
AT&T To Acquire Leap Wireless (Cricket) For Around $1.2B - dshankar
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/12/att-to-acquire-leap-wireless-cricket-for-around-1-2b/
======
mdasen
I know that people don't like large carriers getting larger. However, this is
a pretty small deal. Leap has spectrum covering only 137M POPs and not in a
lot of the top markets. Verizon was recently approved to gain 20MHz nearly
nationwide. This is way less than half that spectrum - probably less than a
third of the spectrum Verizon was allowed to buy. Leap does come with 5M
customers, but Verizon will still be the largest so it's hard to see it
getting rejected on customer grounds.

I know that there's a lot of anti-deal sentiment in this thread, but this
isn't a significant deal that would undermine competition in the way that the
AT&T/T-Mobile deal would have merged together a lot of spectrum and customers
and given AT&T more power. In fact, this deal won't even bring AT&T up to the
level of customers and spectrum that authorities allowed Verizon to buy. _As
such, on what grounds should the FCC or DOJ disapprove of this merger?_

That's the key question and those grounds have to be consistently applied.
Sprint was just allowed to bring nearly 200MHz under its roof. This deal would
bring AT&T to around 100MHz. Verizon was allowed to buy Alltel with loads more
customers and spectrum and then buy more spectrum from SpectrumCo. The deal
would leave AT&T in second place in terms of number of customers and third
place in terms of spectrum.

If we really want competition in the wireless industry, I think we should
contact the FCC about making sure that sub-1GHz spectrum is spread out to more
companies. Sub-1GHz spectrum travels (in the real world) significantly farther
than higher frequency spectrum and that's essential for more suburban and
rural coverage. I think capping sub-1GHz spectrum at 45MHz (or 40MHz or 50MHz)
would be pretty reasonable and ensure that we have many companies with the
resources necessary to build out a good network. There's going to be an
auction in the future for 600MHz spectrum and I think that's the best place to
ensure competition - by making sure that AT&T and Verizon don't grab that
spectrum. AT&T and Verizon currently own most of the sub-1GHz spectrum and
it's allowed them to build out coverage faster and broader. In fact, Verizon's
early focus on sub-1GHz spectrum certainly enabled it to become the carrier it
is today (a lot of AT&T's holdings sub-1GHz are a lot newer).

------
t0
How long until they're declared a monopoly for the _2nd time_?

~~~
tomkinstinch
Seriously. How did this get past the USDOJ antitrust division?

(And for that matter, are large M&A events like this approved by the DOJ
beforehand, or are they investigated after the fact?)

~~~
untog
_Seriously. How did this get past the USDOJ antitrust division?_

It hasn't.

------
programminggeek
Whenever I read things like this, I remember charts like these:

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870447190457622...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471904576229250860034510.html)

[http://www.wikinvest.com/image/Att_history.jpg](http://www.wikinvest.com/image/Att_history.jpg)

So, progress...

~~~
brownbat
Instead of anti-trust laws* that are enforced some decades, not others, I'd
rather just see market share affect tax rates.

Maybe for every 1% of the market you control, we add another .1% to your rate?

Not really sure what the right equation is, and measuring market share would
be contentious...

The current system isn't without its problems though.

* UPDATE: Well, collusion would have to still be illegal, this doesn't really cover everything.

------
mrbill
For once, AT&T acquiring another company might actually result in improved
service for the customers.

I say this as a 2-time former Cricket customer (once with a phone, once with a
3G hotspot) in a major metropolitan area.

Wonder if they're going to merge Cricket and Aio...

------
benatkin
Good. I don't have to answer the question of why I don't use cricket. I don't
know why it came up so often but it did. Also I feel vindicated. They are the
Opera of no-contract cell service providers.

------
grandalf
Mobile phone prices per minute for non-unlimited plans have been going up ever
since the Sprint/Nextel merger and thanks to this will continue to do so.

------
hadem
I wish they'd spend a bit of that money on improving there coverage/service
around the country...

~~~
decryptthis_NSA
It's cheaper and better to buy off all but one competitor and then both jack
up prices and provide no customer service. AT&T i hell bent on getting back
together

