AT&T Colorado president Bill Soards on Wednesday said he has no doubt that AT&T’s planned merger with T-Mobile USA will face opposition but hopes the merger will be approved by the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission by year’s end.
“I’m sure the antitrust questions will be raised, and we’ll be able to answer them,” Soards said during a meeting with The Denver Post editorial board.
The proposed $39 billion merger has run into opposition based on the argument that Verizon Wireless and AT&T would then dominate the market, with Sprint Nextel a distant third.
U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., said in Senate hearings that should the deal be approved, AT&T and Verizon will control close to 80 percent of the national cellphone market.
When the Department of Justice looks into antitrust questions, it examines them from a market-to-market perspective, Soards said. AT&T has noted that in many markets, there are wireless offerings from more than just the top four carriers.
Soards added that the proposed acquisition of T-Mobile was driven by the need to acquire wireless spectrum because of the fact that AT&T’s mobile-data traffic grew by 8,000 percent during the past four years.
Soards said the acquisition will expand 4G LTE coverage to more than 97 percent of the U.S. population and 95 percent in Colorado.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
