Earlier this month, we saw AT&T and T-Mobile head to Washington D.C. and defend its proposed merger in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Today the two carriers made their way back to D.C. to once again, this time to speak with of the House Judiciary Committee. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson explained that acquiring T-Mobile would help extend broadband coverage into rural areas and would also help it to meet growing consumer demand for cellular service. The topic of jobs also came up, with Rep. John Conyers of Michigan pointing out that Stephenson has really touched on the issue much in the past. The AT&T exec said that while, yes, there will be some duplicate jobs that will be cut post-merger, the deal "should be a job creator."
Not everyone at the hearing was opposed to the deal, though, as Rep. Ben Quayle of Arizona said that prices haven't increased as the market consolidated and that if prices do go up, it could give new companies an incentive to enter the market.
Obviously there's still a lot of anti-acquisition sentiment floating around, despite the fact that AT&T and T-Mobile are doing all that they can to convince us that it's a good idea. One of the biggest concerns is that if the deal is approved, AT&T and Verizon would control around 80 percent of the wireless market and could very well lead to Sprint being snapped up at some point in the future, too. AT&T contends that it'll still face healthy competition from smaller carriers if the deal is approved, but not everyone is buying that claim. What do you all make of the latest arguments for and against AT&T-Mobile?
