Sprint CEO blasts AT&T/T-Mobile mega-deal
Dan Hesse, Chief Executive Officer of Sprint Nextel, speaks during the CEO Roundtable at the International CTIA wireless industry conference at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida March 22, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Scott A. Miller
SAN FRANCISCO |
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp CEO Dan Hesse attacked rival AT&T Inc's planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA on Friday, saying a tie-up between the two would hurt innovation and set the country's wireless industry back.
The chief executive of the No. 3 U.S. mobile operator lashed out against the $39 billion deal, now undergoing regulatory scrutiny, echoing the comments of other Sprint executives.
"If AT&T is allowed to swallow T-Mobile, competition will be stifled, growth will be stifled and wireless innovation will be jeopardized," Hesse told reporters and industry executives in downtown San Francisco.
James Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive vice president, external and legislative affairs, pointed out that in recent months Sprint executives had said the wireless industry was very competitive.
"It is self-serving for them to argue that the highly competitive wireless market they cited only months ago is now threatened by the very type of transaction they seemed prepared to defend previously," Cicconi said in a statement.
AT&T's deal, announced in March, would concentrate 80 percent of U.S. wireless contract customers in just two companies -- AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc.
No. 2 U.S. mobile carrier AT&T, often criticized for dropped calls and slow connection speeds, has said the merger would spur innovation and economic growth by improving quality and expanding service to 95 percent of the U.S. population.
Deutsche Telekom AG owns T-Mobile.
(Reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Bernard Orr)
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AT&T lobbyists push for T-Mobile deal
March 28, 2011
For years, AT&T has been one of the biggest political and lobbying forces in town. Last year, it spent $15.3 million and had 93 lobbyists on its roster, including six former lawmakers. Germany’s Deutsche Telekom spent $3 million on lobbying for T-Mobile USA in 2010, armed with 41 lobbyists and one former lawmaker.
Many lawmakers have a personal interest in seeing AT&T do well. AT&T ranked as the sixth most popular investment among members of the House and Senate in 2009, the most recent year for which such data is available, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
And AT&T is considered a heavy hitter during campaign election cycles. In 2010, donors with links to the company made nearly $4 million in campaign contributions to candidates running for federal office.
If this ridiculous deal goes through, Sprint will be the only low-priced post-paid wireless carrier left in the United States. T-Mobile customers are already fleeing to Sprint because they know they won’t get low prices from AT&T or Verizon. But AT&T and Verizon are two of the top corporate lobbyists in the country, so I’m sure the Feds are happy to oblige anything they want to do to secure a stranglehold on the market at the expense of the consumer.
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