they bypassed the Rebate crap) quit carrying T-Mobile line because of the "up in the air sale". I'm a T-Mobile user and have been for a while and happy for this news.[/citation]
I am in no way trying to troll you, this is a very serious question. Why are you, and other T-Mobile customers happy with this news? I can understand not wanting to go to AT&T, I don't like them either, but Deutsche Telekom apparently isn't interested in really doing anything with T-Mobile. Is it that you're happy T-Mobile just may go out of business in a few months and you won't be tied to any company and then are free to choose where to go rather than be tied to AT&T? Or is it some belief that T-Mobile will all of a sudden try to become competitive with Verizon and AT&T and if that's the case, what makes you think that?

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]"It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world"If the competition is so "fierce" why are the prices so high?[/citation]
Compared to what they used to be, they aren't. I mean it seems people have forgotten $1000 dollar phones that took 12 hours to charge and got 30 minutes of talk time. Not to mention about an hours worth of talk time a month, no such thing as free nights and weekends and if you went about 10 miles outside of your city it seemed as if you went roaming and paid like 3x as much per minute.

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

Hmm wonder where they are going to get that 4 Billion lol