Don't worry....this is just political posturing for the Obama Administration to claim that they "stood up" to corporate consolidation.

They'll roll over and allow the merger to happen soon enough.

I guess the bribe wasn't big enough.

These companies all offer pricing plans that are nearly identical; what competition are we talking about here?

The competition that keeps those pricing plans nearly identical.

FUCK AT&T. Half the reason I'm a T-mo customer is that I DONT WANT TO BE AN ATT CUSTOMER.

@4, that was very nicely done indeed.

Anybody keeping a list of things that wouldn't have happened with a Republican in the White House? You know, just to review when Obama lets people down.

@3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly

Ya'll remember that leaked memo, right? http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/201…

See, the thing is though, T-Mobile is a failing business, in part because it chases the discount markets. Deutsche Telekom wants to be rid of it and was shopping for buyers a year ago. So someone's got to buy them. If Gigantic Telecom A can't buy them, then it will just be Giant Telecom V or S that buys them, raising all the same anti-trust questions. Or China Mobile could step in for some reason. If no one buys them, then it's just a matter of time before they fold. They don't have the spectrum, revenue or customer base to jump to LTE so in effect they are stunted at the current paradigm. Or do people want some sort of taxpayer-funded bailout to prop up T-Mobile?

@7 I thought that we were living Bush's 3rd term. I mean nothing's changed except we got Bob Dole's Health Care Reform from 1996.

Anybody remember the "Baby Bells"? Four of the original seven now comprise AT&T: Ameritech, BellSouth, Pacific Telesis, and Southwestern Bell.

Antitrust judgments are, at best, tar strips on the superhighway to consolidation.

@12, exactly, and 2 of the remaining 3 (plus GTE) are now Verizon.

If the justice department really wanted to help they'd reverse about 90% of the bank mergers that have occured over the past 30 years....I miss SeaFirst when it was still SeaFirst.

@10 One thing you're overlooking is the types of mobile phone networks, of which there are two: CDMA and GSM. (This doesn't take into accounf 4G technologies like LTE)

Sprint and Verizon are CDMA, and AT&T and T-Mobile are GSM. At this point, phones on one network can't work on the other- which is why up until Apple released an iPhone specifically for Verizon, you could only unlock your iPhone for use on T-Mobile from AT&T. GSM is also the type for which you can use SIM cards to transfer your information (hence why Sprint phones don't have SIM cards), and the GSM network is more widely used around the world- so world travelers tend to migrate to carriers that use GSM.

Should AT&T buy T-Mobile, the carriers that offer GSM in the United States are reduced to one, and that's where the anti-trust suit comes into play... it's also why you should be happy the justice department is fighting this thing tooth and nail.

@7 We'll see. I've been trained by this administration to expect either the sell-out or the preemptive "negotiation" starting at right of center, end somewhere to the right of that--then indignant bewilderment by the Admin and its apologists when they are held to account by their base constituency.

Can someone explain to me why this particular merger is being blocked while airlines, banks and oil companies have been merging without a peep from the feds for decades?

@17, I think Cato @1 has it nailed.

I hate AT&T and I think they are evil, but you also have to be realistic. DT has decided that they want out of the North American market. If AT&T doesn't acquire T-Mobile _someone_ will. Even though AT&T is pure evil it's probably the best "fit" for T-Mobile since they are both GSM operators (though AT&T didn't fit their network with GSM until 2002 where VoiceStream/T-Mobile was GSM since 1996.) Whether it's another mobile operator like Sprint or whether it's a business group that buys it or whether it's Comcast or Google. The point is that DT wants out and someone's going to end up owning T-Mobile USA.

As if AT&T was ever going to allow more unionization...

@12: While technically there are three with AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink (fdba Qwest) CL is more or less irrelevant since they don't have a native wireless unit. AT&T (fdba Bell South, SBC, Pacific Telesis) and Verizon (fdba Airtouch, Bell Atlantic, NYNEX etc. plus GTE.) so there really is an oligopoly with AT&T and Verizon.