Hasta La Gadget!

AT&T has many strategies for trying to convince the US government to let it buy T-Mobile, but the one it emphasized was this — it would attempt to make remaining carriers Verizon, Sprint and even a handful of rural entities look like “intense competition.” Well, it seems that tack hasn’t quite had the impact that the board of directors was hoping for, because it just delivered a gigantic new document to the FCC, which portrays itself as the victim of its own success. AT&T says it had to deliver 8,000 times percent more mobile data in 2010 than it did three years prior — over 10 petabytes per month these days — and foresees that it will deliver that same amount of data “in just the first five to seven weeks of 2015.”

Meanwhile, T-Mobile is the knight in shining magenta armor to save AT&T from those “severe capacity constraints,” but since AT&T can’t let regulators think that T-Mobile’s departure from the arena will result in less competition, Ma Bell simultaneously bashes its prospective conquest for having a “diminished market role” in the telecom industry and “no clear path to deploy LTE” — even as it says that acquiring T-Mobile would result in the means to spread speedy Long Term Evolution across 97.3 percent of the general population. In case you’re keeping track, that’s up from the 95 percent the company last prognosticated. The seeming contradictions here are certainly amusing, but we have to admit the promised giant LTE network tempts us quite a bit. But is it worth building a GSM monopoly to do it? Envision the repercussions for yourself — both good and ill — by studying the following links.

Update: Fixed a few math errors — AT&T processed over 10 petabytes per month (not year) in 2010, and that was 8,000 percent (not times) the amount of mobile data it carried in 2007. For comparison’s sake, the entirety of YouTube was said to have streamed 31 petabytes per month in 2008, and Hulu did 17 petabytes per month over the same time period, according to a Cisco study.

Continue reading AT&T tells FCC just how important T-Mobile is, in 381-page redacted document

AT&T tells FCC just how important T-Mobile is, in 381-page redacted document originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, so maybe you’ll care, but you’ll still opt for the two-year option once your contract is up. That’s according — more or less, anyway — to a Verizon Wireless spokesperson, confirming to our inquiry this afternoon that the carrier’s one-year contract option will be eliminated on April 17th. The reason, as you might expect, revolves around historical customer preference. That’s a fancy way of saying that most customers prefer the stout hardware discounts that are available with a lengthier two-year agreement, and barring that, they can still choose month-to-month, prepaid or a rival. Not that VZW would encourage the latter, but hey — America’s about options, man.

Verizon Wireless killing one-year contracts on April 17th, assumes you won’t even care originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s always one. Back in the winter of 2009, Senator Kerry made public his request for Fox and Time Warner to keep the Bowl Games online, and one Chuck Schumer took to writing an open letter to Steve Jobs regarding the iPhone reception woes that eventually led to a dedicated press event (mostly) disputing the matter. Now, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is urging the FCC and DOJ to “take a close look at the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger,” noting that the outcome would undoubtedly have a huge impact on consumer choice, price and service in the wireless industry.

Of course, it’s not like these two wouldn’t be doing just that in the coming months, but it’s good to see a fire starting early in Congress to make sure due diligence is done. Having a carrier that provides service to 42 percent of all US wireless subscribers has the potential to seriously shift the economics of things, and potentially more interesting are the implications of a rejection. In fact, many are suggesting that AT&T will likely have to sell off major assets and promise expansion to rural / poor areas in order to gain approval, which ties in nicely to Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead’s own comments regarding concessions. We’re also hearing that regulators could take as long as 18 months to fully investigate, and you can bet we’ll be following the play-by-play as it all unfolds.

Senator asks DOJ and FCC to do their jobs, provide friction for AT&T / T-Mobile tie-up originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This afternoon, AT&T and T-Mobile dedicated a twenty-eight page PDF to convincing regulators that their $39 billion aquisition wouldn’t violate antitrust law, using images like the one above. Well, as you can imagine, Sprint had something to say about that, and you can read it immediately below.

The combination of AT&T and T-Mobile USA, if approved by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC), would alter dramatically the structure of the communications industry. AT&T and Verizon are already by far the largest wireless providers. A combined AT&T and T-Mobile would be almost three times the size of Sprint, the third largest wireless competitor. If approved, the merger would result in a wireless industry dominated overwhelmingly by two vertically-integrated companies that control almost 80% of the US wireless post-paid market, as well as the availability and price of key inputs such as backhaul and access needed by other wireless companies to compete. The DOJ and the FCC must decide if this transaction is in the best interest of consumers and the US economy overall, and determine if innovation and robust competition would be impacted adversely and by this dramatic change in the structure of the industry.

Last week, rumors flew that Sprint, not AT&T, would be the one to join T-Mobile and create a vast wireless network, and while we haven’t heard any proof of that so far, it probably wouldn’t be terribly happy to settle for “number 1 spectrum position” if the tables were indeed turned.

Sprint critiques proposed AT&T / T-Mobile deal, says buyout would ‘dramatically alter’ telecom industry originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Mar 2011 23:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wowzers! AT&T and Deutsche Telekom have entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in cash and stocks. The combined customer base of this upcoming behemoth will be 130 million humans, though the agreed deal will have to pass the usual regulatory and closing hurdles before becoming complete. The two companies estimate it’ll take them 12 months to get through all the bureaucracy — if they get through, the proposed network merger will create a de facto GSM monopoly within the United States — but we don’t have to wait that long to start discussing life with only three major US carriers. AT&T envisions it as a rosy garden of “straightforward synergies” thanks to a set of “complementary network technologies, spectrum positions and operations.”

One of the other big benefits AT&T is claiming here is a significantly expanded LTE footprint — 95 percent of Americans, or 294 million pops — which works out to 46.5 million more than AT&T was claiming had it gone LTE alone. Of course, T-Mobile has never put forth a clear strategy for migrating to LTE, suggesting that AT&T plans on using the company’s AWS spectrum to complement its own 700MHz licenses as it moves to 4G. You might be groaning at the thought of yet another LTE band, but it’s not as bad as you might think: MetroPCS already has a live LTE network functioning on AWS, so there’s precedent for it. For further details, hit up the gallery below, the Mobilize Everything site, or the official press release after the break.

In the event of the deal failing to receive regulatory approval, AT&T will be on the hook for $3 billion to T-Mobile — a breakup fee, they call it — along with transferring over some AWS spectrum it doesn’t need for its LTE rollout, and granting T-Mo a roaming agreement at a value agreeable to both parties.

Update: TmoNews obtained a copy of Deutsche Telekom’s press release regarding the deal — it looks like the German company will be getting $25 billion in cash and $14 billion in stock, giving it an 8 percent stake in AT&T when all is said and done. Read the full document after the break.

Continue reading AT&T agrees to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion (update)

AT&T agrees to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Mar 2011 14:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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