Om Malik breaks down the $39 billion (with a b) deal that will take about twelve months to pass regulatory examination and actual sale:
The biggest losers of this deal are going to be the consumers. While AT&T and T-Mobile are going to try to spin it as a good deal to combine wireless spectrum assets, the fact is, T-Mobile USA is now out of the market.
T-Mobile USA has been fairly aggressive in offering cheaper voice and data plans as it has tried to compete with its larger brethren. The competition has kept the prices in the market low enough. This has worked well for U.S. consumers. With the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, the market is now reduced to three national players: AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Net-net, U.S. consumers are going to lose.
Find out who else Om thinks is a loser in In AT&T & T-Mobile Merger, Everybody Loses. (Spoiler alert: it’s everybody!)