How is AT&T’s blockbuster proposal to acquire T-Mobile USA being seen by the tech and wireless communities? A sampling of reactions to the huge deal follows, and few are positive when it comes to the impact of the deal on anyone except the companies involved.
– Jonathan Chaplin, Credit Suisse: “We have never seen a deal with more regulatory risk be attempted in the US. It is unlikely that AT&T (NYSE: T) would attempt a deal that they knew would fail; however, we can’t see how they would get this through without massive divestitures and concessions. It looks like AT&T is on the hook for a $3BN break-up fee if the deal fails – not huge (maybe a worthwhile price to pay just to break up the Sprint (NYSE: S) / T-Mobile deal).”
– Om Malik, GigaOm: “It is hard to find winners apart from AT&T and T-Mobile shareholders. … It doesn’t matter how you look at it, this is just bad for wireless innovation, which means bad news for consumers.” [GigaOm]
– Anil Dash, Activate, Expert Labs: “On the plus side, it’ll be fun to watch the government break up AT&T again in a few years. Keeps re-forming like the T1000 in Terminator 2.” [via Twitter]
– Scott Raymond, ZDNet: “I left AT&T last year because I was fed up with the terrible AT&T service, along with poor customer support. … With AT&T, I can expect the T-Mobile service to degrade, customer support to be switched over to one that doesn’t care, and billing options being changed and costs increased with little warning once the contract ends.” [ZDNet]
– Jim Cramer, *CNBC*: “I think that the Justice Department should never allow this TMobile-(AT&T) deal through. But they may not care…” [via Twitter]
– Charles Golvin, Forrester Research: “The good news: high-speed mobile broadband service will improve in quality and coverage, including – in the long run – those in rural communities outside the reach of terrestrial broadband today. The bad news: the cost of that service won’t come down nearly as fast as customers would like, since AT&T and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) combined would own nearly three out of every four wireless subscriptions in the US.”
Forget the Iphone. Damn, I don’t care for the Iphone. For us T-mobile users, we did not choose T-mobile because of the possibility of an Iphone, we chose T-mobile because it was a better alternative to crappy At&t. Forget this man. My contract runs up in Nov. Sprint, here I come.
i just switched to t mobile from at&t because their service sucks. now i gotta put up with them again???