In a conference call that just finished, the FCC has announced it will grant AT&T’s request to withdraw its application to acquire T-Mobile. The FCC also announced that it will release its findings today discussing what it uncovered during the course of their review. Some portions of the report will be redacted, however the full report will be sent to the Department of Justice to assist them in their lawsuit against AT&T.
Among the findings by the FCC were the decision that:
- Significant job losses would result
- AT&T would upgrade HSPA+ to LTE even in the absence of the merger
- Evidence doesn’t support AT&T’s claim they won’t go beyond 80% LTE coverage because of this merger, they will be forced to in order to compete with Verizon
- Cost savings are unlikely to get passed on to consumers and may reduce service quality
- AT&T overestimates the magnitude with which the two networks would be efficient
- AT&T’s model claiming the merger would result in lower prices is flawed in several ways
Many thanks to PCMag editor @saschasegan for live Tweeting the call!
This story is developing…check back for more details after the report is released.