Sprint: AT&T purchase of T-Mobile will severely harm industry

Andre Yoskowitz
17 Apr 2011 13:23

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has once again taken to openly opposing AT&T's proposed acquisition of rival carrier T-Mobile for $39 billion.
Said Hesse:

We just cannot let this happen. If the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger is allowed to go forward it can also push the wireless industry from competition to duopoly.

The duopoly would feature Verizon on the CDMA side and AT&T on the GSM side, leaving smaller carriers like Sprint with two monsters to compete with.
AT&T says their acquisition will help the company address growing capacity limitations.
The FCC and DOJ are currently looking into the merger, to see if it will violate any anti-trust laws. The acquisition is expected to close in 2012, if passed.
In response to Hesse, AT&T has pointed to comments the CEO made just months ago in which he called the carrier market "hyper competitive" capable of handling consolidation:

Given that Sprint is a major competitor to AT&T in the hyper competitive wireless market Mr. Hesse describes, no one should be surprised that they would oppose this merger. But 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.