FCC neutral on AT&T, T-Mobile merger

ZDnet.

In its 15th Annual Mobile Wireless Competition report, regulators state that there's little doubt that the wireless phone market has become more concentrated in recent years.

However, the commission, pointing to the pending $39 billion AT&T and T-Mobile merger, states that mergers don't necessarily reduce competition.

The FCC and the justice department are vetting the deal in a review AT&T executives claim will take about a year. The merger would combine the second and fourth-largest carriers to create a new telco giant, ahead of the US' biggest mobile provider Verizon Wireless, says Bloomberg.

According to Channel Partners Online, the FCC and justice department must approve the AT&T and T-Mobile merger, and they could either impose conditions on the transaction, or reject the deal outright.

AT&T and T-Mobile have asserted the merger is in the public interest, enabling AT&T to better handle escalating demands on its network and speed up the expansion of advanced 4G mobile services.

However, The Hill explains the within the past decade, the US has seen restructuring, convergence and concentration in the wireless market.

Many telcos in the US have merged, resulting in price cuts. In addition, mobile carriers have invested over $250 billion in mobile broadband technology over the past three years. US consumers have consumed nearly three-times more mobile data last year than in 2009, and are demanding faster speeds from carriers to keep up.