(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
The big business news that hit the “airways” yesterday was the announcement that AT&T’s plan to gobble up T-Mobile for a mere $39 billion which would create the largest wireless carrier in the US and leave just three major cellular companies in the country: AT&T, Verizon and the much smaller Sprint Nextel. Hold on, was I dreaming, or did we taxpayers spent a fortune of are hard earned tax dollars to break-up AT&T? Are those ten years of litigation and the consequent pain in the royal tuchas for consumers that it created a mere practical joke?
The deal still must pass muster with the from both the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. as has been pointed out in the NYT:
Unlike the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, which consolidated a transmission company and a content provider, the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile deal is a “horizontal merger” that would combine two companies that had been direct competitors.
As part of their assessment, antitrust lawyers must determine whether the deal might undermine efforts to encourage broadband service competition between wireless and landline providers. AT&T and Verizon both control a major segment of the landline market, so by allowing them to dominate wireless services as well, the merger could effectively hurt competition for broadband delivery options.
All in all, the consumer is the one who bears the brunt of these mega-mergers with increased rates and diminished service. Remember AT&T’s penchant for hidden charges?
How about jobs? What happens to all those T-Mobile employees? The newly merged company would save $3 billion a year with the expected closing of hundreds of retail outlets in areas where they overlap, as well as the elimination of overlapping back office, technical and call center staff.
Everything old is new again.
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Thanks to RiaD for the video.
Your fallen chess pieces are history.
Read it in a book.
Yeah, my usual optimisim is flagging.
….along an onslaught of “hidden fees” in nearly every transaction involving mega-corps, means most Americans are getting poorer, death by a thousand fees.
Which pales in comparison to the bullying done by multi-nationals who have engineered the entire western world to a path of certain destruction.
They keep sending me stuff trying to get me to switch over from Verizon, which I dislike, even though they already rejected me because of my credit history. Some alternative to Verizon.
But yeah, AT&T is a trust and needs to be smashed into a thousand pieces via anti-trust lawsuits.
price of doing business. We have T-Mobil we needed a cell phone service as we gotta hustle and be hooked up or else we can’t keep those corporate jobs a coming as they need the feed day and night.Except when it dries up, except when all we get off the damn thing that is ring tones from hell and people who think Delilah still has this number and where the hell is she. We need a cell without it were just unhooked and floating with the two times cheaters and losers. Another impossible to argue with or else your a Luddite. Give me a break all this social and non social tech media sucks it sucks because it’s only purpose is to screw you.
So now I need to spend hours trying in vain to find a cell phone carrier that isn’t a dick? My gym is a dick and I haven’t found anything that will replace it. The world is now just a dick your choice better than or worse. Holy Moley I’ve turned into that which I used to scoff at that which I used to denounce. I still do I won’t accept this bs even if I have to have a cell to survive. So Mom Cat what’s a good alternative?
I got notice a few days ago from ATT that as of May 1 my bandwidth will have a cap of 150GB/mo., after which it’s $10/50GB overage. So I’ve have been involuntarily moved to tiered service. 150GB/mo. may seem like a lot, but I suspect with all the streaming radio I do that I probably run about that – and I share my connection with a neighbor struggling for work. I’m willing to wager an ounce of silver that this cap will be lowered once ATT gets a usage average, and it’ll be reduced to be sure to maximize overage charges. No idea if I will get a notice that I’m approaching the cap, but I seriously doubt it since that would impact their future revenue.
Cable isn’t an option, it’s Comcast. Gotta love monopolies.
Using software to monitor bandwidth usage on my PC, but no luck finding anything that will monitor from the router, where I really need it (the neighbor is on a wireless connection), there are some aps that will, but not compatible with my router and I can’t afford a new router right now.
Evil, evil, evil. This crap should be illegal, but even if it was who would enforce it? Holder? Hahahahaha!