
Leaked AT&T Letter Demolishes Case For T-Mobile Merger - rosser
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Leaked-ATT-Letter-Demolishes-Case-For-TMobile-Merger-115652
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cookiecaper
The proposition of this merger is one of the most blatantly negative outcomes
for the public I've heard in some time. Anyone with even an inkling of sense
regarding this industry understands that it would be very dangerous and
troublesome for consumers if T-Mo were absorbed into AT&T -- not only would it
pare down the oligopoly that is mobile telco and allow further price gouging
(which is already quite excessive; cf. 20¢/text), but AT&T would have acquired
the entire GSM market in the US, leaving current T-Mo customers with no choice
but to use AT&T or get a new phone and foreign visitors with no choice but to
roam on AT&T.

> _(somewhere there's a paralegal looking for work today)_

I like to think that somewhere there's a paralegal holding his head high for
the "accidental" damage he inflicted to this potential merger. Good for you,
man.

~~~
NoPiece
I think that is overstating the negative. You basically are going to get
significant coverage improvements for TMO and ATT customers, and the cost will
be potential price increases due to decreased competition. As an ATT customer,
I really want the Tmo bandwidth. I'll take the risk.

~~~
fpgeek
I think you missed the point of the leaked letter. It claims that AT&T could
have gotten the relevant coverage improvements for roughly 1/10 the price of
the merger ($3.8 billion vs $38 billion). Why is AT&T willing to pay the extra
$34+ billion? Taking out a key competitor seems like the obvious motive.

~~~
ericd
I wonder why they haven't gone ahead and made coverage improvements, then.
Perhaps they've calculated that increased user satisfaction won't net them
$3.8 billion more in profit.

~~~
gvb
The coverage improvements would take years to build out their existing
infrastructure with new base stations (erect new towers or lease space on
existing towers, purchase and install equipment). By buying TMO, they would
get an instantaneous coverage increase and instantaneous capability increase.

There has to be a substantial cost of opportunity if it takes them (e.g.) 5
years to build the infrastructure themselves. There also is the risk that ATT
_could not_ achieve the full coverage because it has gotten increasingly
difficult to get zoning permissions to build unsightly cell towers.

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kwantam

        > By buying TMO, they would get an instantaneous 
        > coverage increase and instantaneous capability 
        > increase.
    

Not really. Most of the coverage AT&T is lacking and proposed to build out to
expand from 8x% to 9x% coverage is in rural areas where T-Mobile's network is
even weaker than AT&T's. In other words, there are very few places where
T-Mobile has coverage and AT&T doesn't already; most of the new coverage
they'd get in this deal is redundant.

~~~
fpgeek
Beyond that, we're primarily talking about LTE coverage. That would require
significant additional investment even if you added T-Mobile's
(GSM/UMTS/HSPA+) infrastructure to the mix.

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rauljara
There is already too little competition in carriers (and telecoms in general).
Even completely ignoring the document, I can't imagine who thought public good
would have been served by allowing such a merger.

~~~
cowkingdeluxe
Doesn't matter to the politicans. They don't work for the American public,
they work for the corporations who give them money and high paying jobs later
in life.

~~~
danilocampos
The state of regulatory capture in this country makes corrupt Latin American
dictatorships look like bastions of ethics and accountability by comparison.

edit: Downvote away. At least in Latin America, everyone accepted the
corruption was going on. Here we pretend the revolving door between policy
enforcement and well-paid private sector jobs in the enforced-upon industries
is _totally fine_ and not at all subject to conflicts of interest.

Fuck, man, one of the people who approved the NBC/Comcast acquisition later
took a very cushy job with... Well, I'll leave it to you to guess. Spoiler:
she didn't join a consumer advocacy nonprofit.

~~~
Spyro7
I didn't down-vote you (I think that its lame to ninja down-vote - it defeats
the purpose of conversation), but I think that your initial comment was just a
bit hyperbolic.

I disagree with your edit too though. Who here in the US is pretending that
there is no revolving door? I don't think that anyone is ignoring the problem.
I just think that most ordinary people are completely ignorant of the problem.

Big media has very little interest in reporting on the extent of the problem
(for obvious reasons), and most people don't read the kind of news sites that
discuss the issue openly. For most ordinary people, the issue isn't ignored so
much as it is out of site, out of mind.

The problem is that ordinary people make up the majority of the population. It
is a real problem, even when the revolving door is a huge issue[1] it is hard
to keep the interest of the general public. The general public is kind of like
my cat; intent on stalking something for a few seconds then off scampering
around after the latest amusements.

[1] <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html>

~~~
danilocampos
> I don't think that anyone is ignoring the problem. I just think that most
> ordinary people are completely ignorant of the problem.

This is fair – but I've honestly heard apologia for the issue by people who
believe this is acceptable. "Only insiders understand the issues at play!"
goes the cry.

The ignorance is ever more damning, I suppose. Which is more ripe for
corruption – apathy or ignorance? Apathy strikes me as the much more mutable
of the two. If people know _nothing_ about the potential for corruption, it
spreads unchecked.

Whether the American people are too lazy or too ignorant, the result is the
same. An enormous power can be hijacked by anyone with a big enough bank
account.

~~~
Spyro7
Thinking about the issue some more - maybe I was wrong to disagree with your
edited initial comment. I really do think that the American public is both
apathetic and ignorant, and the majority of the country's current problems
derive from these failings.

They are apathetic, but they are not apathetic towards any specific issue. No,
they are apathetic to anything that would seem to distract them from the
normal course of their daily schedule. I do not think that it would be
difficult for "ordinary" people to take a few minutes and become informed
about what is going on. If I know, you know, and (probably) most of the people
on Hacker News know - well, it can't be impossible to find out.

I think that, well, most people content themselves that party affiliation and
straight-ticket voting are all that is necessary to ensure a functioning
democracy. It just seems strange to me, that in a country where so many people
pride themselves on being patriotic, there is so little intellectual curiosity
with regards to how it functions.

The tyranny of the majority is usually used to refer to the potential for the
opinion of the many to disenfranchise the rights of the few. I wonder if there
is something more insidious than this though. What could be the side effects
of the self-selected nonchalance of the many?

I was once told that to talk about a problem without providing a solution is
not a good way to advance in society, but, really, I'm completely at a loss.
How do you get the majority of people to be interested in something that does
not provide immediate economic benefits (without resorting to indoctrination)?

~~~
danilocampos
> I was once told that to talk about a problem without providing a solution is
> not a good way to advance in society, but, really, I'm completely at a loss.

I raise my glass to you, as we've arrived to the same place. I don't know,
either. The old trope goes that we get the government we deserve. And here it
sits. It makes me so angry and frustrated because it's one problem I can
identify regularly in my world that I am powerless to address. The issues are
too large, too systemic, and too self-perpetuating. Another trope: to enslave
a man, convince him he is free. Fearing a powerful government, ours was too
feeble to prevent the rise of corporate power with influence on all,
accountable to none.

I fear something must break first. I'm sadly reminded of _Brave New World_ –
everyone doped up on whatever meager pleasures they've been convinced matter.
Until people lose their cable TV, their Doritos, their strip mall shopping
centers, they can get fucked but still convince themselves of their
prosperity. And perhaps they have it, relative to history, and relative to the
rest of the world. But at what cost? How many choices are no longer theirs?
How much information can they no longer trust? How much of their potential is
capped because of opportunities denied to them by corporate interest?

~~~
dave_sullivan
I agree with both of you but feel compelled to weigh in:

1\. Although you recognize political problems, you're not about to become a
politician to fix them: The best way to solve a lot of these problems might be
from the inside. But, politics has got to be the worst field to go into. An
offhand comment can end your career. Best case scenario, a lot of people will
hate you for making decisions. A right decision for some will be an absolute
wrong decision for others, and vice versa. And let's say you try to go your
career supporting the underdog... the underdog often doesn't have any money
and you need money to campaign... and you might say, "you shouldn't need a lot
of money to campaign", but let me ask you this: if it's not money you need to
campaign, then what should it be?

2\. Has there ever been a time when those in power don't get extra privileges
for supporting causes that benefit their [monetary] benefactors? I think it's
important to at least acknowledge that never before in history has there
existed a time when political favors of some sort are not divvied out in
exchange for monetary favors. It just seems to me that for every law that
people create to stop this, the money finds a way around it. But, if you're
going to design a better system, what would that even look like? I'd say,
you're better off designing around this concept than working against it.

3\. Most people don't care, they never have, and they never will: Seriously,
not to be too extreme, but I really think there's truth in this and it's baked
into the human race and the practice of democracy. For an extreme example (and
to include the nazis) I remember thinking about Germany in the 30s: Why didn't
people get out when they had a chance? Pick up and leave when they saw doom
sweeping the nation. And the answer, I think, is because that was where home
was and it happened gradually enough. For people to leave everything, to admit
to themselves that "They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it
anymore!" it takes a certain personality that most people simply don't
possess. It takes, I think, the same personality that says things are bad when
things are actually good. Put it this way: if we lived in a total utopia,
you'd still be pointing out problems (as would I). Most people wouldn't, nor
would they really know they're living in a utopia. They'd just be getting on
with their day and hoping nothing truly catastrophic happens to them or
theirs.

So, for these reasons, I think things will continue about as they have, with
the caveat that the internet has made things a bit more transparent and I
think more people _in general_ are becoming aware enough of the issues around
to write about it and affect change in some small way. Still, that won't
change things all that much.

~~~
tonio09
> The best way to solve a lot of these problems might be from the inside.

Once you're an insider, you're the beneficiary of the system, so why would you
change it?

~~~
dave_sullivan
Exactly!

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object404
Additional related articles where a lot of this was sourced (3 of them sourced
from each other):

\---------

Unredacted AT&T Filing Shows $3.8B Price Tag

By Maisie Ramsay Thursday, August 11, 2011

[http://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2011/08/unredacted-ATT-
fili...](http://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2011/08/unredacted-ATT-filing-shows-
high-price-tag/)

\---------

AT&T Letter Damages Case For T-Mobile Acquisition

Rue Liu, Aug 12th 2011

[http://www.slashgear.com/att-letter-damages-case-for-t-
mobil...](http://www.slashgear.com/att-letter-damages-case-for-t-mobile-
acquisition-12171486/)

\---------

AT&T’s “Ooops” Damages Their Biggest Argument In Favor Of T-Mobile Takeover

By David, Managing Editor August 12, 2011 4:10 pm EST

[http://www.tmonews.com/2011/08/atts-ooops-damages-their-
bigg...](http://www.tmonews.com/2011/08/atts-ooops-damages-their-biggest-
argument-in-favor-of-t-mobile-takeover/)

~~~
cowkingdeluxe
Wasn't $3.8 billion around the amount the AT&T has to pay T-Mobile if the
merger fails to go through?

~~~
fpgeek
I think so, but I don't see how the two amounts would logically be related, so
I presume that is a coincidence.

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rokhayakebe
I just cannot wait for a startup to disrupt this space.

~~~
ahi
How? ATT and Verizon control the spectrum.

~~~
lsc
there have been several stabs at similar problems using unlicensed spectrum;
you pay people to use wimax or wifi wireless routers running software you
provide. Your software allows your other customers to connect to the internet
through those routers. From there it's easy enough to provide voip phone
service. If you control the software on the routers, it's easy enough to set
up authentication so only third parties that pay you can connect, and to rate-
limit those third parties to something reasonable.

But it's a difficult thing to carry off. Several companies, I believe, have
tried and all have failed. (I can't remember the names of any of those
companies right now; I don't know if that's 'cause I'm tired, or if that's
'cause I'm actually remembering a conversation about a business that someone
wanted to start that never happened, or if I'm just making this up wholecloth.
None the less, it seems like a direction from which you could attack the
market using unlicensed spectrum. You would have many obstacles, but it seems
possible, at least in high-density urban areas.)

~~~
robterrell
Cringely proposed that Wal-Mart install wimax routers in every store and
thereby essentially blanket the country in coverage. I don't know enough about
wimax or wimax phones like the HTC Evo to know if you could provision any
wimax router to make voice calls, but I do like the thought that someone in an
entirely different business could disrupt the ridiculous monopolistic profit
machine that is today's cellular market.

~~~
iamdave
Do you have a link to this? I'd like to read more.

~~~
robterrell
[http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2004/pulpit_20041125_0004...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2004/pulpit_20041125_000462.html)

~~~
iamdave
Thanks!

